Nick Bapst, who with his family (pictured below), attends GCI’s congregation in Grove City, OH (in the Columbus area), experienced a miraculous recovery after experiencing cardiac arrest during basketball practice. His story is told in an article titled “Gift of Time Matters Most to Bapsts.” To read it, click here.
Crossing Borders, a GCI Generations Ministries’ mission organization, recently returned from a trip to Mexico, where they distributed about 1000 shoeboxes full of gifts to needy children. Crossing Borders’ director Lee Berger noted that the children responded with “broad smiles, tears of delight and giggles of glee.” He also mentioned that the parents’ faces lighted up upon seeing their children being blessed with boxes full of “necessities and fun stuff.” Besides the shoebox gifts, Crossing Borders also presented handmade blankets and quilts, totes full of supplies for infants, bracelets and other special presents.
In his report on the trip, Lee stressed that Crossing Borders’ goal is to help each shoebox recipient understand “that they are special and unique to God… innately worthy of his personal touch.” Though it may seem that distributing shoeboxes assembled prior to the trip by various congregations and other donors is impersonal, Lee pointed out that each shoebox is unique, being assembled individually with a personal touch. One group of shoeboxes even included a picture of the donating congregation (see picture, above left). Each shoebox is prayed over by the senders, then put into the hands of a specific child in Mexico. “We’ve come to realize,” Lee noted, “that, even with 1000 boxes, God can direct each one to go exactly where it needs to go—and he does!”
Lee gave an example: On one occasion, a girl opened a box that was labeled to be for a girl, but it was packed with what were obviously boy’s items. Noticing this “mistake,” they tried to trade out her box for a girl’s box. But it turns out that the girl’s father was out of work and depressed, and the little girl had been wanting to find a way to cheer him up. She told us that this box of boy’s stuff was the perfect present she could give her dad. God knew and provided!
Here are reports on recent GCI activities in Africa.
With help from a member in France, a much-needed bicycle was provided recently to Mr. Chafa, who takes care of the GCI congregations meeting in Bunda and Ntuwasweka, Malawi. Mr. Chafa had been walking over six miles each week from his home in Bunda to Ntuwasweka to serve the people there.
GCI-South Africa recently conducted a youth camp (SEP) with assistance from GCI congregations and a camp in Canada.
GCI pastors in Kenya gathered recently for a conference where they had a time of refreshing apart from their pastoral responsibilities. The group exchanged stories of the successes and challenges encountered in their respective mission fields. Presentations were given on themes relevant to their calling. Following the conference, they joined GCI’s Nairobi congregation for a worship service. Finances permitting, the group plans to meet at least twice a year.
Here are GCI prayer requests from three nations in Africa:
Anthony Gachanja (GCI’s National Ministry Leader for Kenya and Regional Pastor for five East African countries) reports on a mission tour that he and his wife Jane conducted in the Eastern U.S. following the Denominational Conference in Orlando.
Over a period of two months, Jane and I had the blessing of visiting eight GCI congregations, delivering the message, “Partnering with Jesus.” We greatly enjoyed the American hospitality and the trip showed us how our diversity is a rich ingredient in the work God has called us to do. For example, the special music my wife Jane presented wherever we visited was warmly received. God has a special way of ministering to people in and through our diversity.
Wherever we find church members in the world, God has, in his foreknowledge, made provisions for his work—material resources or manpower in some places, financial resources in others. Our presentations, which were well received, explored ways to use these resources to advance the gospel. During a service in New Jersey that included multiple congregations (see picture below), Jane and I were humbled to hear of a lady who had traveled for two hours to be with us.
Other parts of the world outside the West need to be evangelized. The gospel mission field is open all across Africa, and when we shared stories about the mission field in Kenya, it seemed to have a big impact on our listeners. Churches of various denominations in the West are scrambling for a share of preaching the gospel in Africa and GCI has the opportunity to take part in that work.
With many congregations in the West growing smaller and smaller, people can feel like the owner of the church, Jesus Christ, has abandoned them. But, as we know, that is not the case—instead, circumstances challenge us to move out of our comfort zone to proclaim the gospel in the fields that are ripe for harvest, including places like Africa.
Note: for a report on some of the work God is doing in and through GCI in Africa, click here and here.
Over the last few years, GCI-USA Church Administration and Development (CAD) has been providing “Outside the Walls” consulting services to renewal churches. A primary tool has been helping those congregations conduct community outreach events. Those events are then followed up with ministry training workshops. A Teen and Family Ministry Workshop was held recently at Christian Family Fellowship, GCI’s congregation in Jacksonville, Florida.
Facilitated by CAD team member Anthony Mullins, the workshop was attended by about 25 youth ministers and pastors from GCI congregations in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, FL (see some of them pictured above). The workshop addressed these topics:
What does it look like to communicate a Christ-informed belonging to young people through word and deed?The interactive sessions during the workshop celebrated the good work already being done in these congregations, and challenged them to build on that base. Once it concluded, teens from a nearby neighborhood came to the Jacksonville church building to play a game of touch football and to have a fireside chat with Jacksonville Lead Pastor, Marty Davey. It was a good day of inspiration and hope for the future.
This report is from Anthony Mullins, National Coordinator of the GCI Intern Program.
