Archive for the 'missions' Category

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Reaching out to the heart of his city

Published on December 18, 2009 in missions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

For most of his life, Kevin Curtiss did not believe in God.

Even when his wife, Donna, started attending Resurrection Life Church, Kevin made it clear he wasn’t interested.

“You could consider me an atheist at that time,” he said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with [church].”

For several months Donna prayed that Kevin would open up to a relationship with God, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. It took some time, but gradually Kevin realized that the church experience would be a valuable for their teenage son. Still, Kevin realized that he would have to set the example by going himself.

“It was time to get Tony involved with [church].” Kevin said. “And he wasn’t going to go unless I did.”

Putting aside his own apprehensions, Kevin announced his decision:

“One day I said, ‘That’s it! We’re going honey.’,” he said.

And they did.

One week after his first visit to ResLife, Kevin raised his hand in response to pastor Duane Vander Klok’s invitation to accept Christ. That decision has changed his life. Kevin soon began reading the Bible regularly. He completed the entire Bible in just over a year and supplemented his reading with other Christian books to learn all he could about his new faith. The changes in Kevin affected not only his reading habits but also the way he lives and leads the whole Curtiss family.

“I’m a lot more family oriented,” Kevin said. “God is first in my life, my family is second and my work falls somewhere after that.”

Now, not only is church a regular part of their lives, but Kevin has sought out other ways to be involved beyond Sundays. While reading through the ResLife Web site to see what opportunities there are for getting involved, Kevin discovered the inner city outreach called Power House and something clicked.

“I knew I wanted to do something outside the church,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what, but I clicked on the Power House site, saw the kids and thought, ‘I want to try that.’ I got involved in Power House, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Now, Kevin, along with much of his family, spends Tuesday evenings teaching children about the God he didn’t believe in.

“I never really in my wildest dreams three years ago, thought I’d be out teaching kids about God,” he said.

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Street Light ministry to youth in downtown Grand Rapids

Published on December 15, 2009 in missions and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Grand Rapids, Mich. — On Friday nights, 15-year-old Olivia Cooper-Jones likes to hang out at an old storefront on South Division Avenue next door to a biker’s club.
While it’s not the neighborhood of choice and sits squarely in an area stigmatized by the more unsavory characteristics of this city, Cooper-Jones and scores of other teens have found something that breaks from the typical fare of the inner city at the Division Avenue Outreach Center.
“It’s a place to go to chill out and not have all the drama,” Cooper-Jones said. “They’ve got a lot of positive stuff to do. All my friends are down here.”
Part of the downtown outreach of Street Light Ministries, DAOC (pronounced “dah OC” in the adopted hip hop lingo of outreach leaders) is changing the outlook of teens across the downtown area by providing a fun hangout in a positive environment. Continue reading ‘Street Light ministry to youth in downtown Grand Rapids’

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An atheist, a car show and a new life.

Published on December 11, 2009 in missions and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Dan FagundoDan Fagundo was only 11 when he decided God did not exist.
For him, the decision to become an atheist wasn’t so much a denial of God as it was a matter of not finding evidence for His existence. Even as a youngster, Dan had been thinking deeply about God, but the questions he asked were left unanswered by his family and their Jehovah Witness beliefs.
“I started asking a lot of questions just really in-depth questions that my mom couldn’t answer.” Dan said.
Without answers and seeing poor examples of Christianity, he gave up on the idea of God.
“I decided there absolutely was no God, there was nothing to believe in, there was no heaven, no hell; there was no consequence for anything I did. And that led into where the rest of my life was going—in a very bad direction.”

Starting in elementary school, Dan made a point to pick on children who were Christians. A couple years later, Dan was in middle school and found his atheistic beliefs reinforced by science class lessons on evolution.

Continue reading ‘An atheist, a car show and a new life.’

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Community service sent him to church, his heart kept him there

Published on December 9, 2009 in missions. 0 Comments

Jason HansonJason Hansen first came to Resurrection Life Church because he had to.

He was sentenced to serve community service time with the church maintenance crew. He wasn’t looking forward to serving time at the church and he didn’t expect a warm welcome because he wasn’t a Christian and didn’t plan to change that.

“When I started in community service here I wasn’t going to try acting like a Christian. I wasn’t one,” he said. “I didn’t expect to be received or accepted well.”

To his surprise, Jason found he was welcomed on the work team Christian or not.

