Joffre is now out of the rehabilitation facility and receiving nurse and therapist support at home. He’s trying to build back muscle strength and continue the healing process. Your prayers and cards have been much appreciated, and we ask for continued prayer for motivation, pain control, and strength for all of us.
Rick Shallenberger
Regional Director US, North Central
It is with great sadness we report the sudden death Saturday, August 7, of Fiji’s senior pastor, Isei Colati, from complications associated with Covid-19. Known widely for his caring and friendly way, Isei and his wife Vasiti served primarily the Suva congregation but travelled extensively and regularly also to visit and encourage the smaller congregations and members scattered across Fiji.
Because of the pandemic lockdown in Fiji, Isei’s funeral service, led by Suva elder Jope Uqeuqe on Wednesday, August 11, was restricted to just five but was live streamed widely on Facebook and was watched also in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Eulogies for the family were read by Isei’s grandsons, Jiuta Jr. and Jese Wainibuli, and for the church by long-time member Frank Boyd. The service, despite its restrictions, was a dignified and fitting tribute to Isei’s 40 years of service in the church, the last 15 years as Fiji’s pastoral leader.
Isei’s loving way and care to detail, his rich base voice and booming, cheerful “Bula!” are sorely missed.
Dennis Richards
GCI Regional Director New Zealand & South Pacific
Cards and condolences may be sent to his wife:
Mrs Vasiti Colati
GPO Box 16697
SUVA
Fiji
Neighbors loving neighbors. It is a beautiful sight and one that was abundant in Surrey Hills last Saturday. We were not able to do Camp Surrey this year, but knew we wanted to do something to show love to our campers and neighbors and let them know we are thinking about them. So, we decided to sponsor a neighborhood block party in conjunction with our annual water balloon battle.
Events in the Love Avenue are a ton of fun, but also require lots of planning. It starts with a Love Avenue Team that came together, showed up, and put their hearts into this event. My Love Avenue team consists of 11 amazing people, from age thirteen to 75-ish (don’t be fooled, the 75-year-old works circles around all of us). The first step to the event was the prep-work which is a ministry in itself.
We do our annual water balloon battle at the neighborhood ball fields. To prepare for the event, we always clean them up really well. It’s often the only time of year the fields look spick and span. I always invite our neighbors to join us for a work party the Friday night before the event to mow, edge, and pick up trash. This year, I got a message on Wednesday from a neighbor I’ve gotten to know the past couple of years. He sent me a picture of the freshly mowed fields and let me know he took care of all the mowing so we could focus on edges and trash. What a blessing! Then, our crew got to work.
On Saturday afternoon hundreds of Surrey neighbors lined up with about 13,000 water balloons and had a total blast. If you’re wondering how we determine who wins a water balloon battle, we don’t. It actually makes for amazing debates and bragging rights for everyone all year long.
We were blown away by the number of children we had! We reserved the first 10 minutes of the battle for children only. Afterwards, it was at the parents’ discretion if their child would continue to participate. After about 30 minutes of water balloon mania, all participants took about 10 minutes going over the field, picking up all the balloons. We want to keep our neighborhood beautiful, and our policy is always to leave things better than we found them. The cleanup time is actually a great relational time. There’s something about crawling around on the grass, picking up thousands of tiny balloon pieces alongside your neighbors whom you were just pummeling with water balloons. Conversation begins to spark, laughter erupts, and relationships are built.
After the clean-up, everyone walked across the street to the Lion’s Club Park, where we had food trucks, live music, gaga ball, yard games, inflatables, a cornhole tournament – all kinds of fun!
We also set up a Camp Surrey kids table and gave away over 100 gift bags filled with goodies. These bags had Camp Surrey reusable water bottles, bubbles, giant pixy sticks, Camp Surrey pillowcases, and more. We also had a craft table for them to decorate those pillowcases. We got lots of inquiries about Camp Surrey and even had a QR code on the table for people to scan to join our waiting list for Camp Surrey 2022. We ran out of gift bags in the first hour because over 150 kiddos showed up to the event! What a great problem to have!
