Who We Are

After meeting at Mississippi College, and marrying in their senior year, Howard and Martha (Sullivan) Beam have served the Lord in ministry for over forty-five years. They have pastored churches in West Virginia and Mississippi and have served as missionaries in Russia for eleven years (1991-2002).  In Russia, they were involved in evangelism, pastoring, church planting, and leadership development. Howard served as President of the Global Strategy Christian Association of Russian Churches for six years from 1996-2001.

For many years now, the Lord has given Howard and Martha a desire to minister to pastors and missionaries and their families. Shepherd's Rest is the fulfillment of that vision to minister to those precious servants of the Lord who are giving their all for the Lord and for His kingdom.

Our Mission

Restoring, Renewing, and Refreshing those in ministry, by providing a quiet, peaceful setting in which to spend time with the Chief Shepherd.

We have always had a heart for pastors and missionaries and their families and have often seen the need, in ourselves and in others, for someone to minister to the ministers. For more than twenty years a vision has been growing in our hearts for a place where we could bring God's servants to love, encourage, pray for, and counsel as needed.  In doing so, we could provide an environment in which the Chief Shepherd, Jesus, could build them up and send them back into their ministries restored, refreshed, and renewed.

We have come to see, by faith, something like a hundred peaceful acres, with rolling hills, walking paths, lakes, prayer gardens, and several houses. We envision this as a place where weary, discouraged, or hurting ministers, and their families, can come and find peace, rest, and restoration for their minds, bodies, souls, and spirits. At present we don’t yet have “The Place” but we still have “The Vision” of the place. Please join with us in prayer for the fulfillment of this vision. Thank you!

We also feel the Lord leading us to travel to pastors on their church fields, and especially to travel to the nations and minister to missionaries and native pastors in their countries of service. These men and women are under constant attack from human governments, demonic powers, and, sadly, even from their own churches and ministries, at times. They need prayer and encouragement, and others who will come alongside of them, and stand with them, for the harvest of souls that the Lord desires. They need someone who will care for them, as they care for the nations.

We believe that Shepherd’s Rest International is God’s will in heaven!  

We encourage you to join us in prayer that the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven! (Matthew 6:10)

EXPANDED VISION AND INTERNATIONAL MINISTRY

In March of 2024 the Lord added new aspects to our vision for Shepherd’s Rest as He called me to serve as the Director of Prayer Mobilization for Men for Nations. While traveling the country to seek to raise up men who would stand in the gap and cry out to the Lord on behalf of their families, churches, states, nation, and world, The Lord of the Harvest expanded His call to us even more as we began to take the message of Christ love to the nations. The Lord used another ministry, The One Rescues (TheOneRescues.org), to facilitate this call.

In April of 2025 I traveled with Lee West, Founder and Director of The One Rescues, to Pakistan. Pakistan is 98% Muslim and yet there are many opportunities to share the gospel and minister to the many needs of the precious people there. Please see the May 2025 Men for Nations newsletter for a full report of the April Outreach (men4nations.org). God did amazing things, and many lives were touched and changed for His glory.

As of this writing, (9/4/25), I am scheduled to return to Pakistan in October to preach the gospel, speak to 700 pastors and leaders at a national conference, deliver families from slavery in the brick kilns, provide life- giving, healthy water to Hindu villages, encourage Men for Nations Pakistan to continue praying for their nation and world, and encourage the Body of Christ in the churches to keep loving the Lord and to keep reaching out to the lost and hurting with the message of salvation in Christ alone. Glory to God! Please pray for us!

I have also been invited to begin traveling some with Global Roar (globalroar.org), founded and directed by Dick and Susie Bashta, to help train and send native pastors and missionaries in nations around the world. I’m excited for this opportunity and to come along side this fruitful ministry to join with them in sending out laborers into the harvest. To quote Brother Dick, “God is raising up a mighty group of harvesters to turn the Great Commission into the Great Completion!”

And this is just the Beginning!

Praise and Honor and Glory to the One Who is, and was, and is to come, The Almighty!