The Good News Email – 05-25-2014

Greetings from Los Angeles! On Sunday, May 18th, with a Missions Contribution Goal of $555,000 – 20X our weekly pledge – the Lord blessed the sacrificial hearts of the City of Angels Church disciples by shattering our goal and giving us a total of $595,297! Then this following Sunday, May 25th, we were again blessed to see more miracles as the Spirit sent out Gabe & Stephanie Reed to lead the great Eugene Church; Krista Cameron to become a fulltime intern in the awesome London Church; Rich & Angie Tabizon to Manila to become their Shepherding Couple; and Tim & Lianne and the Toronto Mission Team to plant a discipling church in their incredible homeland of Canada!

On a personal note, Elena & I were able to encourage and strengthen the disciples in Mexico City on the weekend of May 9-11, 2014.

Then the following week, we spent time with Jason & Sarah Dimitry traveling around the San Francisco Bay Area while praying and discussing the Spirit’s plan of sending the Dimitrys and 16 other disciples to build up the San Francisco Bay Church! That Sunday, May 18th, Elena & I were very moved to worship with this incredible congregation!

This week, the Lord blessed the City of Angels Church with 10 baptisms and two place memberships from our former fellowship! So exciting that in the first 145 days of 2014, the Lord has added to our number 218 – 162 baptisms, 29 restorations and 27 place memberships – about a third of whom have joined us from our former fellowship seeking revival! And to God be all the glory!

And now more detailed reports from around LA…

Cory Blackwell: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name!” (Psalm 100:4) Greetings from the Southland Region! Today we hosted four other regions of the City Of Angles Church – the South, North, West and Central! The building was packed, as we “entered His gates with thanksgiving!”

The communion by Jake & Megan Studer was touching; the contribution by Rich & Angie Tabizon was phenomenally challenging; and the lesson by Tim Kernan was blow away as he spoke about God’s deliverance of His people from the slavery in Egypt!

Near the end of the service, many dreams were realized as we sent out Tim & Lianne Kernan and the Toronto Mission Team as well as missionaries to London, England and Manila, Philippines! Our final song was emblematic of this historic day – Go Make Disciples! 

For Southland, today was highlighted by the baptism of Magdaleno who was reached out to by our brother Andreas Sanchez who has been fruitful several times this year!

I am also so proud of Pat & Sparkle Boea and their Paramount Bible Talk! In the last three weeks, they have had three additions: Gabriel – a restoration from our former fellowship had no hope until our brother Alex Hernandez reached out to him; Omar – a baptism, who drives from Perris, California about an hour drive just to be with us and does not miss a single service; and Isidro – another baptism and now an amazing young brother who is full of zeal and has big Kingdom dreams!

Lastly, though poor like the Macedonian Churches, we blew out our Special Missions Prayer Goal and we did it with a joy that came from having the opportunity to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! To God be all the thanksgiving and praise.

Luke Speckman: The past three weeks have been nothing short of amazing and faith building for the disciples in Ventura! First, with only 40 members in our region, we were able to give over $41,000 for Special Missions –  exceeding our goal! Next, God has added five to our number – one place membership, one restoration and three baptisms!

Of special note were today’s baptisms – Domenike & Iresha Fitts! “From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him.” (Acts 17:26-27) It is apparent to all that God has set up the times and places for the Fitts to“seek Him!” The Swanns and Brandyn & I enrolled our sons, Malik and Jordan, on a Club Basketball team in Ventura.

Brandyn began to reach out to a few of the mothers, including Iresha. After bumping into each other on different occasions, we were able to convince Iresha and her husband to come over for dinner on Monday, to a Bible study on Wednesday, and then to church on Sunday! It was at church on Sunday when we realized that Domenike had worked with two sisters, BJ and Iyonna, 2 ½ years ago! AND… Domenike actually attended a Bible Study led by Ryan Keenan! It was during a dark time in their marriage and Ryan advised Domenike to return to his wife and work things out. Domenike took heed to this godly advice and returned home.

Shortly thereafter, he stopped working for the same company and lost all contact with BJ and the Keenans. Even though 2 ½ years passed, God had a plan all along!! Thank God for teens (and new best friends) playing basketball! Amazingly, after Domenike was baptized today, he was able to baptize his wife, and they have plans to renew their vows as true disciples of Jesus! Please continue to pray for the harvest in Ventura!