Camp Surrey provided ice chests full of water bottles and juice boxes as well as hand sanitizer and insect repellant. We decided to keep the fun going after dark and hosted a movie on the park lawn. A couple of months ago, we cast a poll on our neighborhood Facebook page and let them pick the movie (with the stipulation that it had to be G or PG). Zootopia won by a landslide! It was an incredible evening of neighbors loving neighbors.
We had between 400 and 500 people participate in this event. We had well over 150 children. We made a special announcement before the movie. Pastor Joe introduced himself and invited everyone to join us at the Surrey Hills Elementary School Gym the next morning for a special worship experience and blessing of the children. I’m thrilled to say we had SEVEN brand new faces Sunday morning. Praise God!
In the midst of so much sadness and chaos the past year, there was something amazing that happened this weekend in our neighborhood. It was a day without arguments, politics, or anger. It was a day of relationship, a day of love, a day of community. God is so faithful.
I often think of the old saying from the movie “Field of Dreams” when it comes to relaunching our church into this neighborhood. I used to always quote the line, “If you build it, they will come.” Weekends like this are a loving and gentle reminder from my Papa that I need to change that mantra in my head. The truth is that “God will build it, and we will love.”
Ceeja Malmkar,
Surrey Hills Love Avenue Champion
Recently my lovely wife Alberta passed. We were married for 25 years, 46 days. God’s answer to numerous prayers for her healing was “no” and instead he graciously delivered her into eternity, where she is now experiencing no pain. Yet, her passing has often left me very sad and weak. The apostle Paul shared an important God-breathed practical mindset regarding weakness with us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I [Paul] will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Since many of us are members in Grace Communion International, grace is a part of our name and DNA. Sometimes we have been challenged over the years with weaknesses in the midst of personal challenges or denominational change. Maybe even pain!
Such was the case recently: to honor my wife’s wishes, I needed to travel by plane and auto to do a graveside service with family in another state. God graciously supplied not only the strength to do this, but also an out-of-town brother, retired pastor Glen Weber, who drove about twenty hours over three days to accommodate this. I am functioning with one eye and could not have done this on my own.
I was in pain and God supplied both strength to me and a brother (and others) to lighten the pain which God has guided me to also do for others over the years. We are in this together, so I gently leave all of us with this question: whose weakness is God directing you and me to, to strengthen and lift up today with his strength?
Prayer: Almighty wonderful Triune God, thank you for all the heroes you have put into my life before and after the passing of Alberta. Alberta was certainly my hero and a favor from you (Proverbs 18:22). Thank you for the Body of Christ and your called-out ones who participate with you and lift up those who are weak. May each of us be your arms, hands and legs passing along your love, hope and faith to those in need. Thank you for always being our strength. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
By Tom Ecker, Retired GCI Pastor
Dear GCI Friends and Family,
Grace Communion International is a wonderful mosaic of churches networked across 66 countries. The purpose of our church is to share the good news of Jesus through building loving meaningful relationships with our neighbors. As we participate with Jesus to make new disciples, we plant churches and identify elders who have pastoral gifts to lead these churches toward healthy expressions captured by the Faith, Hope and Love Avenues of ministry. As these churches grow and thrive, we expect them to become a mother church who gives birth to daughter churches. Some have even started parachurch ministries to serve local needs.
Since 1986, GCI has partnered with Bengali Evangelical Association (BEA) to establish missionary outreach to the Bengali people. Dr. John Biswas founded and led this missionary effort up until his death this past March. As part of his parachurch ministry, John set up the BEA Board of Directors, which has appointed Naomi Biswas to become the new President.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Naomi and listening to her desires to continue the operations of John’s ministry—BEA. I was also delighted to share with her the news of how GCI has a vetted young leader who is leading a GCI church plant in the city of Dhaka, under the guidance of Regional Director Danny Zachariah. Allow me to introduce Amiyo Bacher.
Amiyo Bacher attended the International Graduate School of Leadership in the Philippines and participated in our GCI CrossWay congregation under pastor Aron Tolentino while attending school. Amiyo returned to his native country of Bangladesh, where he is now planting a GCI house church under the direction of his Regional Director Danny Zachariah.