“The warm reception that I received; the love that everyone showed me was just amazing,” he said. “(It) really opened my eyes and made me think ‘What is going on here?’” Continue reading ‘Community service sent him to church, his heart kept him there’

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The Hindu who now follows Christ — 100 percent

Published on December 6, 2009 in missions and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Indian Christian family

When Karen was 13 years old, her life changed dramatically. She left an orphanage in her native India and was adopted by a family in America.
Despite pains lingering from her early childhood, she began to embrace the new life she found. Stepping into American culture she adjusted during her teen years and even accepted Jesus Christ into her life and was baptized at church at the age of 16.
Years past and Karen was visiting in India where she met a young shopkeeper named Manoj. Like any good Indian shopkeeper visited by a young lady with an American accent—he sold her as many expensive clothes as he could. Besides doing his job, Manoj saw something about Karen that caught his eye. So, when she and her brother came back to pick up the clothes, he invited them to hang out with him and meet some people from the area.
They did and something sparked between the young shopkeeper and Karen. As they spent time together, she shared her stories about how she was adopted and how she’d become a Christian.
For Manoj, who came from a devout Hindu family, his view of Christianity was not a very positive one. He had seen enough examples of Christians who were faithful to attend church but just as quick to act like anyone else when they weren’t in the church building that he felt Christians weren’t really different from anyone else. Yet, as Manoj heard Karen talk about Christ and how worshiping idols wasn’t right, he felt himself agreeing with her even as he prayed to the idols he was starting to question.

“When she was talking about worshiping idols is not good,” Manoj said. “What she was saying made sense.”
Continue reading ‘The Hindu who now follows Christ — 100 percent’

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Worth it all.

Published on October 30, 2009 in missions. 0 Comments Tags: , .
Honduras church service

A church service in Honduras, 2007.

La Ceiba, Honduras—Since he was a child, Wilford Dilbert, Jr., dreamed of working alongside his father to plant churches in his homeland of Honduras. That dream was nearly shattered by two bullets from a murderer’s gun.

Dilbert was in the United States studying for a future in ministry that first Sunday of 1993 when his schedule of studies and family life was interrupted by a phone call.

The message: Dilbert’s father had been shot and killed at his own front gate.

“When I got the phone call I felt like the whole world fell apart,” Dilbert said. “I felt, boy, I don’t want to go and be in the ministry anymore. It was really painful for me.”

Stunned by the news, Dilbert tried to convince his mother to join him in the U.S., but she was not about to abandon the ministry. Continue reading ‘Worth it all.’

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The athiest who changed his mind.

Published on October 28, 2009 in missions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

For most of his life, Kevin Curtiss did not believe in God.
Even when his wife, Donna, started attending Resurrection Life Church, Kevin made it clear he wasn’t interested.
“You could consider me an atheist at that time,” he said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with [church].”
For several months Donna prayed that Kevin would open up to a relationship with God, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. It took some time, but gradually Kevin realized that the church experience would be a valuable for their teenage son. Still, Kevin realized that he would have to set the example by going himself.
“It was time to get Tony involved with [church].” Kevin said. “And he wasn’t going to go unless I did.”
Putting aside his own apprehensions, Kevin announced his decision:
“One day I said, ‘That’s it! We’re going honey.’,” he said.
And they did.
One week after his first visit to ResLife, Kevin raised his hand in response to pastor Duane Vander Klok’s invitation to accept Christ. That decision has changed his life. Kevin soon began reading the Bible regularly. He completed the entire Bible in just over a year and supplemented his reading with other Christian books to learn all he could about his new faith. The changes in Kevin affected not only his reading habits but also the way he lives and leads the whole Curtiss family.
“I’m a lot more family oriented,” Kevin said. “God is first in my life, my family is second and my work falls somewhere after that.”
Now, not only is church a regular part of their lives, but Kevin has sought out other ways to be involved beyond Sundays. While reading through the ResLife Web site to see what opportunities there are for volunteering, Kevin discovered the inner city outreach called Power House and something clicked.
“I knew I wanted to do something outside the church,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what, but I clicked on the Power House site, saw the kids and thought, ‘I want to try that.’ I got involved in Power House, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”
Now, Kevin, along with much of his family, spends Tuesday evenings teaching children about the God he didn’t believe in.
“I never really in my wildest dreams three years ago, thought I’d be out teaching kids about God,” he said.