Chris Broom of the OC Region: “Then they spoke the Word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized… He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God – he and his whole family.” (Acts 16:32-34)

We have been studying the Book of Philippians in Orange County for a few weeks now and I love how the beginning of the church in Philippi is documented in Acts 16 by Luke. Through persecution and suffering, God set “the exact time and place” (Acts 17:26-27) where Paul and Silas are put in jail so that they can preach to those also in prison and so that God can save the jailer himself and his entire family through the waters of baptism! And the Bible simply says, “He was filled with joy!”

We too are “filled with joy” in the OC Region over the four new disciples that have been baptized in the last three weeks! Excitingly, three of these precious souls (Allen, his wife Griselda, and Estela) are from the Married Ministry which is being led powerfully by Sal & Patricia Velasco!

The fourth was Maria from our Campus Ministry! She was met at Fullerton Junior College by Kyrstal Legarda and Jennifer Garcia. Sadly, she stopped studying the Bible after receiving persecution from her family but after a few months, she realized that her life of sin was not something she wanted to continue in and she started making radical changes! Even before her baptism, she contributed greatly to all of Orange County’s Missions Contribution efforts including “tagging” and the “Clothes for the Cause!” The OC Region is so thrilled that with a goal of $121,421, God blessed us with $129,300 and more is still coming in!

We are also “filled with joy” over our Orange County family! Three weeks ago, the entire OC Region met at Craig Regional Park for a Mother’s Day Service and Picnic to honor our physical moms and our spiritual moms!

We also honored our 2014 graduates; thirteen amazing individuals who are graduating from various programs ranging from elementary school to the college level! 
 

Blaise Feumba of the North Region: What a warm and incredible welcome two weeks ago at LAX as my family landed from London! The LA disciples have lavished us with the love of the Lord in an outstanding manner! We are so blessed to lead the incredible North Region where the Willis and the Kernans have done an amazing job building the foundation!

Today, the Lord blessed the North Region with the baptism of a great lady named Terry! She was met by Rotasha Lewis because of the friendship between their daughters. Please keep us in your prayers as we dream of evangelizing all of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys of LA!

Chris Chloupek: How Ya Do’in? From the AMS Region!! “You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” (Psalm 77:14) In the past few weeks, the AMS has continued to experience God’s miracles! We blew out our Faith Goal for Special Missions! To top that off, we have had four wonderful baptisms! Brenda, a single mom of two made Jesus her Lord! Then Angela was baptized, followed by Sachu, and last but not least, Dan Bogartz was baptized!

Dan’s wife, Launa, has been a disciple for 18 years! Praise God for her patience and faith to win over her non-Christian husband!

Congratulations to Jabari Farrow who is now dating Jasminn Dove from the Washington DC Church! It’s great to be in a worldwide movement!

Once again, we have entered the 168 Film Festival Contest! This is a “faith based festival” where each film team draws a random Bible verse and then has to write a script and shoot a short film in 168 hours! There are 80 teams from around the world competing. For us, this Short Film Project will later be developed into our Second Annual GNN Film and be ready for the GLC in August! Please keep us in your prayers to have a global impact for God through media!

Lastly, Morgan Martin, a dear sister in the AMS, lost her 25 year old brother, Marcus last week. He had fainted and was rushed to the hospital. Sadly, he later died. Please keep her and her family in your prayers. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. Therefore, this year’s giving of our Special Missions has had an even deeper impression on our AMS Family. There’s no business like “soul” business!

Kyle Bartholomew: Greetings from the Central Region! These past two weeks have been busy as we were able to surpass our Special Missions Goal by over $1,000 in the midst of having two baptisms and preparing to send out our incredible Shepherding Couple, Rich & Angie Tabizon, to help strengthen the church in Manila, Philippines!

Sharon was our first baptism, an incredible girl from our CSULA Ministry that is fluent in Korean, and will be a big help in building a great campus ministry!

The second was a woman named Claudia. She has been studying the Bible with Angie Tabizon for over a year! To the delight of our fellowship and the incredible timing of God, Claudia decided she was ready to be a disciple on Angie’s last Sunday with the City of Angels Church! That is certainly the way to leave for the mission field, “In style!” 

Please pray for me as I will be accompanying the Tabizons to appoint them as the Shepherding Couple for the Manila Remnant Group, and on my way back, I will be stopping to encourage the Hawaiian Churches in Honolulu and Hilo! While in Hawaii, I will be unveiling our new plan to have five plantings, in five years appropriately entitled, “Hawaii 5-0!”Aloha!

From Cesar Limon: “But we had to CELEBRATE and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:32) Greetings of love from both sectors of the Inland Empire! It has been nothing short of a “celebration” for us as we just finished celebrating Special Missions by blowing out our goal in reaching 134% of it AND in witnessing 10 souls added to the family of God in the past three weeks!

