Not many people start ministry at 13 and 15 years old. It all started when Juan’s family returned from the mission field in Puerto Rico. Juan spotted a cute pre-Christian Mombo at the Texas megachurch he attended. He asked her out immediately. For their first date, he picked her up at 4:30am for an early morning prayer meeting! They both did regular street evangelism, helped the poor, served children, led worship and small groups at the Youth Wave teen ministry with 100 students.

At 14, Mombo became the youngest student in the history of Christ for the Nations Bible College. While attending summer school she served on an outreach team ministering to people struggling with sexuality and prostitution. From nightclubs to motels, she prayed with people who needed Jesus to fill a God-sized hole in their hearts. Before Juan graduated from Christ for the Nations, he had one of the first Christian punk rock bands in the world and also worked as a teacher and mentor at a gang intervention program…

Mombo desperately dreamed of joining Youth With A Mission as a teenager. She studied theology and counseling at a Baptist university in Florida. While there, she cared for babies born addicted to drugs while also working as a youth pastor of a faith church on the weekends. By age 21 Juan was a youth pastor at a reformed church in New York and convinced Mombo to move and marry him in 1992. They flipped a coin “casting lots” to decide if they wanted to minister in Florida or California. California won! Juan and Mombo became youth pastors together at an Assemblies of God church. They led yearly camps and missions trips, usually with YWAM because her dream to work with YWAM stayed alive! To make ends meet while youth pastoring, she worked as the director of development for a Crisis Pregnancy Center at age 22 while Juan taught Bible and Philosophy at a Christian High School. More youth pastor tent-making jobs were working part-time in the Silicon Valley tech industry where they both learned office and management skills. Juan also pioneered a Skateboard Festival as an evangelistic outreach.

After having two baby girls they pioneered a non-profit called Creative Action Ministries which held student rallies around California and the world training young people in creative evangelism using YWAM performance ministry art and alternative rock music for outreach. The Internet had just begun and Mombo, always wanting to be cutting edge, was busy learning HTML website design in 1997 for ministry.

In 1998, Juan and Mombo moved to New Jersey to develop a thriving student ministry with a 1950s gas station-themed cafe, skatepark, and outdoor concert venue called U-Turn. Both of their sons were born here to make a fun family of six! Each summer they took large groups on missions internationally in Africa and Central America, usually with YWAM. Still in their 20’s, the 9/11 tragedy struck, and God called them to leave youth ministry after 10 years and move to the inner-city to be urban missionaries in the New York City area in response to the attacks. 

Founding and teaching at East Coast School of Urban Ministry, a 1-year discipleship Bible school, and simultaneously pioneering four alternative cafe churches in multiple cities called City Tribe and The Noise Hip Hop Church, they used creative means such as photography shows, a podcast the first year podcasting went public, and block parties to minister to the urban poor. A nationally acclaimed Christian Magazine in the USA Charisma featured them in a cover story titled “40 Young Leaders Who Will Shape The Church Of The Future”.

Mombo volunteered as the Life Group Coordinator over four church campuses and served in many other roles at Liquid Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. In 2014, she took the role of Lead Pastor at a historic and biblically conservative Presbyterian church. She revitalized the church and modernized the services by recruiting a team of YWAM friends to serve on the worship team and pastorally.

Pastor Mombo and Juan Galloway preaching – YWAM Philippines in 2016 & 2014:

Everything wasn’t always roses and butterflies. Mombo periodically struggled with severe illness in her 30s suffering symptoms similar to a stroke and had to learn how to talk, walk, read and write again while raising her 4 children as a stay-at-home mom. Thank Jesus, miraculous healing manifested in 2019. Soon after, COVID hit New York City hard. Many people died from the pandemic in New York City and all the while, Juan was directing a team of first responders to continue aiding the houseless. It was during that season that Juan and Mombo became empty nesters and God began to speak to them about a change that was coming. They attended a Crossroads as part of a sabbatical in 2020. 

When asked if they would consider committing 2 years to ministry on staff with YWAM Kona they said “How about 20?” You see, God had a plan all along. Now, with a lifetime of missions and successful pioneering experiences from working with multiple organizations and denominations, including YWAM locally and globally all along, they bring fresh perspectives rooted in YWAM values. They have stayed faithful to each other, and the call of God in their lives from the time they met as teenagers. Juan was thrilled to “make all of Mombo’s dreams come true” – something he says to her regularly – by agreeing to serve in YWAM for the remainder of their years on earth.