Alisa Evans

Funeral Home: Mission Park North

Alisa Lynn Evans passed away peacefully Sunday, October 11, 2020, at her home in Frisco, Texas, after complications from a five-month-long battle with cancer.

Alisa was born April 24, 1967, to Tom and Joan Schmitz of San Antonio Texas. She nurtured a life-long passion for learning, teaching, traveling, and serving others.   

She graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1985 and attended Cornell University where she received a B.S. in business management. Upon graduation, she returned to San Antonio and obtained M.A s in International Relations from St. Mary’s University and in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Texas at

San Antonio. Later Alisa earned a Masters of Divinity from Phoenix Seminary and at the time of her passing was a doctoral candidate at Bakke Graduate University.

 While still in San Antonio, Alisa accepted a teaching position with the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base where she taught English as a foreign language to military personnel from around the world.

Following her service at the Defense Language Institute, Alisa moved to Phoenix, AZ. In 1998. She accepted a ministry position at Food for the Hungry, an international non-governmental organization serving the world’s poorest populations. At Food for the Hungry, Alisa oversaw the short-term mission teams, church relations, and volunteers.  Alisa was instrumental in developing the Adopt-a-Community model which empowered churches to embrace specific communities through disaster relief, child sponsorship, prayer, short-term teams, long-term missionary involvement, and advocacy. During her time at Food for the Hungry, and at other organizations, she relentlessly invested in her own teams to ensure they had the knowledge, tools, and support to address the overseas realities, and to live out their God-given giftings. 

In 2014, Alisa’s deep passion for serving others led her to take over the reins of a young ministry in the Dallas Ft. Worth area serving sexually exploited women, which would eventually become known, under Alisa’s leadership, as Alive at Last. 

Alive at Last’s mission is to mobilize communities to encourage and equip survivors of sexual exploitation to build new lives. The ministry offers a unique model of relational intervention that brings hope, healing, and a feeling that survivors of sexual exploitation are Alive at Last. The ministry encourages people to move from victim to survivor, using curriculum from Mending the Soul Ministries, of which Alisa served on the Board of Directors and also places survivors with mentors on their healing journeys.

Alisa believed in the power of relationship. She believed that one healthy relationship could change the trajectory for the hurting women she served. Her response was to train Christian women to meet women in crisis, where they are; in homeless shelters, safe houses, and drug and rehab facilities offering them hope and healing through relationship/mentorship.  

It has proven to be a very effective model. Jesus himself believed in the power of relationship. He believed in investing his life into his disciples. In doing so, the Christian faith is still advancing today, changing lives wherever the message of hope is offered.  In the same way, the Alive at Last model, created by Alisa’s pattern of relational ministry through healing, small groups, and mentorship, will continue to bring healing and hope to the brokenhearted. 

Like everything Alisa put her hands to, she worked as to the Lord, throwing all her energies and passions into her work. She and her team built Alive at Last into a successful city-wide outreach serving hundreds of women and had visions to scale their unique relational intervention model into a national movement. 

On July 30, 2015, Alisa married the love of her life, Lewis Evans, and settled into her new role as wife and stepmom to his three beautiful children whom she loved dearly.  Lewis and Alisa built a home in Frisco and were members of Gateway Church. 

Alisa was a bright light, dedicating her life to helping the poor and vulnerable and equipping others to grow in their faith journeys. 

 Alisa is survived by her mother Joan Schmitz; Husband Lewis Evans; daughters, Savana and London Evans; son Adam Evans;  sister Nancy Cook and her husband Randall Cook; and nephews, Justin and Caleb Cook.  She was preceded in death by her father, Thomas Schmitz.

Some of Alisa’s last words of encouragement to her friends and family were to “carry on” the work of the Lord. In keeping with her wishes, please consider donating to the ministry of Alive at Last in her name in lieu of flowers. Donations can be given online at www.aliveatlast.org.