Rev. Bob and Verna Deno were married on July 22, 1972, and have spent their lives in service to others. Before founding Robert Deno Ministries, their combined journey ran through Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Mexico, and Africa — youth ministry, church planting, teaching, and decades of work with families in need.
Bob holds a B.A. and a Master of Divinity. For twenty-five years he worked in construction and building maintenance, quietly supporting ministry with his hands as much as with his voice. Verna served as a school secretary in Washington State and later as a bilingual tutor in Alaska, connecting with children from many cultures.
In 2018, they retired from the Anchorage School District and settled in Hayden, Idaho, spending winters in Arizona. Retirement, for them, was not an ending. Personal relationships with Third-World Christian leaders — forged over years of prayer, correspondence, and visits — pulled them into what would become RDM.
Today, Robert Deno Ministries is a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting, educating, empowering, and supporting indigenous leaders in evangelism, church planting, pastoral training, vocational education, and compassion projects. The ministry currently operates in three countries: Uganda, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
This work is driven by a conviction that the people who can reach the hardest places are the ones who already live there — and by a simple commitment: every dollar given goes to the field. Nothing is held back for salaries or overhead.