In the Riverside Sector we celebrated four incredible miraculous baptisms – two of which came from our awesome TNT Teen Ministry!

The Palms Springs Sector, along with the angels, also had a celebration as the Lord added six to the Army of God out here! First off was a dream come true for any disciple as Alida, a recently baptized sister, was able to baptize her mom Veronica! She has already became a mother to all of us!

Second was Daniel which was a baptism I will never forget as for the first time ever I witnessed persecution make someone get baptized faster! Daniel was supposed to be baptized on Sunday but on Saturday night his parents persecuted him and attacked him in tears to try and detain him from getting baptized. Daniel’s conviction and decision was firm and so his mom called his grandfather, who is a Church of Christ preacher, to come and “speak some sense into him.”

Well his grandfather came to Argo’s 50th Birthday Party and simply asked Daniel, “Why are you getting baptized?” When Daniel stated that it was for the forgiveness of his sins and to be saved, his grandfather not only agreed but insisted that Daniel would be baptized before they left the building that evening, warning him that anything can happen on the way back to Palm Springs… So it is better to be safe than sorry! We hurried and brought the baptistery, filled it and closed Argo’s 50th Party the best way any party can close, with the salvation of a precious soul! Also very encouraging is that his family has now been coming out to church regularly and have fallen in love with the fellowship!

The celebration continued as we had two placed memberships from our former fellowship, seeking revival! Juan & Michelle were both baptized in our former fellowship more than ten years ago and have been incredible disciples leading many groups in the AMS Ministry and in the Music Ministry out here in the Desert for the ICOC. Sadly when the ICOC became autonomous, abandoned its central leadership, and the call for each member to be disciples that received discipling, Juan & Michelle felt that they were left without hope.

I received a call from Juan this past week and in his own words he desperately stated to me, “I want to be fired up again!” Well it was evident and obvious that he was because I think I heard him say, “I’m fired up” about thirty times at church! It is amazing to have him in the battle as I see the need more than ever to reach out to the remnant veterans!

Sonia Gonzalez Sr.: Greetings from the rejoicing East Region! In the last two weeks, God has given us two additions: Brianna and Annick! Brianna was reached out to and studied with by the Mt. SAC Ministry and last Sunday she couldn’t wait any longer to be baptized so the girls studied with her and baptized her before my husband’s (“Vic Sr.”) Birthday Party. For Victor, the greatest gift of all is a soul being added to God’s Kingdom!

Then we have Annick who was reached out to by my daughter Liz Gonzalez and was studying months with the Cal Poly Women. Annick humbled to the Scriptures, broke up with her boyfriend, made Jesus Lord of her life, and was baptized!

In other news, our dearly loved ministry couple, Gabe & Stephanie Reed, have been asked to go lead the church in Eugene, Oregon! We had a Going Away Party for them at Friday night Campus Devotional. Then our Sunday service we were privileged to hear Gabe preach his last sermon titled, Game Changer and Stephanie shared her heart for communion. Both of them have made a tremendous impact in the hearts of the disciples here and we can’t wait to see what the Lord does with them in Eugene!

Capil Marhatta: Greetings from the Sensational South! The South Region continues “to shine like stars in a dark universe” as we have been having NOT just “good news sharing,” but rather “Great News Sharing!” First of all, the Lord gave us the victory as we raised over $38,000 last week for our 20X Special Missions Contribution… which is about $7,000 more than our goal! Teamwork truly does makes the dream work!

A wise man once said, “The cure to most church problems are two baptisms!” Most of our problems have been solved as God has given us TWO BAPTISMS EACH WEEK the last three weeks! Our secret weapon has been a single sister from San Pedro named Karolina that has baptized three of her friends – one each week! Karolina’s friends that have become brothers and sisters included: Rebecca, Keshawn and Tutand!

Steve and Freddie were also baptized in our Singles Ministry that is on fire for God as all five of these baptisms come from the Ybarras’ Ministry! Finally, the highlight for our courageous leaders Oleg & Aliona Sirotkin was the baptism of their oldest daughter Sophiia at the Staff Meeting this past Tuesday! 
 

Please keep the Sirotkin Family in your prayers, as they just left for two weeks to encourage the remnant groups in Moscow and Kiev! And to God be the glory!
 
HEADLINE NEWS – USA & CANADA
 
NEWS FLASH – Tim Kernan, the Toronto Mission Team Leader:Greetings on our last night in LA! Sunday Service was the most moving mission team send-off I’ve ever seen! Thank you so much to the Southland, West, Central, South and North Regions for gathering to send us off and worship our awesome God together!

