For His Kingdom

Prayer Photo

Photos help focus our prayers.  This one was taken by J. R. Crouse in Tarma, Peru during our recent visit there.  We're praying for Peru national leader Miguel Algorta and his wife.  Use this photo to help concentrate your prayers today for Miguel, as well as other national leaders you know.

The red roofed church with a witness to the world

If you know what you’re looking for you can see the red roof of the Agua de Nieve church for miles.  This is the mountain congregation that has given Cosme coffee – mountain grown, organic, Arabic coffee – to the world.  It’s led by Pastora Margarita.

Members of her congregation were suffering from unscrupulous coffee buyers, receiving pennies on a pound until Chris Gohl, a VISA worker, came to Peru and realized we could help.  Cosme coffee is now a regular on our SEED micro industry table.

The trip from Tarma – already high in the Andes – is treacherous and difficult.  If the roads are dry and all goes well you can make it in a half day.  And just when you might be discouraged by the trip, someone spies the red roof – way up in the mountains.  You’re still an hour away, but you know the church is still there.

Some know Agua de Nieve only for its location and its coffee.  Those who know it best know it has much more.  It’s a place where people find health and hope in Jesus.

The day we visited, a family in the church had become alienated from the congregation.  They took advantage of our visit and that of Peru Director Miguel Agorta – their original FM pastor – to call for help.  That afternoon Pastor Miguel and Pastora Margarita were used of God to heal the breach and bring them back into the church.  Awesome.

A young man in the congregation had stumbled spiritually.  Pastora Maria – Miguel’s wife – spent precious time with him and invited him to leave the broad way with many who would lead him astray, and take the narrow way – the way of Jesus.  A hurting young man came back to Jesus.

We do many things in Free Methodist World Missions to show the love of Jesus – including coffee importing and sales.  We believe the real Christian shares the full blessings of the Gospel.  But everything we do must be in relation to the local church – whether in an urban slum or rural mountain.  Reconciling God’s children to each other and the Father is what we are all about.  And that is what will make us a light on a hill.  Whether we have a red roof or not.

Because Louis is Important

Country shares are import because Louis is important. 

Recently I spent a few days in Peru, visiting our missionaries Garry and Pat Cruce and J. R. and Becky Crouse.  What a great time it was!  And, what a powerful reminder of the importance of supporting our missionaries and country shares! 

We’re a young church in Peru. The Cruces arrived last July and the Crouses only a few months before.  Our country director Miguel Agorta has only led the work for a short time before that.  We now have eight churches and at least that many church planting projects. Seminary classes are conducted in three locations.  People are coming to know Jesus and are growing in their faith.

Early in our visit Garry said, “If people only knew the importance of country shares, we’d have no problem at all”  We had been talking about the fact that only a little more than half of their country shares for 2008 have been committed. 

“Without country shares, our country director couldn’t travel and encourage the pastors – many very far away and alone – in their work.  Without country shares we would not have seminary classes. There would be many other opportunities if the country shares were larger.”

As we transition to our new funding system we desperately need to cover all of our country shares.  Most represent support that the national church has received in the past.  Without it, ministry will suffer.  Many situations could become critical.

A few days later I was reminded why country shares are important on a whole different level.  We had just visited Pastor Guillermo the leader of our second church in Tarma.  I’ll never forget the front of his church.  It has a mural depicting the globe with the Holy Spirit pouring out his blessing on the world.  As we left, Pastor Guillermo mentioned a new Christian who works in a hotel across the street.  “Could we stop by and say Hello,” someone asked.  Soon we were in the hotel lobby greeting Louis.  Pastor mentioned how he was having family troubles and began coming to the church.  Louis asked Jesus to forgive his sins and has experienced great happiness in the Lord.  He beamed as Pastor Guillermo talked of God’s work in his life.

I realized again why country shares are important.  Without them and the ministry they support, Louis would probably not know Jesus.  Country shares are not an investment in this world.  They are an investment in eternity.

On April 1 several countries did not receive their full quarterly apportionment for country shares.  Could you and your church help.  Call or write me or Kevin Jordahl and we’ll give you more information.

Jake DeShazer

We asked Dr. K. Lavern Snider, our missionary to Japan from 1957 to 1992, to share some memories in preparation for the FMWM tribute to Jacob DeShazer. Jake’s recent death has catapulted his story again into the national news. He was converted in a Japanese prison camp and then after World War II returned to Japan as a Free Methodist missionary.

Here are some of Lavern’s remarks:

“My first acquaintance with Jacob DeShazer was in 1953. Jake had already been in Japan for some time preaching the gospel across the nation with amazing results. I heard that he had led many people to Christ – probably more converts than any other missionary to that time.