The GCI-USA annual Intern Orientation took place on December 8-10 at GCI’s home office in Glendora, CA. We welcomed two new Interns: Gordon Herrmann and Mohammad Ali. Both will begin the 2.5-year-long internship in 2018. Gordon will be placed in Cincinnati, OH, with Pastor Dustin Lampe, and Mohammad will be placed in San Jose, CA, with Pastor Mel Dahlgren.
The Intern Orientation included these presentations:
Regional Pastor Mike Rasmussen and Pastoral Resident Cara Garrity facilitated roundtable discussions specific to the needs of the Pastor Supervisors and the Interns.
The Intern Program will continue to place a strong emphasis showing how GCI’s incarnational Trinitarian theology informs the Intern’s identity and outflow of activity in local church ministry. To help mentor, guide and encourage the Interns, we’ve assembled a “wrap-around support team” that includes their Pastor Supervisor, a Ministry Coach, their Regional Pastor and the National Coordinator of the Intern Program. Included in this support are weekly meetings with their Supervisor, monthly meetings with their Ministry Coach, monthly video conferences with other Interns and Pastoral Residents and bi-annual progress reviews.
The next Intern Orientation is scheduled for July 27-29, 2018 at GCI’s home office in Charlotte, NC. Please join us in asking the Lord to provide young adults who love the Triune God, love Christ’s ministry and want to lean into serving others in GCI.
For more information about the GCI Intern Program, go to https://www.gci.org/internprogram.
Here is a recently produced video in which Anthony Mullins introduces the GCI-USA Intern Program:
On YouTube at https://youtu.be/32Up7cEi7qs.
Fifteen people gathered recently at the St. Stephens Retreat Center in Titusville, FL, for the 7th annual “Experiencing the Trinity Retreat” sponsored by the Odyssey in Christ Ministry. For four days, participants explored their relationship with God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They practiced various spiritual disciplines designed to open space to hear from God personally. The retreat was structured for the participants to move back and forth from solitude to community to experience the benefits of being with God both alone and in community.
Here are comments from retreat participants:
It was like being with family—I’m returning home renewed and refreshed.Here are links to updates on recent gatherings hosted by GCI in the Philippines:
This update is from Rex Morgan who pastors the GCI church in Auckland, New Zealand, and manages the GCI New Zealand office.
Fifty excited people attended the 50th anniversary of GCI’s Auckland congregation on November 4—50 years to the day after its inaugural service. The event was held at the Mt. Eden hall where we have been meeting regularly for services the past 15 years.
After three baptizing tours in the early 1960s, Graemme Marshall came to live in New Zealand in 1967. On September 7 of that year, the first WCG Bible Study was held in Auckland, at the Workingman’s Clubrooms in Kitchener Street. The first Church service took place on November 4, 1967, in an upstairs room in Queen’s Arcade.
Fifty years later, lots of memories came flooding back to mind as members past and present enjoyed renewing old acquaintances and comparing stories. There was plenty of “mix and mingle” time, pleasantly enhanced by a delicious and abundant finger-food lunch. I read out messages of greetings from members unable to be present, including Don and Alix Engle, Gary and Pam Harvey, Kerry and Anne Gubb, Rod and Ruth Matthews, Bob and Sandy Morton, and Kerry and Anne Gubb. Rod’s message encouraged the attendees to “look around at one another, think of those who went before us and recall that we are but a part of a spiritual body so much bigger, immortal, as yet unrevealed, but flowering plants in the garden of God. We celebrate together this golden anniversary milestone on a journey as yet unfinished but with a sure destination.”
Brief addresses were given by David Wong, Barry Nottingham, Robert Thompson and National Pastoral Director, Dennis Richards, reminiscing on incidents and lessons gleaned during half a century of history. Then we watched a video from GCI President Joseph Tkach. Following that (see picture at right) an anniversary cake decorated in our theme colors of purple and gold was cut by five members present at the inaugural service: Barry Nottingham, Rex Morgan, Jeannette Findlay, and Noreen and Robert Thompson.
I noted in my address that 50th anniversaries are referred to as “golden anniversaries”—a reminder to us of how God is refining our character into spiritual gold for his everlasting temple at the center of the New Jerusalem, which is described as being made of pure gold. It was a wonderful day of golden memories. No one wanted to leave.
Daphne Vidal, one of our members in Dominica, sent the note below, thanking her GCI brothers and sisters for helping GCI’s Dominican members recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.
Warm greetings from the Nature Isle of Dominica. Nature is healing the wounds inflicted by Hurricane Maria and we can see hope in the leaves returning to what was once a beautiful rainforest. We are greatly encouraged by this sign. The Forestry Division will soon begin to implement the reforestation plan.
We joyfully report that we have received 250 galvanized sheets and 250 lumber planks purchased by members in Trinidad with money sent from GCI’s Disaster Relief Fund administered by folks in the Glendora office. We are truly grateful for this cooperative effort by different groups within the GCI family. We are finalizing with members their exact needs so we can start distribution next week so they can repair their roofs.
We also received the supplies sent by our GCI-USA family in Florida. From that we were able to prepare care packages for all the members and a few persons in need. Most of the packages were distributed today. While supermarkets and business places are open, persons in outlying districts do not always have easy access to supplies. We have also been blessed with the help of Andy Williams from the GCI Orlando congregation. We put him right to work and he was able to assist in clearing and offloading the building materials and supplies from the port.
A special thank you to our GCI family for blessing us during our time of need.
