Category: Stay Connected

This update is taken from a report by Assistant Camp Director Leslie Asare-Akoto.

GCI in Ghana, Africa held a youth camp last December. The theme, based on Matthew 28:11, was Christ is the answer. Participants included 50 campers (age 12 to 19) and 43 staff. About 30 of the campers received scholarships from the Jon Whitney Foundation.

Camp activities included morning devotions, music appreciation, soccer, softball, fireside–chat, volleyball, Christian living, Bible study, bead-making, dance etiquette and debate, along with a banquet night. An outreach activity took campers and staff into the communities around the camp to inform parents and youths not only about the camp and its benefits, but also to invite them to a watch night service on New Year’s eve. An educational trip took campers and staff to the Bonsu botanical gardens and canopy walkway where they were briefed about different plants and their medicinal properties.

During the camp, three campers accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and were baptized. The baptism was performed by National Pastor Emmanuel Okai and Pastor Jonathan Hammond, host pastor of the Kutunse congregation who had counselled the baptism candidates.

GCI’s congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Two years ago, the congregation, led by Pastor Tommie Grant and his wife Robin (pictured at right), moved into their own church building. After much prayer concerning where God would have them locate, the building, which had been vacant for two years, became available. It has served since then as an effective place from which the congregation reaches out to the surrounding community.

The anniversary celebration was special as the congregation thanked God for his provision. The event drew guests from the community along with family and friends. The guest preacher was Charles Young who pastors a GCI congregation in Atlanta, GA. It was a joyous day!

GCI Vice President Greg Williams recently announced the following changes to GCI’s denominational leadership in Africa.

Kalengule Kaoma (pictured at right with his wife Nsama) has been appointed to serve as Director over all GCI churches on the continent of Africa. In making the announcement, Greg wrote this to the GCI mission developers, regional directors and national ministry leaders in Africa:

We are confident that Kalengule will provide thoughtful and effective oversight for all of the regions that make up the vast continent of Africa. We congratulate Kalengule and ask that you support him as he endeavors to serve you in the gospel work of Jesus Christ.

Greg also announced that Takalani Musekwa (pictured at left with his wife Margaret) was approved by GCI’s South Africa Board to serve as the new National Ministry Leader for GCI in the nation of South Africa (RSA). Takalani will be working with a national ministry team that will share the office previously held by Tim Maguire.

Greg thanked Tim for his 10 years of service as RSA National Ministry Leader. As Greg noted, 2017 was a very trying year for Tim, capped off by a serious injury to his foot and ankle. Tim resigned from his denominational leadership position in November, but will continue serving the church in South Africa in a volunteer capacity.

We solicit your prayers and support for this new phase of GCI denominational leadership in South Africa and all the continent of Africa.

We are pleased to announce that the following women and men were recently ordained as elders serving GCI congregations in the nations noted.

• Vicky Constantino, Philippines
• Dolores Gibe, Philippines
• R. Avila, Philippines
• Gibe Constantino, Philippines
• Antoine Nsekandontonia – Ndjili, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Lutumba Masula – Binza, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Jean-Claude Wamba – Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Larry Shirley – Lancaster, CA, USA

Here are pictures of the four ordinations in the Philippines:

Here from GenMin national coordinator Jeffrey Broadnax, is a report on the GC Ignite conference held over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend (January 12-15) at a Christian camp near Dallas, Texas.

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Though the weather was chilly, GC Ignite was filled with warmth, love and lots of Southern white gravy! The conference was designed for young adults age 18–30 who provided a high-quality worship team, event organizers and a highly-motivating young pastor. Participants included 43 young adults from the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands, along with a few GCI pastors and denominational leaders. Focused on the theme, Inside & Out, the group celebrated Jesus and discussed ways to grow as a Christian community within GCI. Workshops led by the young adults addressed prayer, worship, biblical literacy, self-care, multi-cultural ministry, identifying community needs and other topics.

As noted in the pictures above (click to enlarge), GC Ignite gave participants opportunity to be creative, to converse in a safe place, to find peace, reconnect with friends, eat, worship and be still with the Spirit. If these things sound good to you as a young adult in this age group, please consider attending GC Ignite 2019. We are grateful for all the prayers, hard work and donations that made GC Ignite 2018 possible. Shared experiences like this keep GCI young adults connected and rejuvenated, creating memories that will last for decades. For more GC Ignite 2018 pictures, click here.

GCI-Canada National Director Gary Moore, who is retiring this coming summer, recently announced several other personnel changes in the Canadian office and pastorate. We appreciate your prayers about these transitions.

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  Kathleen Horwood has been hired to serve as business manager for the GCI-Canada office when it moves to Saskatoon this spring.

• Pastor Eric Warren will retire in June 2018. Alvaro Palacio (pastor of our congregation on the eastern side of Toronto) will serve as senior pastor for Cornerstone Christian Fellowship (Toronto West), and will look for a part-time or perhaps full-time person to serve initially as associate pastor in the area, living near the Cornerstone building. This should allow the outreach ministries of the congregation to continue to flourish in that part of the city.

• Fitzroy Martin is being hired to pastor the London, Ontario, congregation and the small group in Sarnia, as Colin Lauchlan looks to retire by the end of 2018. Fitzroy has served as a deacon in the London, Ontario, congregation.

• Pastor Steve Posiak (who pastors the Okanagan, BC congregations) will take on the role of District Superintendent for Western Canada for GCI when Bill Hall assumes the role of GCI Canada President on August 31 when Gary Moore retires.

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.

Malawi

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.

South Africa

GCI-South Africa recently conducted a youth camp (SEP) with assistance from GCI congregations and a camp in Canada.

Kenya

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:

• Ghana: Please pray for God’s intervention in our favor regarding three cases in court. People are trying to take over several parcels of land we acquired several years ago. We have documents covering each parcel, yet people are invading and trespassing.
• Burundi: Please pray that God will give us favor so that we are not discriminated against because we are a small and relatively newly registered church in Burundi. The Government of Burundi appointed a new commission in charge of denominations. The commission consists of Bishops from denominations that have existed for a long time in Burundi. These denominations have modern church buildings and large development projects. The commission is requesting that the government close denominations that do not have these things and that request will be reviewed soon by the National Assembly. Please pray that God intervenes.
• Zambia: Please pray for our jubilee celebrations.

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.

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Note: for a report on some of the work God is doing in and through GCI in Africa, click here and here.