October 6, 2009
By an Alliance worker, serving in Indonesia
Editor’s Note: The following was taken from an update by an Alliance worker concerning progress in bringing relief to survivors of the September 30 earthquake in Padang, Indonesia. CAMA (Compassion and Mercy Associates, the relief arm of The Alliance) has been in contact with national church leadership and TALI, an Indonesian relief agency. A team was coordinated to fly directly to the earthquake affected area to determine how best to respond to current needs. Continued opportunities to give are available. Make a donation now.
The devastation is pretty overwhelming. So many homes and families have been affected not only in Padang, the central point of the quake, but also in the outlying areas where help is just now beginning. There had been unrest due to relief supplies not reaching those areas, yet now it seems as if the food and water are being distributed there as well.
At least three or four villages were completely buried in landslides and are lost. The death toll seems to be somewhere above 1,000. Rescue efforts have given way to recovering bodies. My fellow survey team members and I are doing fine. We ask for prayer for the following.
Wisdom
We really need wisdom as to the best way to help. Right now, we are focusing on helping to gather building supplies so people can begin to rebuild their homes and not have to stay in tents, or worse, without shelter. Many of the bigger relief organizations are providing food, water, and immediate shelter. Our team would like to focus on helping people rebuild their lives. This will mean supplies and also people who will be able to stay to help distribute materials and oversee the project.
Personnel
It is very important to be able to place some people in this area to help for a while and to oversee things. Pray for God’s leading in this area and that the right people would be able to go in to help.
Provision
Pray along with us that God will provide for all that is needed here. The church in Indonesia is responding to this need, and we are grateful. We are trusting God for all that will be needed.
Thank you for praying with us and for working alongside of us.
Make a donation now.
In our GoChurch series, Jim Blake, director for Alliance Redwoods Camp and Conference Grounds (ARCCG), describes the mission of his “congregation” within the camp community. ARCCG hosts churches and groups from all over California and beyond, providing God’s majestic redwood trees as the background for ministry.
Thousands of children and young adults experience authentic community each year at Alliance Redwoods Camp and Conference Grounds (ARCCG), where a Christian camping adventures have changed lives for more than 60 years.
At ARCG, nearly 1,000 young people make decisions for Christ annually as they receive ministry to the whole person and build relationships with God and with caring mentors. The camp environment breaks down social, economic, and cultural barriers that the traditional church setting struggles to overcome and provides a safe environment that is conducive to positive interactivity.
Catch Them While They Are Young
More than 85 percent of those who come to Christ do so before they reach the age of 18. Ten-year-old camper Josh,* whose biker father did not attend church, connected with Greg, one of the head cooks. Greg, sporting his biker regalia and is a chaplain for the Christian Motorcycle Association, spent the week building a relationship with Josh. As Josh left camp, Greg gave him his card for Josh’s dad.
Filled with excitement about his week at camp, Josh gave Greg’s card to his dad, who was moved by his son’s experience and attended a local Alliance club meeting. Soon Josh’s entire family received Christ and all now are active church members who are growing in their newfound faith in Jesus.
Sarah was cutting herself. But the self-inflicted torment could not ease the pain in her heart. Camp counselor Natalie Romalia was asked to help. “When I approached Sarah, she told me that she was having a hard time because her mother had died,” said Romalia. “I brought up losing my brother to suicide, and Sarah said, ‘My mom committed suicide too.’”
That seemed to break the ice between a hurting teenage girl and a high school camp counselor. Natalie’s willingness to share her pain with Sarah immediately built a bridge of hope between the two women.
“We talked longer, and I prayed with her that afternoon,” said Natalie. ”That night when other teens were sharing their testimonies, Sarah asked, ‘Would it be okay if I shared?’ I said sure! She stood up and shared a little bit of her story with everyone.”
Sarah’s youth pastor believes this is the beginning of a big breakthrough in her life. At this particular high school camp, too many students to count came to the front during ministry time, weeping with sorrow for their sins and praising God for His unconditional love.
No Boundaries
The impact of ARCCG does not begin and end in California. Part of our vision is to become an international training and sending center for The Alliance, taking Alliance camping worldwide. Every winter since 2002, ARCCG has hosted a month-long camp in South Africa that has ministered to more than 6,000 impoverished children. More than 50 percent of them have indicated a desire to have a personal relationship with Christ. Many of these children have AIDS and will never see adulthood. Each one reached represents a life turned from despair to hope in Jesus Christ.
Germaine was a 12-year-old street kid, sniffing glue, selling drugs, and stealing to survive when he came to our first Camp South Africa (CSA) outreach in 2002. Germaine came to Christ during that camp and the following year, he testified that he was drug free, back in school, reading his Bible, and attending a local church-all with no parental care or supervision. It is amazing to observe what the transforming power of God can accomplish in the worst of human circumstances! Germaine now is a spiritually mature 17-year-old and worked as a camp counselor for CSA 2008 last December. He has a passion to reach others for Christ.