Naomi shared a similar story of a young leader that John had hired to take a leadership position in the BEA Ministry Center. Meet John Adhikary.
John Adhikary, who has a work history related with administrative skills and some ministry background, was hired to work in the BEA Ministry Center in Bangladesh. Because Naomi requested that John be introduced and oriented to GCI, Danny Zachariah will seek to establish a relationship with John and hopefully take on a mentoring role. It will be exciting to see how these young emerging leaders will grow and develop and how the Lord will work through them to reach the people of Bangladesh. It excites me to see a younger generation rising up.
Naomi and I agreed that we need indigenous leaders on the ground in Bangladesh to do the day-in and day-out work of ministry. The Lord is faithfully providing.
Another development that deserves mention is that Roger Lippross, who served beside John Biswas from the beginning of BEA, stepped down in July. Roger’s health is such that he simply must retire from service. We deeply love and appreciate Roger and Anthea, and the BEA family will miss their presence.
We wish Naomi and her Board of Directors well as they regroup and reorganize.
We also solicit your prayers and contributions to the GCI general fund so that we can amply support GCI’s work in Asia where it is most needed. Superintendent Eugene Guzon and his team with Regional Directors Mein Kong and Danny Zachariah are continuing to work with young leaders like Amiyo in Bangladesh, Roshan Nepali in Nepal, and some forming relationships with potential leaders in Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
The role of supporting these young leaders in their education and their church planting efforts, which includes continued supervision and guidance from GCI leaders, requires funding. The mission field in Asia is ripe and ready for harvest, and through God’s grace and provision we join him in the field!
I end this message with the closing that Roger Lippross always used.
For the Kingdom!
Greg
We join Ron Washington in requesting prayers for his father, Abner Washington. Abner was a long time pastor in the church and is currently serving as an Assistant Pastor in Indianapolis, Indiana. His son Ron pastors our church in Livonia, Michigan.
Abner was taken to the hospital recently to diagnose some ailments he has been suffering. The diagnosis came back today. Abner has stage 4 prostate cancer, which has also metastasized into his spine. There is not much they can do except alleviate his discomfort and provide wellness of life. He is being released from the hospital today and will be starting on a couple chemo pills to try to stop the cancer from spreading. The doctors said Abner is strong and they feel good about controlling the cancer’s spread. He will be on this regimen for a couple weeks to see how it is going. Prayers for Abner, Sharon and the family are appreciated as he goes through this regimen.
Cards may be sent to:
Abner Washington
PO Box 40715
Indianapolis, IN 46240-0715
“Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle—yet the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering. There is absolutely nothing so great as prayer.” ― Timothy Keller
Join us in prayer as we come together this month asking for hope and strength and thanking Christ for the purpose we find in him. Click the link below to download and print the August Prayer Guide, as we celebrate how God weaves us together into a beautiful tapestry.
GCI clothing and accessories will be available for purchase online through the end of the month. Get your GCI Gear before we close the Denominational Celebration store. Shop now, by clicking the image below or visiting https://shop.spreadshirt.com/GCI2020/all.
For all customer service requests for your purchases, please contact 1-888-934-6909 or email at customerservice@smartpress.com.
From July 23-25, 2021, GCI hosted our first Virtual Denominational Celebration. If you’ve been in GCI for a long time, you are familiar with our International Conferences, held every three years in person. We rebranded the name of these gatherings to “Denominational Celebration” because we believe it reflects the overall tone of the event better than the corporate term “conference.” After experiencing our Denominational Celebration this year, I believe this rebranding was quite fitting.
After postponing the in-person Celebration from 2020 to 2021, GCI leadership was again faced with the fact that the world wouldn’t be “opened back up” yet due to the lingering nature of the Covid-19 virus, especially on a global scale. In March 2021, GCI leadership made decided to hold our Denominational Celebration virtually.