“As a conference, a Youth Congress on Evangelism, neared the time to close, I needed to see Jake about some scheduling. Not knowing how to find him, I sent a messenger to find him so that I could see him but for a few moments. The response each time was ‘He is busy and cannot come.’ I asked what he was busy about. The response was, ‘He is leading someone to Christ and will not be free until he had completed this task.’ I was stunned. But this was Jake. He had a divine compulsion to lead people to the Savior he had come to know as a prisoner of war of the Japanese.”

Jake and his wife Florence spent 30 years as FMWM missionaries in Japan. During their ministry 23 new Free Methodist churches were established, hundreds of people came to Jesus, and the story of Jake’s conversion in a Japanese prison camp and subsequent call to go back to his captors with the message of Jesus became nationally known. His memorial service was held March 29 in Salem, Oregon.

We praise the Lord for the way that He continues to call people to extraordinary ministry – even though not all as high-profile as Jake’s. But our passion for those who do not know Jesus can be just as great, and our impact just as permanent. Praise the Lord!

Churches Going Global

Early in February Sylvia and I attended a fascinating conference in Orlando.  We wouldn’t normally have gone, but Steve Moore, who heads The Mission Exchange (formally EFMA), the major organization that networks missions organizations, thought I shouldn’t miss it.  The North American Global Congress was the latest attempt to coordinate a strategy to share the gospel with unreached people groups that have not yet been engaged.

The whole experience was very interesting – especially the focus on the key role of the local church.  In fact, although many leaders of mission organizations were present, the whole interactive experience was first programmed with the local church in mind.  Among the speakers was Bob Roberts, Jr., author of Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage the New Flat Earth.  Some of you may have read that book or the Christianity Today article that was taken from it.  He’s popularized the term “glocal church” and I was reminded again that our own emphasis on the global-local church has arrived just in time.

Recently we’ve visited two more churches that are stretching to be global-local churches.  First we were at Wenatchee FMC (WA) for their annual Go Conference.  Wenatchee FMC is the large church out of which the Lord has called Jim and Barb Stillman to Africa and Greg and Brenda Hendrick to Ukraine.  Greg and Brenda, Jerry and Jan Coleman and Marcie Huson also attended and spoke at the conference.

This year Wenatchee FMC did something they have not done before.  Their special missions goal of $50,000 – usually set aside for a bricks-and-mortar project – was designated this year for special missionary support.  Most of the $50,000 goal will be split between four missionary families whom they are afraid may come up short financially this year.  Beautiful!

Then we were in Janesville, WI, to share with the Emmanuel FMC. This is a church that discovered country partnerships before most others and has come alongside our Kenya church to assist with missions work in Uganda.  The partnership has so far helped to build a church building, established a micro-industry for people without jobs, and is sending a medical team.  Emmanuel FMC’s enthusiasm for Uganda is contagious.

Praise the Lord for Who He is – and what He will do through the global-local Free Methodist Church.  In fact, almost everywhere I travel these days, I sense the deep desire of many of our people to be engaged firsthand in a missionary partnership that will change the world.  This is a huge opportunity we want to embrace.

When I shared these thoughts with our missionaries, I suggested four responses. First, let’s look at every supporting church primarily as a partner and only secondarily as a source of resources.  Yes, we desperately need money, prayer support and additional workers.  But those will best come, perhaps in abundance, through ongoing partnerships.

Second, let’s build partnerships where global-local churches can make substantive contributions to the work, while we support them in training their cross-cultural leaders.

Third, let’s recognize that these relationships will demand a significant investment of time and energy on our part. It will not happen overnight. It will also include risk.  However, the potential of the investment is high – in many cases you will be able to multiply several times your effectiveness for the kingdom.

Fourth, let’s pray earnestly as we look for a new director of local church mobilization.  We need help – including a coordinated plan – as we seek to partner effectively with many who want to contribute significantly to what the Lord is doing in our world today.  The technology of the 21^st century enables their involvement as never before.

Indianapolis West Morris Street

Our home church in Indianapolis is the West Morris Street Free Methodist Church -- a congregation with a great history of ministry both to the hurting of their own urban community and also to the hurting of the world.  Joel and Janette Miller are the latest of their congregation to be sent as FMWM ExT missionaries.  Before becoming WMFMC pastor, John Hay served as director of Horizon House, a ministry to the underprivileged of the near west side of Indianapolis.

Sunday we were in Indy and were blessed to worship with our home church and hear Pastor John preach again.  His sermon series was on the church and his topic for the morning was “A Highly Mobile Church”.  He looked right into our eyes and challenged us to follow Jesus into the streets and neighborhoods of our world.