International camp workers receive training at ARCCG and go to mission fields like Russia, Romania, Paraguay, and Hawaii. They have a sense of urgency to fulfill the Great Commission and bring back the King. Requests for training abound from all over the globe, and expansion of this vision is limited only by our current financial resources, making your partnership a vital link to building the bridge to future generations.
Stories like Josh, Sarah, and Germaine’s abound at ARCCG, where we are living out The Alliance’s first core value: Lost people matter to God. He wants them found. Life circumstances may differ, but many lives are touched by God during camp!
Jim Blake has served as executive director of Alliance Redwoods Camp and Conference Grounds since 1998. His wife, Christine, is a physical therapist and member of the Camp South Africa 2007 team. College-age daughters Kate and Emily have been campers and summer staffers at Alliance Redwoods since moving to California.
Learn More
Read about Alliance camping ministries in the March issue of alife
Visit Alliance Redwood’s Web site.
What You Can Do
Pray for Jim Blake and his team as they work through daily details and plan for future ministry. Also, pray for the lives of those impacted for Jesus through ARCCG.
Donate to Alliance Great Commission Ministries
October 1, 2009
The Alliance is assisting survivors of two natural disasters that struck the Pacific rim this week. On September 30, 2009, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 shook Indonesia at 5.16 p.m. local time. The epicenter was 53 km north of Padang, and the quake produced a tsunami that has flooded sections of Sumatra. Another strong earthquake hit Indonesia early October 1. “All C&MA personnel are fine,” says an Alliance worker. However, at least 1,100 people have died as a result of both quakes, and hundreds more are believed to be injured, reports CNN.
In Padang alone, the death toll has exceeded 500, with more deaths expected. As many as 1,100 homes have been destroyed. Rains continue to hamper rescue efforts, and roads and bridges from the south suffered damage, making land access to the city of 900,000 hazardous and difficult. Communication is poor, as phone lines and wireless towers are down. “Survivors are in need of clean water, food, and medical supplies,” says an Alliance spokesperson.
CAMA (Compassion and Mercy Associates, the relief arm of The Alliance) has been in contact with national church leadership and TALI, an Indonesian relief agency. A team is being coordinated to fly directly to the earthquake affected area to determine what role TALI, CAMA, and the C&MA should take in responding to current needs. Continued opportunities to give are available. Make a donation now.
Philippine and Vietnamese Typhoon Relief Under Way
Elsewhere in the region, the Philippines braced for the impact of a super typhoon, Parma, just days after Typhoon Ketsana left hundreds dead and most of Manila under water, reports CNN. The storm, downgraded to a tropical depression on Wednesday, also killed more than 100 Vietnamese. Typhoon Ketsana has affected about 1.4 million people and damaged or submerged more than 350,000 houses.
CAMA has responded to the devastating flooding in Manila with a $5,000 donation to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches of the Philippines (CAMACOP). This will be used to assist the communities in which Alliance churches are located. Continued opportunities to give are avaialable. Make a donation now.
In Vietnam, CAMA will be working with PACCOM, a government agency, and the Tinh Lanh Church, the latter as allowed by the government.
What You Can Do
Pray that those who have been affected by these tragedies will come to know the love of Jesus through the compassion of our workers and their national colleagues. Also, pray for God’s blessing on rescue efforts and for safety and direction for the survey team.
Allow CAMA to be your hands to a hurting world. Join our workers in helping to change the lives of the survivors and introduce them to Jesus, the source of life. Click here to donate.
No one will forget the act of terrorism on the United States on September 11, 2001. On the eighth anniversary of the tragic event that forever changed a nation, The Alliance remembers one of its own who gave his life to save others. (Original release date, September 18, 2001)
Todd Beamer probably wouldn’t have thought of himself as a hero or a martyr. But it has been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. The seed planted as a result of Beamer’s heroic demise already is taking root.
Beamer, who by every account was a gentle man, sharing his faith in Christ with a servant’s heart, has been credited with his efforts to thwart the plan of the enemy on United’s Flight 93 September 11. Knowing that death was eminent, Beamer, with the cooperative effort of several other passengers, selflessly threw himself in harm’s way to prevent the probable attack on another target.
As word spread of the heroism on Flight 93, so also did the testimony of Beamer’s conviction that Jesus was his Lord and Savior. On countless TV talk shows, Beamer’s wife Lisa reiterated time and again that her husband had absolute faith in Christ, and his life exemplified that to all he met.
When Russian TV reporters wanted to interview Lisa about Beamer’s Christianity, they were invited to the C&MA’s Princeton Alliance Church in New Jersey. In Beamer’s Sunday school classroom, the reporters saw a diagram on the “white” board, showing the chasm between man and God because of sin and how Christ’s death on the cross bridged the gap between them.
A Russian bureau chief, Eugene, commented that he never had seen anything like the bridge diagram and wanted to learn more. Eugene accepted Christ that day as his Savior. He returned to Russia to prepare a news broadcast about Beamer that will be shown to millions of Russians. It will include the bridge diagram.
Church history has shown that millions of people in places such as China and Vietnam have come to Christ after what were, by man’s understanding, tragic deaths of His servants. Yet our sovereign God has shown throughout history that He can use the most heartbreaking events to fulfill His purpose, bringing peace and healing to the lost and hurting.
