This update is from Samuel Mercado who directs GCI’s youth camp in Mexico and serves as director of youth ministry for GCI Mexico.
Our 2013 Mexican national youth camp began with a 17 hour trip to Mexico City for those traveling from afar. From there a rented bus took the group to Ticumán where we reached a place called El Monte, which means “small mountain.”
The bus couldn’t make it up the mountain, so late at night we stretched our legs and carried our food and equipment uphill. We arrived with the help of a few flashlights and the moonlight.
Our camp, which included about 50 people, was held from November 15 through 18 in a location away from the bustle of city life. Activities included sports, games and swimming. We also had rock climbing and rappelling, which gave us a chance to exercise our faith!
Joy-filled worship during camp was provided by Natanael Cruz who is the pastor of our church in Mexico City. He was joined by musicians from his congregation.
Messages in worship services and classes were given by our special guest, Anthony Mullins, director of Generation Ministries in the US. He talked about the power of listening to the story of others, telling our own story, then presenting Jesus’ story. He also taught us to study someone and tell them directly the qualities we see in them. We practiced doing this in small groups, gaining deeper communion together.
Anthony (at center in picture at left) also talked about how our lives reflect what we believe and who we are. Our actions must demonstrate the work of God in us. Anthony showed that God’s most repeated command is, “Do not be afraid.” He discussed overcoming our fears in order to do the work of God. Natanael Cruz gave a message about keeping our bodies pure as the temple of the Holy Spirit. We also studied GenMin camp curriculum, “Kairos, It’s Time,” telling us that it’s time to Belong, Believe, Become, Behave and Begin.
Overall, the camp was characterized by great fellowship among the young people—sharing laughs, games, discussions, plans and projects for the future. Our camp is becoming a pathway for identifying and developing new leaders. We are initiating a national denominational effort to train and equip these young emerging leaders in theology, ministry and spiritual formation. We covet your prayers for God to guide us in helping these leaders develop according to God’s will for them.
This update is from Hector Barrero, GCI’s mission developer in Central and South America.
In early December I visited three GCI congregations in Central America. I started with the San Pedro Sula congregation in Honduras, where we held three meetings—first with 36 children (see picture at right), then with the youth and finally with all members—about 40 total (pictured below). It was nice to spend time with Pastor Marco Antonio Mejia, his family and the members. The congregation is doing a good job helping poor children in a nearby neighborhood.
We then traveled by car to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where we had dinner with Pastor Mauricio Diaz and other pastors and their wives (pictured below).
We met for church the next day with about 65 people in attendance (pictured below). The Tegucigalpa church is a truly happy and enthusiastic congregation.
I then flew to San Salvador, El Salvador. Pastor David Agreda hosted a dinner at his home. Several members attended. The next day we held a worship service with about 30 attending (pictured below).
This update is from GCI district and church pastor Mike Rasmussen who also directs GCI’s Crosswalk Youth Camp, held twice each year near Oklahoma City.
Though a tornado in May significantly damaged the facility where we hold Crosswalk Youth Camp, leading to the cancellation of our May session, we were able to conduct our fall session in November. It was amazing! We were blessed with an awesome staff who worked diligently to create a life-changing experience for the young people God brought our way.
As the leadership team met to prepare for camp last January, we sought the Spirit’s lead concerning how the camp should be formatted this year. We reevaluated our focus and methods. Rather than a mission statement, we came up with a statement we call our Kardia (meaning “center of our being”): Experiencing life in God’s love. We want the campers and staff to have a deep experience of God’s love. We then use our Kardia tohelp us evaluate all aspects of camp.
Walking Dead
At the January meeting we also selected a camp theme for 2013. We decided on “Walking Dead,” which taps into the current zombie apocalypse craze. While minimizing the zombie-side of the theme, our goal was to use it to grab attention and to convey the message of how life can seem drab, dull, grey and boring to the point of feeling like one of the “walking dead.” Even though alive and breathing, we can feel dead on the inside where life lacks flavor. This happens when we aren’t living in God’s love.
Alive in Christ
Using this theme, our goal was to create a contrast and a progression of how when we don’t understand/believe who we are in Christ, life can feel dead, but as we come to this understanding and believe in who Christ is and who we are in him, then life becomes alive and full of flavor.
In accordance with our new Kardia and fall camp theme, we made several changes in how we structure camp in order to help campers and staff more fully experience God’s love:
As people arrived, an upbeat, positive team that we called our “ground crew” welcomed everyone. They led campers and staff to registration where they were welcomed by a theme-based registration area filled with colored streamers and balloons that created a party atmosphere.