Earlier on Sunday I had received late updates from the breaking news in Kenya.  Horrible things are happening in that thought-to-be-stable country.  Political conflict has become tribal and thousands are being tormented and many are moving out of the cities and back to their “ancestral lands” for protection.  Our own people are caught in the middle.  They’re trying to protect their own families – especially their wives and daughters because gang rape is a favorite tribal weapon right now in Africa.  And at the same time they are trying to be Jesus -- harboring the vulnerable.  In fact, Sunday morning we had just released a thousand dollars in emergency aid to help one of our particularly endangered pastors to get his family home.

I sat in pastor John’s sermon and began to preach my own sermon to myself.  Good sermons do that to me.

What if, I thought; Free Methodists a hundred years ago had not been part of a highly mobile church?  What if the G Harry Agnew, the Lincolns and others had not gone to South Africa and Mozambique, even at the high cost of some of their own lives.  What if J. W. Haley had not been highly mobile – leaving South Africa and traveling in response to the desperate call from Rwanda-Burundi?  What if Haley’s spiritual descendants had not been highly mobile – leaving Burundi during a horrible ethic clash?  But not just leaving, going much like the Christians of the first century who scattered and then took the gospel to lands that would not have had it?  What if any of these had failed to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth?

We have a strong vibrant church in Kenya today just because of this kind of God-ordained Holy Spirit-led mobility.    And the Lord is using it as an instrument of healing in one of the most difficult places in the world today.

On the phone Saturday, Cathy Bushnell had recounted to me one of those miracles.  Recently special aid was sent from the Bishops Famine and Relief Fund to help our displaced and hurting people of Kenya.  It was dispersed through our church.  One of those churches is located in Kibera, often referred to as the second largest slum in the world.  Cathy told me that when the most desperate of the church had been helped, the leaders discovered that there were still a few dollars left.  Rather than saving it for the next desperate need – one sure to come in a place like that – the leaders asked if anyone knew of those beyond the church who were in desperate need.  A list was quickly made and the aid distributed.  Praise the Lord for a highly mobile church – it’s the only hope of a hurting world.

And thank you Pastor John Hay and the highly mobile members of the West Morris Street Free Methodist Church.  Any who look at your lives of faith are challenged to live your pastor’s sermons.  That’s the way it must be in the Global-Local Church.

Good News Indeed

The Good News is this – the Lord can transform all of life.  Or, as my mother likes to say “Jesus came to make bad people good”.  My daily Scripture reading recently powerfully reminded me of that fact.

My reading took me to Romans 5 and the wonderful promise from verse 17, "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ."

What a glorious promise!  However dark the sin of our world -- even brighter is the adequacy of the Spirit to victoriously change our lives and our world.

And what a good thing.  Another reading the same morning took me to Genesis 34 and the rape of Dinah, Isaac and Rebecca's daughter -- a sin compounded by the deceit of her brothers.  Even the good guys so often use worldly means in pursuit of justice -- and perhaps some vengeance also.

What a good thing God can change all of this.  My reading that same morning also took my to Job 1.  Why should one of the earth's truly good men lose everything, family, home, security, because of a conversation between God and the Evil One?  How could he possibly say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised” -- and not sin?

There's an eternal reality direct from the heart of God.  Any who walk fully with him accept it.  It’s the basis of faith  -- or maybe the essence of faith itself.  It’s a promise that cannot be broken because it is reality itself. The power of sin pales in comparison to the power of God.  That power of God can rule in our lives.  It propels Paul to daily faithful obedience.  It kept Job strong in the face of the worse.  It's what makes all life colorful with possibility.  It's the essence of love itself.  It found its fulfillment in Jesus. And it is realized today wherever his church is born.  Praise His Name.

St. Petersburg Cornerstone Community Church

Churches across North America are stretching to become global local churches -- churches that are living  the reality of Acts 1:8.  One of those churches is Cornerstone Community Church in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Sylvia and I visited Cornerstone for the weekend of their annual missions celebration, January 10-13.  Other speakers for the weekend were Jeanne Munos, one of our missionaries in Haiti, and Lucien Behar who with his wife Molly just returned from missionary service for us in Belgium.

Rex and LaWanda Bullock are pastoral leaders of the church.  Both have a great heart for missions.  The church has multiplied their missions giving several times since they came to the church.  Rex has an internatiional radio broadcast  Dayspring and LaWanda serves as president of our denominational WMI.

The church supports FMWM missionaries Mike and Maria Long and Josh and Susie Fajardo and have pledged to increase that support in this time of transition.  An ongoing partnership with Nicaragua has been a great mutual blessing with multiple teams going to Managua.  The church is a strong supporter of International Child Care Ministries.

In addition to two morning worship services, an international church led by a Brazilian pastor worships each week in their facility.

My heart was deeply touched as I felt the hope that is growing at Cornerstone for the world.  They are beginning to live the vision of the global local church.