In the cloud of evil inflicted on the American people on September 11, 2001, the silver lining brings us renewed hope-in men who laid down their lives for their fellowman and in a loving God who longs for us to turn to Him in our time of need. For Lisa Beamer, that hope is her source of strength.
“Still other seed fell on good soil . . . and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” Luke 8:8.
Watch video of Todd Beamer tribute on 9/11 anniversary.
By TEAM Isaan
Editor’s Note: Team Isaan, a ministry of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, has a vision for an indigenous church-planting movement in three provinces of northeastern Thailand, where the largely unreached Isaan people live. A prison ministry has been introducing many incarcerated people to the gospel, and they are evangelizing their home villages upon their release. The following story shows the unexpected ways in which God has been at work through this dynamic ministry.
Two prisoners learned about Jesus through an inmate who, before he was incarcerated, had heard the gospel from EQ, a former inmate who now ministers with TEAM Isaan. EQ received Christ while in jail and has led 12 people in his home village to the Lord following his release.
Since the 12 people in EQ’s village were baptized, God has been using them in the most obscure ways to share His love with their fellow villagers and in neighboring villages. One of the most recent opportunities has led to a group of 15 people actively studying God’s story.
Scared and Hopeless
The 25-year-old son of one of the families that came to the Lord in EQ’s village was arrested with his friends. Though this young man had studied about God in some of the meetings, he hadn’t been attending regularly and had not accepted Christ. His friend was in possession of drugs, so both men were placed in a county prison cell while they waited to hear if they would appear before a judge. While in the cell, the young man met many other people who were scared and felt hopeless.
He began telling these prisoners about the hope that the people of his village had found in Jesus, even though he still has not chosen to believe in and accept Christ. Two people in the cell who were arrested for gambling became very interested in learning about this hope that he mentioned. So the prisoner told them to call EQ when they got out, and he would share with them about Jesus Christ.
Ready and Willing
A few weeks ago, the gamblers were released from the cell and called EQ. He challenged them to get their family and friends together, and he began sharing with them about God. For the past couple of weeks, 15 people (ages 25-45) have been learning stories about God. After they finished the story of Creation and the fall of man, EQ shared his personal testimony with them.
At first, he was a bit unsure if they would still respect him after he shared with them about this own past and formerly having been imprisoned. But as he challenged them to think about committing their lives to Christ, he said every single person in the group was ready and willing to make that decision. He even questioned them to make sure they knew what this choice meant, and all of them were able to explain that they knew they needed Jesus to save them and give them new life.
On October 14, this group will begin meeting together as a church. Pray that God will use this new fellowship of believers to reach others in their villages and in neighboring villages.
Learn More
Read an alife article about TEAM Isaan’s ministry.
What You Can Do
To help keep our missionaries in Thailand on the field, support Alliance Great Commission Ministries.
Alliance congregations across the United States are taking new approaches to ministry, moving beyond just talking about Christ’s love to actually showing it. Pastor Rick Gates has led his Crossroads Church congregation in Perry, Iowa, out of the sanctuary to shine the light of Christ during a Week of Service in their community. Church members have completed 40 projects in four years. Local TV news shows have reported the “free help” that Crossroads provided for the community in June.
The Week of Service initiative began in 2005, when Gates offered to shampoo carpets at a local school. Other church members cleaned windshields at a grocery store and distributed complimentary water bottles at community functions.
“Our culture today knows nothing of the church except that it expects people to give money and attend services for no meaningful or relevant purpose,” says Gates. “The church is not connected to their daily lives and does not make sense to them. Jesus talks a lot about being servants . . . as we serve, people slowly begin to see Jesus.”
Open Doors
Since these outreaches began, many civic groups and individuals have solicited the church’s help. As the requests come into the church for projects in the community, church members go out and serve-free of charge. They have painted 10 classrooms and shampooed carpets in a local school, saving the school district hundreds of dollars. A deck has been built, ground tilled, and grass planted
“A widow was grateful when some of our people helped her burn a huge pile of brush behind her home,” Gates says. She was amazed to receive all of the help without being charged. Other people in the community, who are not members of Crossroads Church, have joined to help out with projects just to be part of the excitement.”
Heather, a single mother, started attending Crossroads recently. “I can relate to a church that reaches out to others instead of just taking care of its own needs,” she says. “That’s why I’m here with my daughter, and that’s what I want to be a part of.” Heather now wants to do something to help someone else soon!
The doors are open for cross-cultural outreach as well. During the weekend of September 12-13, 2009, Crossroads Church hosted “Booth of Hope” at a Latino festival in town, giving away bottles of water and New Testament Bibles.
“We want to be involved in cross-cultural events in order to engage their culture,” Gates says. “We want to share God’s love in tangible ways and be ‘Jesus with skin on’ in our community.”
Learn More
Read how other U.S. Alliance churches are impacting their communities
What You Can Do
Pray for open hearts as the Crossroads family interacts with their friends and neighbors.
Donate to Alliance Great Commission Ministries.
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