After the Friday night welcome, staff met to be briefed on the new camp Kardia and to experience a time of worship just for the staff.
After researching the average age of our campers, we realized we had to rework some of our activities. We created opportunities for greater camper-staff interaction and friendly competition to connect campers and staff at an even deeper level.
There was a great response to this camp session. We have heard from several campers and staff that they are excited about the next camp and will be coming back with plans to bring someone with them. We were blessed with 20 new campers and 13 new staff this session. We are excited about what God is doing at Crosswalk and look forward to the future. The next session will be in May 2014, with the theme FaithFactor. It is sure to be full of energy—jam-packed with fun activities—enabling us to advance our camp Kardia of sharing God’s love.
This report is from Kalengule Kaoma, one of GCI’s mission developers in Africa.
East Africa Leaders’ Conference
GCI recently held its East Africa Leaders’ Conference in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. The countries represented were Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Zambia and Belgium. Joel Clevenger and Gary Schrimpf from GCI’s US-based Grace Missions also attended.
Patrick Asaba (left) and friends
From Nairobi I traveled to Uganda for meetings with groups who are interested in joining GCI. From there I took a bus to the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Pastor Patrick Asaba met me at the bus station and we then attended a conference with 45 leaders from various denominations.
Following the conference, we met with three of them who are interested in affiliating with GCI. We later learned that there are also two church planters interested in planting GCI churches in the DRC. We wait to see what God will next do.
Pastor Mark
I then returned to Uganda (Kampala) where I met with Pastor Mark Oedo. His non-denominational ministry focuses on equipping rural church leaders to effectively preach the word of God and properly manage their churches. Many of these rural leaders have little or no theological and managerial training. Pastor Mark is eager to work with us. We traveled together by bus to Lira in northern Uganda where together we taught some church leaders.
We then traveled to Utoboi where we stayed at a “lodge.” Though it was rat and bed bug-infested, I was thankful for a place to rest my tired body. I was really glad when roosters announced the breaking of a beautiful morning. We participated in an early morning church service followed by leadership training.
Church in UtoboiLira children singing
We then returned to Lira for their church service attended by about 60 children and teens. Their songs, dance and jubilation in the presence of God brought tears of joy to my eyes. The service was held in the open in Pastor Joseph’s back yard. He is creative in ministering to children using music, drama and dance. Parents and older youth come to watch the children.
That evening, Pastor Mark and I took a midnight bus back to Kampala.The next day I proceeded to Kyotera in southern Uganda where three churches are interested in affiliating with us.
Later that week, I traveled to Masindi in western Uganda, where I visited Pastor Edward Kagoro and his family. When I returned to Kampala I visited two pastors who represent 20 churches located in Kampala and in surrounding rural areas.
These kinds of prospects are exciting. The potential for GCI in Africa continues to overwhelm me as I see God’s love and involvement in many lives.
GCI president Joseph Tkach recently visited GCI’s Richmond, Virginia church to join in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the congregation. During the visit, Dr. Tkach and others visited the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech where he said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
L to R: Joseph Tkach, Richmond pastor Bill Winn, actor playing Patrick Henry, Richmond elder Chip Brockmeier, ORM director Curtis May
In October, nine representatives of GCI’s Generations Ministries M25:40 Missions gathered at a Boy Scout camp in Northern Colorado to cut, load and haul beetle-kill pine to provide winter heat for an elderly couple in the area.
Despite the cold and the fact that it was a Denver Broncos football game day, these followers of Jesus dedicated their morning to helping others (though the game schedule sped things up a bit!). Three trucks were loaded and everyone packed up in just under two hours. This is the second outreach for M25:40 Missions in the last few months.
GCI SE Asia mission developer Rod Matthews along with Mark Latham, GCI’s pastoral coordinator for PNG (Papua, New Guinea) recently visited PNG. Here is Rod’s report.
Getting to Papua, New Guinea (PNG) is not easy. Yet for years, GCI pastors from Australia have made the trip to PNG at least once a year to visit, encourage and help our congregation there develop. Now, it is mature, well led and a shining light in the high valley below Mt. Wilhelm (pictured at right).
Mark and I traveled to PNG in October. On arrival in the capital of Port Moresby, we met with two member families—15 people total, including a widow whose husband and daughter had drowned in a boating accident there last year. In comforting the family we were reminded of just how widely God has scattered his Holy Spirit-led people as the “salt of the earth” in distant places.
