Our puppet personality contest produced some amazing results!
Mark
Sunday, August 28, 2005
August Dynabyte with Margburg testimony
What a great month this has been! It's had its challenges for sure, but I think we've made a greater impact for Children's ministries in Angola this month than any other.
We had a team come in from Calvary Christian Church in Massachusetts and they were such a blessing. They brought lots of great children's ministries resources and shared and showed us new ways to share the gospel, and they caught it all on film! While here, they trained Book of Hope teams, put on the Children's Ministries Expo. 2005, impacted the Angolan Assemblies of God National Convention, and drove up into the mountains to minister in Quilemba, South Kwanza. It just seemed like we kept picking up speed and intensity as the activities progressed.
The Expo. was a smashing success. We had a good turnout of children's ministries leaders from all over the country, most of them being from the Assemblies of God, but with other churches represented as well. And we didn't pull any punches either - we started right off with casting our vision of "Pentecostal Ministry Produces Pentecostal Kids." We shared from the Bible a foundation for Spirit-filled children's ministries, and shared a historical perspective as well, following that up with a great video segment of kids getting filled with the Spirit (IF ANYONE HAS SOME MORE VIDEO OR DVDs OF KIDS GETTING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OR BEING USED IN THE GIFTS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW).
After the video, we opened it up for people to give personal testimonies of experiences where they saw kids filled with the Spirit or used in the gifts of the Spirit.
The first guy who shared stood up and said, "Missionary Mark came to our church and shared this thing about kids getting filled with the Spirit and it was all new to us. We said, "Let's try it out and see if it works," and so we did a retreat. At our retreat we had times of worship and prayer and God started pouring out His Spirit on the kids. It was great, kids getting filled, even speaking in tongues. We're really blessed."
Another fellow stood up and shared about how when he was 8 years old how he influenced his parents to go to church and they got saved. God used him to lead his parents to Christ at 8 years old.
I applauded this testimony, but asked that we could keep it on track and only those share who had a testimony of a child getting filled with the Spirit, or being used in the gifts of the Spirit.
This time a Sister gets up and comes to the front to testify. She says that she went to her sister's house and while she was there, her 6 yr old nephew went into the restroom to relieve himself. He was in there for quite a while, but when he finally came out, he was so jubilant, happily praising God. She asked him why he was all excited. He responded:
"Tia, I went in to the potty and made a poo. I tried to flush it down, but it wouldn't go. I tried to flush it down a second time, but it still wouldn't go. So I got really upset and said, 'In the name of Jesus!' and I flushed that toilet again. Praise the Lord - that poo went down."
Wow. How do you respond to a testimony like that. The person who just gave it smiles and looks to you for approval, affirmation. The hundred and some participants are still trying to figure out if they just heard what they actually think they heard. And now you have to perform some kind of Evil Knievel verbal gymnastic to try to tie things together and move on.
"Sai, demonio Sai!" I responded, which in portuguese kind of means, "Get that devil out of there."
... and we moved on.
I would say that the vast majority of participants caught a new vision for children's ministries. Hopefully it wasn't too twisted because of some of the interesting input that we received. Everyone received a syllabus, a new puppet, a Children's Ministries Program Manual, and 3 meals. It was a lot of work, and we received a lot of support from our team from Massachusetts, Christian Life Church in Kensington, Connecticut (thanks Dolly!), Africa's Children, and BGMC. Thanks so much to everyone!
On the tail of the Exposition was the National Convention of the Assemblies of God of Angola. The Superintendent of the A/G had cancelled all guest speakers because the Convention was just going to deal with revisions to the Constitution and Bylaws of the church. At the last moment the Superintendent asked if Pastor Paul Conway (the leader of our visiting team) could preach in each of the morning sessions to all the ministers gathered from all over the country. Pastor Paul preached Children's Ministries, emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of children - that kids can be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. This was very significant because the constitution of the church here says that a child cannot be baptized until they are at least 15 years old. The rationale being that they didn't believe a child had the mental capacity to understand the gospel. Pastor Paul's preaching combined with the Exposition to produce a paradigm shift in the church, and now the leaders have asked me to reproduce the video that I showed of children praying in the Spirit, to send out to all the churches so as to be able facilitate more easily a change in the Constitution.
God's orchestrating some great things here!
Another interesting note was hearing about THE EFFECT OF THE MARBURG VIRUS ON THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH IN UIGE. During the Convention, I spoke with Pastor Menga of the A/G church in Uige and he told me that even though people were dying all around them, that not one person in the Assemblies of God church lost their life due to the Marburg Virus. Several women (Albertina Daniel, Lusolo Isabel) did catch the virus and were vomiting blood and had diarrhea with blood, however, the church had an all night prayer meeting and the women were miraculously healed. God is greater and there is power that is released through travailing, prevailing prayer.