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Connections build the foundation for freelance work

Published on October 21, 2009 in missions and photojournalism. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Connections are vital to building any sort of freelance photography business. Through various contacts, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot for a variety of organizations. Here’s  a story and photo shoot I did for the North American Mission Board in 2007.

North American Mission Board Missionary Ken Wilson

Looking over Scriptures before preaching during a recent Sunday morning service, associational missionary Ken Wilson reviews a verse as his family and other church members worship in song at the Thunder Bay Baptist Church in Alpena, Mich. (NAMB photo by Michael Shead)

Looking over Scriptures before preaching during a recent Sunday morning service, associational missionary Ken Wilson reviews a verse as his family and other church members worship in song at the Thunder Bay Baptist Church in Alpena, Mich. The Week of Prayer for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions is March 4-11. The offering goals is $57 million–100 percent of which is used for missionaries like the Wilsons.

via Great Michigan outdoors a natural for NAMB missionaries.

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On diversity of education

Published on June 12, 2009 in missions. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Rationale for personal choice of areas of emphasis

More than once I have asked myself what I am going to do with a community development major. Each time I reconsider this I have come out more convinced that this is the major for me.

International Community Development (ICD) is a diverse degree which gives me  a vast source of information to draw from when I am either on the mission field or in the work force.

From the general education credits, I have learned how ancient civilizations relate to today’s society, my life has been enriched through science and language courses, and my writing skills and general health have improved. The ICD core classes have opened my eyes to resources to which I still make reference or run to for information. All these classes have added to the knowledge source which I will be able to draw on for the rest of my life. Continue reading ‘On diversity of education’

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One by one — Fort Hope, Ontario, Canda

Published on December 15, 2008 in missions. Closed Tags: , , , .
Eabamet Lake lies under a blanket of ice in the foreground of this photo showing Fort Hope, Canada, an Ojibwe village in central Ontario.

Photographed in early March, Eabamet Lake lies under a blanket of ice in the foreground of this photo showing Fort Hope, Canada, an Ojibwe town in central Ontario.

(Eabametoong First Nation) FORT HOPE, ONTARIO-One by one, lives are changing in Fort Hope.
This year pastor Jim and Judy Walters coordinated three ministry trips to Fort Hope: one with a team to minister specifically to the children and provide a marriage seminar, one with a team of pastoral leaders–including Resurrection Life Church senior pastor Duane Vander Klok–to teach adults and meet with area leaders, and another trip to take a team of Native Americans to minister among their Canadian cousins.

An Ojibwe girl and a local dog peer at village guests through a wire fence

An Ojibwe girl and a local dog peer at village guests through a wire fence.

On the first trip, the emphasis was on marriages and children. A ministry team from RezKidz in Grandville organized ministry for children and drew crowds of more than 100 to the John C. Yesno Education Centre gym as they played games, sang songs and taught them about the love of God.

“The team is doing a lot of background work,” Jim Walters said. “They?re hugging kids. They?re talking with kids. They play with the kids. They?re making friends.”
The RezKidz team reported that five children responded to accept Christ as savior. During Vander Klok’s visit to the village the ministry team hosted a a five-hour long radio show and nine people accepted Christ.
As the Walters and others bring the practical message of God’s Word to Fort Hope, Chief O’Keese and other Ojibwe band leaders recognize that applying Christian principles to marriages will help families and the entire community grow stronger.
“When it was first brought to the attention of myself and my council, we had one hundred percent support,” O’Keese said of the plans for the marriage seminar. “We told our staff, ‘If you want to go to the seminar, you can go and take (the day) with pay.”‘

Pastor Scott Rogers animates his lesson as he teaches a group of children at the Fort Hope elementary school gym during an outreach in Ontario, Canada.

Pastor Scott Rogers animates his lesson as he teaches a group of children at the Fort Hope elementary school gym during an outreach in Ontario, Canada.

O’Keese said he and the band leaders recognize that the status of families are reflected in the community and that suffering families equal a suffering community.
He said stronger marriages are “part of the healing the community is looking for.”
In this village where live-in couples and single-parent families are the norm, individuals also recognize the need for help when it comes to marital commitment and faith.
“We need that marriage counseling,” said Barb Oskineegish, a single mother. “It’s helping us a lot.”
With the help of mission teams, prayer and support the Walters are taking practical Biblical teaching to the Ojibwe people as God touches Fort Hope one life at a time.

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Sites with more info about Fort Hope:

Another Fort Hope post

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