This historic change meant more planning, learning and growing to accommodate our new platforms within just a few months. This required great teamwork to accomplish – GCI teams, from Media and the Home Office, as well as our Superintendents and their regional teams, all pulled together and supported each other through many brainstorming sessions, planning meetings, practice zoom calls, teaching webinars, and trial and error practices. I imagine this experience has strengthened many of your own congregation’s teams as well, since many of our pastors and their avenue teams banded together to practice, plan and set up for their watch parties.
The Virtual Celebration consisted of a series of main sessions, featuring GCI Superintendents from each of our regions around the world. In these sessions the Superintendents cast a vision for Healthy Church in their region, sharing stories of Healthy Church, particularly focused on the Hope Avenue, since our theme this year was “Focused on Hope.”
GCI members from around the world joined these live Zoom sessions, enjoying messages of Healthy Church and unity from our churches around the world. We had 909 individual registrations and 72 watch parties. Seeing the number of members who gave their time to participate was very encouraging for our Home Office team working the event. The total number of connections (each connection may have had several viewers) for each session are as follows:
Friday, Main Sessions– 584
Family Feud – 74
Saturday, Main Sessions – 566
Sunday Worship – 1267 (now posted on our website and Facebook)
Sunday Panel – 489
Thank you to all who registered and participated in the Celebration! We were so impressed by these numbers and encouraged to hear that many members who were unable to join are eager to watch later when the recorded sessions are provided online. Another encouraging aspect of the Celebration was member participation and sharing through social media posts and comments.
We asked you to tag us on Facebook with #GCI2021hope so we could find and share your Celebration thoughts and content. Below are some of the posts, comments and photos shared by fellow GCI members participating in their homes and watch parties around the world!
By Charlotte Rakestraw, Social Media & Graphics Coordinator & Editor, GCI Update
Jen Gregory (Grove City, Ohio) – We loved Captain GCI!!
Justine Paolo Parcasio (Baguio City, Philippines)- So blessed to have Dr. Greg Williams (GCI President) and wife Susan lead us in Communion to start the virtual denominational conference. *We are doing this all together at the same time in different locations and time zones from all around the world!
Grace Communion Hanover, Virginia – 2021 Focused on Hope watch party at GC Hanover. Mechanicsville, VA We are grateful for Dr. Williams, Jeff Broadnax and all the Home Office staff that put together such a wonderful virtual experience for us. May the blessed Trinity continue to build us up as an International Movement of Grace. We are GCI.
GCI Home Office – Charlotte, North Carolina: 
Jerome Ellard – Big Sandy, Texas: 
Carrie Osborne (Chillicothe, Ohio) – Wonderful start for our virtual fellowship and amazing job by our Media department!
Susanna Martinez (Lancaster, California) – So inspiring to hear how God has been opening doors for new avenues of ministry during the pandemic, all around the world. The kids loved the children’s church segments and I am now challenged to incorporate this in our local virtual services! Our entire congregation was able to register and participate in the various sessions individually, and everyone has been inspired by all the stories and seeing they’re part of a global fellowship of believers! Thank you GCI staff and media teams, all the speakers and ministers who gave of their time, talents, and energies to put on the first GCI virtual Celebration!!
Carolyn Rakestraw (Tallahassee, Florida) – Thank you GCI Philippines for the wonderful children’s sermon and thank you Dr. Eugene Guzon for the many stories of hope from across Asia that you shared with us. I love that our Asian brothers and sisters embrace diversity as a gift…what a blessing!
Linda Lee Sitterley (Eugene, Oregon) – We had a wonderful turnout for [Sunday] service. Wonderful to see our very own Hadley up on screen sharing where her hope lies. Thanks to everyone who made all of this possible.
Hlali Msiza (Riviera, South Africa) – Greetings to the worldwide GCI family from South Africa in Africa. Nkosi sikelela iAfrica!
Rubén Ramírez Monteclaro (Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico) – Thank you Brother Greg for such an inspiring sermon. Blessings. A great future awaits us with Jesus one step forward at a time.
Mary Ruth Nieves (Piura, Peru) – Thank you Michelle Fleming and all the GCI Media team working for the Conference. It’s a joy to enjoy the whole event. It’s wonderful to see that light of hope that children reflect. The seed is sown and the Lord Jesus and His Holy Spirit works already in their lives.