After the Convention we took the team to Gabela for several days of Children's Ministries. We played games with the kids, painted faces, showed movies (Jesus film, the Miracle Maker, The Cross and the Switchblade), did puppets, object lessons, stories, altar calls - even pulled out a big, 30 foot, multicolored parachute that the team brought for the kids to play with. So much, and these kids lives have been impacted for eternity.
Some of the stuff that the team brought over didn't work too well, but even that was a blessing. The mixture of dish detergent and karo syrup with water to make big soap bubbles didn't work, but that's fine with me. Now Kim will be able to use that Karo syrup to make some PECAN PIE! Oh yeah, nothing is wasted! Missionaries Joel and Adrienne are working on trying to discover a new formula for bubblemaking here that could substitute the karo syrup for something else. Hey, maybe I'll ask someone to bring over some marshmallow fluff to try out in the mixture. If that doesn't work, I haven't had a "Fluffernutter" in ages! Maybe even A&W rootbeer too!
I'm still hearing positive reports from our ministry to Namibia. While there we taught on "Deeper Life Children's Ministries." The church caught a vision for Spirit Filled children's ministries and at the latest retreat there were children who were filled with the Holy Spirit, called into ministry, and experienced visions of the passion of Christ. I'm telling you, God's getting ready to rip it wide open in Namibia. oooooh chihuahua! This is just the beginning!
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Missionary Carl Gibbs arrives this weekend to help us teach Bible classes at the Bible School.
- Kim flies to Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday to attend a seminar on Equipping the National Church to deal with the AIDS crisis.
(putting two and two together, you can see that I will be left at home to take care of our guest. That includes cooking. Please pray for the health of our guest, as well as travelling mercies for Kim)
- A team of Physiotherapists with A/G Healthcare ministries arrives on Sept 11 to help with ministry to the handicapped children.
- FURLOUGH! We're starting to plan our furlough - coming home next year. I'll be starting to set up my services over the next few months. Please pray for divine guidance in this.
That's all for now folks! Thanks for praying for us and keeping us going. We wouldn't be here if you weren't there. Simple, but profound.
May the Lord bless you with a peaceful, really good night's sleep tonight,
Mark, Kim, and Breanna
We had a team come in from Calvary Christian Church in Massachusetts and they were such a blessing. They brought lots of great children's ministries resources and shared and showed us new ways to share the gospel, and they caught it all on film! While here, they trained Book of Hope teams, put on the Children's Ministries Expo. 2005, impacted the Angolan Assemblies of God National Convention, and drove up into the mountains to minister in Quilemba, South Kwanza. It just seemed like we kept picking up speed and intensity as the activities progressed.
The Expo. was a smashing success. We had a good turnout of children's ministries leaders from all over the country, most of them being from the Assemblies of God, but with other churches represented as well. And we didn't pull any punches either - we started right off with casting our vision of "Pentecostal Ministry Produces Pentecostal Kids." We shared from the Bible a foundation for Spirit-filled children's ministries, and shared a historical perspective as well, following that up with a great video segment of kids getting filled with the Spirit (IF ANYONE HAS SOME MORE VIDEO OR DVDs OF KIDS GETTING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OR BEING USED IN THE GIFTS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW).
After the video, we opened it up for people to give personal testimonies of experiences where they saw kids filled with the Spirit or used in the gifts of the Spirit.
The first guy who shared stood up and said, "Missionary Mark came to our church and shared this thing about kids getting filled with the Spirit and it was all new to us. We said, "Let's try it out and see if it works," and so we did a retreat. At our retreat we had times of worship and prayer and God started pouring out His Spirit on the kids. It was great, kids getting filled, even speaking in tongues. We're really blessed."
Another fellow stood up and shared about how when he was 8 years old how he influenced his parents to go to church and they got saved. God used him to lead his parents to Christ at 8 years old.
I applauded this testimony, but asked that we could keep it on track and only those share who had a testimony of a child getting filled with the Spirit, or being used in the gifts of the Spirit.
This time a Sister gets up and comes to the front to testify. She says that she went to her sister's house and while she was there, her 6 yr old nephew went into the restroom to relieve himself. He was in there for quite a while, but when he finally came out, he was so jubilant, happily praising God. She asked him why he was all excited. He responded:
"Tia, I went in to the potty and made a poo. I tried to flush it down, but it wouldn't go. I tried to flush it down a second time, but it still wouldn't go. So I got really upset and said, 'In the name of Jesus!' and I flushed that toilet again. Praise the Lord - that poo went down."
