MEET THE

Our Story

The story of Allen Family Ministries is not just a ministry story — it is a family story. A story of four generations who said yes to God, packed up their lives, and carried the gospel to the nations — together, as families.

It began in the 1960s, when Hascal Chessir answered a call that few would have considered — to take his family to Korea in the wake of the Korean War. The country was broken. The people were searching. And Hascal believed the gospel was the only answer. He didn’t go alone. He went as a father, as a husband, as a family — and that choice shaped everything that followed.

His daughter Janetta grew up on the mission field. She married Sid Allen, and together they continued what her father had started — ministering in both North and South Korea, carrying the flame of the gospel into one of the most spiritually complex regions in the world. They too went as a family, raising their children in the tension and the beauty of life on mission.

Their son Steve Allen, having grown up watching his parents live out the gospel in Korea, went on to labor in Bangkok, Thailand for sixteen years alongside his wife Samantha. Together they planted churches, mentored young believers, trained future leaders, and poured their lives into the Thai people — and they did it as a family, with their children at their side.

After returning from the field, Steve continued pouring into the Church — serving with various ministries and carrying the same heart for prayer, discipleship, and the nations. Then came a new and unexpected chapter. Steve was diagnosed with ALS, a battle he would face with extraordinary courage and faith for ten years. Even as his body grew weaker, his spirit remained unshaken. He continued to encourage, to believe, and to speak life into those around him — a final, living testimony to the grace he had spent his life proclaiming.

On the night before Thanksgiving, 2025, Steve Allen went home to be with the Lord. He is deeply missed. His life — from the mission fields of Korea to the streets of Bangkok to a decade of faithfully enduring illness — remains one of the most powerful testimonies we know of a man who truly gave everything.

In the wake of his passing, the legacy does not end — it continues. Kanaan Allen, Steve and Samantha’s son, grew up as a missionary kid in Thailand, watching his father and mother choose mission without sacrificing family. That same conviction now drives him forward. Together with his mom, Samantha Allen, Kanaan has stepped into the leadership of Allen Family Ministries as Executive Director — honoring the history, the values, and the legacy of the Allen family, while following the fresh vision they are sensing from the Lord for this next season.

The thread running through four generations is this: you don’t have to sacrifice your children on the altar of ministry. The family itself — the father who leads well, the mother who nurtures faithfully, the children who grow up resilient and rooted in Jesus — becomes the most compelling form of witness to the very people you’re called to reach.

We believe the world is changed not just through programs or platforms, but through families on mission — families who love God, love each other, and open their lives to the world around them.

That is the legacy of Allen Family Ministries. And it is the legacy we are called to pass on.