The next day we flew to Goroka in the Eastern Highlands, where a group from our Mt. Wilhelm congregation had traveled six hours to welcome us. That afternoon we had a warm meeting with Peter Onga, an independent pastor from the city of Lae on the northern coast, who has started a church and is interested in pursuing a working relationship with us.
The next day we bumped along the Highlands Highway to Kundiawa. The road (pictured at right) soon deteriorated into stretches of mud, gravel and rocks enshrouded by misty rain. Two and half hours later, we pulled into Kundiawa. Many people lingered in groups along the main street. Flat-bed utility and 4-wheel drive vehicles cruised up and down, small buses came and went and we noted the presence of many armed police.
Here we purchased equipment to continue construction on the church’s community activity building at our Mt. Wilhelm facility (pictured at left). Now, with much more to take in addition to our luggage, we piled into a 4-wheel drive pickup for the final 2½ hour drive up into the mountains. Mark and I were squashed into the cab with the driver. Mark and I declared that even as friends we had never been closer. As we climbed upwards, we hugged the sides of steep valleys and crossed cascading rivers on bridges with deck timbers missing. Late that afternoon we arrived at Keglsugl. At over 8,000 feet altitude, it was cold, but the warm welcome from our members there made up for it in every way.
The next day we were officially welcomed by a group of dancers (pictured at left) who led us onto the church property through a corridor of children, then women, then men. Everyone then assembled in front of the buildings for formal speeches of welcome. Our pastor, John Banda hosted the ceremony and co-pastors Ben Galwa and Richard Kindi also spoke. The children sang and the women’s choir presented a song composed for this occasion. I felt like I had always known these wonderful people.
The special church service two days later was a celebration of unity in Christ. It lasted over 3½ hours with special music and dancing, a blessing of 23 (!) children and my sermon. This was followed by a wonderful banquet.
The day before our departure, the church again assembled for a special service where the Lord’s Supper was celebrated prior to a traditional meal called a mumu. There was plenty of food for everyone including anyone from the local community who wished to come. Special cakes made by members were presented to Mark and me and shared with everyone. Presentations were made of bilums (locally woven and beautifully adorned bags) for us to take home as mementos of our trip. How could we forget? The farewells were long and emotional.
On the way back I marveled at how the Holy Spirit connects us all and works in the lives of people in remote areas in special ways. I also thought of how privileged we are to have become so attached so quickly to one another in the Body of Christ within our fellowship; of the priceless experience of the difficult trip to get there; and the simplicity of their lifestyle with its clean air and fresh vegetables. They’ve only been connected by cell phone to the rest of the world in the last couple of years.
The work of the Holy Spirit is not seen by just looking nearby. Nor is the significance and nature of our international fellowship measured by what we see locally. We are indeed a communion brought together by the remarkable grace of God that girdles the globe. We can’t all visit these remote areas, but perhaps you now feel a little closer to your brothers and sisters in Christ in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea by having “traveled” with Mark and me.
By the way, and to reinforce the point concerning how the Holy Spirit often works out of sight, on our return to Goroka we were surprised by the visit of a member with a van-load of relatives who live in the Ramu Valley, three hours drive out of the town of Madang on the north coast. It had taken them six hours to get to us. Therese (second from left in the picture at left) told us that she has a group of 30 people meeting in her home each weekend for a worship service of hymn singing, prayer and Bible reading. “Amazing,” we said. “Wonderful!” “Oh,” she replied, “that’s only the adults. There are lots of children as well—some of the families attending have five or six.”
Thus, we “discovered” that we have a congregation that we didn’t know about that probably numbers about 100 people. Only a few of them speak English, so the challenge is to provide their leaders with simple sermon and Bible study material that can be translated into their language. While they were with us, we had another impromptu service asking God to bless three more children. It was an exceptional trip!
GCI in Colombia held its annual seminar in the city of Bogotá in early November with 76 members attending from the Bogotá and Barranquilla congregations.
The seminar theme was “The Heart of a Disciple.” Guest lecturer Hanz Daza from the Colombian Bible League provided instruction concerning disciple making.
This update is from Eugene Guzon, GCI’s national director in the Philippines. It was filed on November 16.