Wow. How do you respond to a testimony like that. The person who just gave it smiles and looks to you for approval, affirmation. The hundred and some participants are still trying to figure out if they just heard what they actually think they heard. And now you have to perform some kind of Evil Knievel verbal gymnastic to try to tie things together and move on.
"Sai, demonio Sai!" I responded, which in portuguese kind of means, "Get that devil out of there."
... and we moved on.
I would say that the vast majority of participants caught a new vision for children's ministries. Hopefully it wasn't too twisted because of some of the interesting input that we received. Everyone received a syllabus, a new puppet, a Children's Ministries Program Manual, and 3 meals. It was a lot of work, and we received a lot of support from our team from Massachusetts, Christian Life Church in Kensington, Connecticut (thanks Dolly!), Africa's Children, and BGMC. Thanks so much to everyone!
On the tail of the Exposition was the National Convention of the Assemblies of God of Angola. The Superintendent of the A/G had cancelled all guest speakers because the Convention was just going to deal with revisions to the Constitution and Bylaws of the church. At the last moment the Superintendent asked if Pastor Paul Conway (the leader of our visiting team) could preach in each of the morning sessions to all the ministers gathered from all over the country. Pastor Paul preached Children's Ministries, emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of children - that kids can be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. This was very significant because the constitution of the church here says that a child cannot be baptized until they are at least 15 years old. The rationale being that they didn't believe a child had the mental capacity to understand the gospel. Pastor Paul's preaching combined with the Exposition to produce a paradigm shift in the church, and now the leaders have asked me to reproduce the video that I showed of children praying in the Spirit, to send out to all the churches so as to be able facilitate more easily a change in the Constitution.
God's orchestrating some great things here!
Another interesting note was hearing about THE EFFECT OF THE MARBURG VIRUS ON THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH IN UIGE. During the Convention, I spoke with Pastor Menga of the A/G church in Uige and he told me that even though people were dying all around them, that not one person in the Assemblies of God church lost their life due to the Marburg Virus. Several women (Albertina Daniel, Lusolo Isabel) did catch the virus and were vomiting blood and had diarrhea with blood, however, the church had an all night prayer meeting and the women were miraculously healed. God is greater and there is power that is released through travailing, prevailing prayer.
After the Convention we took the team to Gabela for several days of Children's Ministries. We played games with the kids, painted faces, showed movies (Jesus film, the Miracle Maker, The Cross and the Switchblade), did puppets, object lessons, stories, altar calls - even pulled out a big, 30 foot, multicolored parachute that the team brought for the kids to play with. So much, and these kids lives have been impacted for eternity.
Some of the stuff that the team brought over didn't work too well, but even that was a blessing. The mixture of dish detergent and karo syrup with water to make big soap bubbles didn't work, but that's fine with me. Now Kim will be able to use that Karo syrup to make some PECAN PIE! Oh yeah, nothing is wasted! Missionaries Joel and Adrienne are working on trying to discover a new formula for bubblemaking here that could substitute the karo syrup for something else. Hey, maybe I'll ask someone to bring over some marshmallow fluff to try out in the mixture. If that doesn't work, I haven't had a "Fluffernutter" in ages! Maybe even A&W rootbeer too!
I'm still hearing positive reports from our ministry to Namibia. While there we taught on "Deeper Life Children's Ministries." The church caught a vision for Spirit Filled children's ministries and at the latest retreat there were children who were filled with the Holy Spirit, called into ministry, and experienced visions of the passion of Christ. I'm telling you, God's getting ready to rip it wide open in Namibia. oooooh chihuahua! This is just the beginning!
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Missionary Carl Gibbs arrives this weekend to help us teach Bible classes at the Bible School.
- Kim flies to Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday to attend a seminar on Equipping the National Church to deal with the AIDS crisis.
(putting two and two together, you can see that I will be left at home to take care of our guest. That includes cooking. Please pray for the health of our guest, as well as travelling mercies for Kim)
- A team of Physiotherapists with A/G Healthcare ministries arrives on Sept 11 to help with ministry to the handicapped children.
- FURLOUGH! We're starting to plan our furlough - coming home next year. I'll be starting to set up my services over the next few months. Please pray for divine guidance in this.
That's all for now folks! Thanks for praying for us and keeping us going. We wouldn't be here if you weren't there. Simple, but profound.
May the Lord bless you with a peaceful, really good night's sleep tonight,
Mark, Kim, and Breanna
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