Being Thankful as the New Year Begins

As we begin a new year, there are many things for which we are deeply grateful.

First, we welcome Dick and Sheila Dickinson to our missionary team. Dick presently pastors the Layhill Community FMC in Silver Spring, MD, and Sheila is a school teacher. You may remember the clip from last year’s video that featured the Dickinsons’ work. They have begun Partnership Building ministries and we hope they will be on the field in Belgium by early 2009. They will have a busy year as, in addition to preparing for departure, Dick and Sheila will also celebrate the weddings of both of their daughters this summer.

Second, we finished 2007 very strong financially. Painful cost-cutting saved $100,000 in expenditures, most of the annual conferences met their final UMC goals, and we had an exceptional year for gifts given through wills and bequests. We expect to come out in the black. Praise the Lord!

Third, we’re pleased to welcome Kevin Jordahl as our new director of development. He served as a regional vice president for the Free Methodist Foundation until the end of 2007. Kevin is commuting weekly from Janesville, WI, until this summer when his family will move to Indianapolis. Because of his training, gifts and experience, we’re changing the director of development position to include the work of missionary funding coach. We will then look for a financial manager to handle the finance duties previously cared for by Warren. Please pray that we find a finance person quickly so we can provide you with the high level of support you need.

Fourth, the funding commitments for our Missionary Support Accounts (MSAs) and Country Share Accounts (CSAs) are coming along well. Most should make the deadlines, and some are even oversubscribed. Kevin will be giving attention to the few CSAs and MSAs that remain a concern.

Finally, Sylvia and I are praising the Lord for the arrival of our fourth grandchild, Abraham David Kratzer. He was born about three weeks early, but is doing very well. Older siblings Ian, Isaac and Esther couldn’t be happier, nor could his parents David and Shelli.

Thank you for ministering generously in the name of Jesus. Your work authenticates the gospel.

Holiday Greetings

December 2007

Dear Friends in Christ,

“Joy to the world! The Lord is come.” The world desperately needs this joy – and Sylvia and I have often witnessed His joy unexpectedly as we have traveled the world.

In September we took my parents to Israel for two weeks. It was the first time any of us had been there. My mom turns 90 in January, so we decided to move more slowly and not join a packaged tour. That gave us more flexibility but also made some things more difficult. For example, we wanted to ride a boat in Galilee, but discovered it was almost impossible to do so without being part of a tour. Finally we decided to simply ask a tour boat operator if they could add us to a group. Yes, they said, as long as the tour leader agreed. Fortunately, the first asked was leading a group of evangelicals from Ecuador. Though we had never met them before, they welcomed us warmly, declared us their guests, and then continued their trip as if we were part of the family. It was wonderful. We were blessed by worship choruses, spirited preaching, the commissioning of a missionary (no kidding!) and earnest prayer. They declared again that Galilee is holy ground – not just for Jews and Muslims – but particularly for followers of Jesus Christ.

Repeatedly this year we have been reminded in more ways than words can express that this is our Father’s world. Joy to the world! The Lord is come.

We’re privileged to greet you again during this holiday season. Our family has been blessed beyond measure. Our daughter Melissa and her husband Jason continue their hospital, business and house church ministry in the Toronto, Canada, area. Our other daughter Shelli, her husband Dave, and kids Ian, Isaac and Esther bless – and are blessed by – the students of Oakdale Christian Academy in Kentucky. Our son Matt and his wife Anna Lee have moved to New Hampshire where they work in companion organizations that serve teens. We could not be happier with their lives and ministries.

Sylvia and I are blessed as we watch the Lord work all around the world. Sylvia continues her leadership of SEED, the FMWM micro-industry ministry. Her interim leadership has now continued for two years. We trust the Lord to bring the right new leader at just the right time. We’ve been especially fascinated to watch the way the Lord has touched many through this marvelous initiative.

We continue to travel. This year we were blessed to visit four continents, 10 countries, 19 annual conferences, and 18 North American local churches. We also commissioned 11 new missionaries. This has been a year of high stress because of FMWM’s transition to a new funding system. I’m wearing four hats for a few months – executive director, Africa area director, Latin America area director and director of mobilization. By mid-2008 we expect I’ll be down to just one hat. We praise the Lord for Mike Reynen and Delia Nüesch-Olver, who will assume responsibilities for Africa and Latin America next summer.

The Lord continues to do absolutely amazing things. We can’t begin to thank Him enough.

And we cannot begin to thank you adequately for your work and your prayers. The victories are all won in the spiritual realm – and the primary resource is always prayer.

Thank you for continuing to serve Jesus, expressing His love to His cherished missing all around our world. They desperately need to hear that joy has come to our world because God is, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.

May this Christmas season be filled with our Lord’s richest blessing.

For Jesus and His Kingdom,

Art