Tacloban recovery
Since super typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck central Philippines on November 8, the situation remains bleak. Statistics vary, but the official death toll is 4600 and rising. We praise God that most of our GCI members in Tacloban and in other hard-hit areas have been located and are alive, though their homes and belongings have been damaged.
In Tacloban City (the hardest hit) and other places in the Visayas, thousands have died while others are half-alive from fatigue, hunger and disease from infections and scarcity of hygiene supplies and medicines. These people would like to flee to neighboring cities, like Cebu and Samar, and even as far as Manila to find temporary refuge from an otherwise deadly situation, but there is a lack of transport facilities. This is an overwhelming crisis for the Philippine government and considering the scale and scope, there is a need for everyone to join in this humongous effort. Thank you so much for the outpouring of prayers and willingness to help in service and in kind. These updates will give you some of the ways GCI members have been helping.
Visiting affected members
In the last several days, I have visited GCI members who were impacted by the typhoon, including 13 families with damaged homes, three of which were destroyed. One family lost their poultry houses—their main source of income. Two families lost their retail stores. I saw the overwhelming destruction of infrastructure, including telecommunication, transport and money transfer facilities. During a short candle-lit church service, I relayed to these members your love and that you are praying for them. During the visit, I represented you all in delivering to them the first wave of support in the form of food and building materials. Next week, we will deliver the next wave of support, including generators to restore power and communications through phone charging, along with supplies to help in reconstructing homes and businesses.
Relief team en route
As I write this, a team of GCI Philippines leaders are travelling from Manila to Samar and Tacloban—a dangerous drive that will take well over a day. They are going to minister to our members with prayer and counseling, and to gather information concerning their immediate needs. They are carrying with them relief goods for members and their families—enough to last a week. They also are delivering power generators. Please pray for travelling mercies and special protection for this team, especially as they approach the worst-hit areas where security is a concern. And thanks for your generosity in giving, which is making the delivery of these supplies possible.
Outreach in Manila
Villamor Airbase in Manila is the drop-off point for typhoon victims arriving on the government’s C-130 planes. Members from our Santa Rosa Church along with others, are volunteering there in support of the Tacloban refugees who are now arriving. They are providing relief goods, counseling and other forms of support. According to their report, they need donations of food, medicine, slippers and transport vehicles to use in shuttling the refugees to public transport hubs in order to reach their families. As of this writing, we are mobilizing to send relief supplies. We are calling for volunteers to help at the airbase with various tasks including crisis counseling, marshaling, goods disbursement, feeding efforts, and other work; especially at night because the operation goes on 24 hours a day.
SEP camp community helps out
Staff and campers from our SEP Luzon youth camp recently volunteered for re-packing of relief goods at a Manila university. They joined other young people and volunteers in putting together family packs to be deployed by the Philippine government to Tacloban and surrounding areas.
Moving forward
These are just a few of the ways our church has an active part in the relief efforts, allowing God to use us as instruments of his love and provision to our members and others badly in need of help. We thank our churches and members from all over the Philippines and around the world, for their prayers, encouragement and other forms of help. To the churches and members who have already responded with donations in cash and in kind, please know that your contributions are going a long way in helping our affected brothers and sisters. We praise God for your compassion and selflessness. We also thank our members and partners from GCI headquarters and across the United States for their generous donations given to this relief effort through the GCI Disaster Relief Fund. This aid is helping our affected members rebuild their homes and businesses and address other immediate basic needs.
We are truly blessed to be part of a worldwide family, through whom we powerfully experience God’s love, despite the distance.
Our 2013 Mexican national youth camp began with a 17 hour trip to Mexico City for those traveling from afar. From there a rented bus took the group to Ticumán where we reached a place called El Monte, which means “small mountain.”
Our camp, which included about 50 people, was held from November 15 through 18 in a location away from the bustle of city life. Activities included sports, games and swimming. We also had rock climbing and rappelling, which gave us a chance to exercise our faith!
Joy-filled worship during camp was provided by Natanael Cruz who is the pastor of our church in Mexico City. He was joined by musicians from his congregation.
Anthony (at center in picture at left) also talked about how our lives reflect what we believe and who we are. Our actions must demonstrate the work of God in us. Anthony showed that God’s most repeated command is, “Do not be afraid.” He discussed overcoming our fears in order to do the work of God. Natanael Cruz gave a message about keeping our bodies pure as the temple of the Holy Spirit. We also studied GenMin camp curriculum, “Kairos, It’s Time,” telling us that it’s time to Belong, Believe, Become, Behave and Begin.
