God Always Has A Plan…Meet Ryan Vance
Greenhouse Project is a place where all people are loved no matter what is in their background. We are all about transforming lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and loving our neighbors, no matter what the need or hardship our neighbors are experiencing. What we know for sure, is that people from all different kinds of backgrounds and walks of life come to Greenhouse Project.
Meet Ryan Vance
Ryan Vance, Greenhouse Project’s Assistant Pastor and Outreach Coordinator, is one of these people. Ryan is now full time missionary with Greenhouse Project, raising his financial support to further our work in Chester.
Ryan was born and raised in the Delaware County area, and he grew up in a non-Christian home that was full of drug use and abuse. He had never really heard the Gospel, other than basic stories of Jesus that most people in America have heard. His mom was addicted to drugs and his stepdad, who raised him and his siblings, was addicted to drugs as well as in and out of prison.
He and his younger brother and sister grew up seeing their parents use drugs and were physically, verbally, and emotionally abused by them. Ryan says, “Of course, living that type of life and seeing those things really left me angry and hurt and really confused about what's going on in my world, and I just turned that against everybody else and got high to try to numb these intense feelings”.
How Ryan Vance Came to Greenhouse Project
At 19 years old, Ryan was a heroin addict fresh out of jail, when he and I met. He had been in and out of juvenile detention centers, and at 18 he was in the Delaware County Jail. When he was released, he was living in Chester, addicted to drugs. He was ordered by his probation officer to go into CityTeam Ministries, which is where we met for the first time.
This was the very first time he heard the actual message of the Gospel and about Christianity. Ryan says, “It took root in my heart, and I fell in love with Jesus and wanted to know more about Christ and the Gospel and what that looked like”. He gained a lot of knowledge about the Bible and was reading it nonstop. He really liked the idea that Jesus was his Savior and could keep him sober, but he hadn't made Jesus the Lord of his life.
“He was really just helping me to be sober. In reality, as I look back, I thought I was following Jesus but I think I wanted Jesus to follow me instead”. Ryan ended up relapsing after being clean for two years, this time overdosing. He says that he would have died if it hadn’t been for Narcan and the Grace of God.
He then went to a detox, and finally, up to a year long Residential Discipleship program with Calvary Chapel in Maine, living there for one year. At this program, there was no NA or AA, just Bible and a work program. After 5 or 6 months there, he rededicated his life to Christ and really decided to make Him Lord over everything in his life!
His Time in Uganda
Ryan says, “Through various means, God opened up an opportunity for me to go to Africa upon graduating in 2018. I went there for one year to teach at a church plant, they had a school of ministry and I was asked to go and teach at the school for a year”.
During that time, he met his now wife, Sylvia. They met at the church he worked at while she was teaching at the children’s school there. Ryan and Sylvia ended up becoming friends, then dating, and they got married in 2019. They now have 3 daughters, a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a 17 month old. During that time, they served full time as missionaries in the village with Christ Mission Church, a NGO Nonprofit, where they worked in training local leaders in the elders of their church to best utilize their gifts for their own people, as well as doing a lot of theological training.
Ryan went to university while he was there, and got his Bachelors in Biblical Theological Studies and Christian Counseling as a minor from Liberty University.
Joining Greenhouse Project
When I brought up the possibility of joining the staff to Ryan, he was still serving in Uganda. He and his wife had been praying for a few years about transitioning full-time back to the United States and joining the Greenhouse team.
Ryan says, “the Lord spoke to my wife and I very clearly in regards to that and we’re in the process of fully doing that now. My wife is here, we’re in the middle of the green card process.”
Ryan is currently back in Uganda for the next month and a half to transition out of the senior pastor position so that the young Ugandan man they’ve been training can take over the position and run the ministry there.
Ryan says that he’ll still be connected there with the nonprofit that he’s working with, and he’ll be back in the United States in mid-February to reunite with his wife and 3 daughters, as well work more with us here at Greenhouse Project!
Ryan’s Role at Greenhouse Project
Ryan kind of wears many hats here, but he says that what he really finds a lot of joy in is using his gift in this for really applying Biblical principles to the root of addiction. “As someone who has been set free by the Gospel, I’ve never held to the disease model of addiction, and rather as a sin issue. The heart of the issue is the issue of the heart, and I really enjoy applying the life-giving Gospel to addiction and counseling the men through the discipleship program here and the recovery through our one-on-one counseling".
He says that he also loves teaching and preaching from time to time. He helps with our Food Outreach, and he also does a lot with coordinating volunteers for the outreach we do here at Greenhouse Project.
A Little Bit About Sylvia
Ryan was very excited to talk about his wife, Sylvia, who is part of the Buganda Tribe in Uganda. She went to university for Social Work and is a Social Worker by profession, however she is currently unable to work as they work towards getting her green card.
Sylvia will be in the States for the next year and a half as they wait for this process, so she’s spending her time homeschooling their 3 kids. Ryan says that she’s really gifted in working with children, and that she works a lot with Sunday School here at Greenhouse Project. Back at their church in Uganda, she was leading the Women’s Ministry.
Her heart is really in discipleship with women and children. Unfortunately, since her green card still hasn't come through, she is unable to go with him to Uganda as he works on transitioning the new pastor to take over his role there.
How His Journey Is Going
Ryan is currently in a Masters of Divinity program and their seminary Homiletics and Biblical Preaching. He is also currently in the Commissioned Addictions Biblical Counselor Training Program to be a Addictions Biblical Counselor, which is a fully scripture and solely a Bible approach to counseling. He can’t wait for he and his family to be able to officially be together in the States full time and see where the Lord leads them next!
Ryan and his family are full time missionaries raising their support at Greenhouse Project. Please use the links below to become a one time or monthly financial partner for Ryan and Silvia Vance and to watch his testimony recorded at our Monday night Christ Centered Meeting. Last but not least, please feel free to share this on social media or with your friends.
Happy 2025, we are always praying for our partners, if you have any special prayer request please let us know! Grace and peace in Christ!