It was especially moving because we had our first Toronto remnant couple, Harvey & Nanette Weber, fly in from Canada to join us for the service!

Also, very touching was the fact that Lianne’s dad Steph Brown was able to come to the service and humbly shared that he wanted to be restored! So many dreams and prayers answered on one day!

Thank you so much to the McKeans, our dear parents in the faith, ‎for taking such good care of us! Thank you to the North Region for all your love! We will miss you all!

Pray for the Toronto Mission Team as we head north by car toward the great Canadian Harvest! Our missionary caravan will stop for a night to be refreshed by the disciples in Las Vegas, Denver and Chicago! The fourth day, Lord willing, we will be in Toronto!

NEWS FLASH – Mike Patterson: “He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” (Mark 1:12) Though the Gainesville Church was just planted in January, there have been so many amazing miracles here in “The Swamp!” The good news: We now have two new dating couples, Christian Lugo & Amelia Gomez and Joseph Melara & Courtney Abraham!

The most amazing miracle of all though is the forgiveness of sins! Mitch was an answered prayer as the first day I met him he came out to Men’s Midweek and was blown away even doing a Bible study that night! Last Wednesday after Women’s Midweek, he was baptized into Christ! Mitch is an incredible “opinion leader” and a member of Pi Kappa Alpha (“PIKE”) Fraternity at the University of Florida!

Finally, today Zack was baptized! Zack is studying at UF to be a doctor and was met by our sister June… affectionately known for her fruitfulness as “June the Baptist!”

I asked him if I could share his story with everyone… We studied with Zack for a while and he fought us often on doctrine due to his religious upbringing, his parents even serving as pastors in the past. We persevered with him for months until we reached his heart and the true root issues. Finally after the continual use of the Word of God, Zack opened up about his secret homosexual lifestyle. He had been in a relationship with a man for five years and was involved in many other sins. Tears poured out of Zack as for the first time he was completely open with the depravity he was enslaved to. He cut off the relationship and radically repented, renouncing this lifestyle.

Today he shared with the church very openly about his former life and at the end boldly said, “Today I’ll be going in the water a gay sinner and coming out a saint!” Truly anyone can change! Much like the people who witnessed Jesus, the response at the GICC today was “We have never seen anything like this!”

 
NEWS FLASH – Matt Sullivan of Orlando: This has been an incredible few weeks in the Lord! Rebuilding the Orlando Church has been much like landing here as a mission team! The Lord is raising up new leaders and so many people have been visiting! With only 63 members, we had 118 at church two weeks ago and 117 last week! Two weeks ago, Danette Ford was baptized and now her husband Eugene is studying the Bible!

Friday night at our Campus Devo, we had a fiery lesson on becomingTroublers Of Israel and then celebrated the last day of high school classes for Jennie Clerzeau and Melissa Sullivan with a beautiful cake! They both graduate from Winter Park High School on Tuesday! These two young ladies have faced some challenges this year: starting their own Bible Talk on campus, having persecution at school, and yet are finishing strong! Prayerfully, one of Melissa’s friends will be baptized this week! Jennie will be attending Valencia College here in Orlando and Melissa will attend USC in LA!

Then on Sunday, we had special guests in town: Jack & Jeanne McGee! They were visiting from their new home in South Florida. We had the privilege of introducing them to the church today with the “God inspired news” that they will be leading the newly formed South Florida International Christian Church!

The first service of this long awaited remnant group will be Sunday June 8, 2014 at 10AM at the McGee’s new home near Ft. Lauderdale. Their address is 3329 Atlanta Street, Hollywood, Florida 33021. The McGees wish to invite anyone who would like to find great fellowship with sold-out hearts, and who are willing to pay the price of revival to meet with them in just two weeks! Already some have contacted me and if you are interested or have family or friends in the area you can contact Jack at 954.816.5071 or you can call me: Matt Sullivan at 626.833.9480. We are so excited to have a another new church in Florida as God continues to lead us in forcefully advancing His Kingdom! 

Elizabeth McDonnell: Greetings from beautiful Santa Barbara! What a faith building few weeks it has been as God answered our prayer for a woman to be baptized here in Santa Barbara! Esmerelda was baptized into Christ on May 18th! Though she lives in Ventura County (some 40 miles away), she commutes each day up to Santa Barbara to go to the highly acclaimed Santa Barbara City College! After years of being beat up by the world, the love of the Kingdom blew her away; in fact, she was so impacted that she now plans on moving into the sisters’ household in June! She is a very sweet, kind and a genuine woman and is a great addition to the church here!

Many disciples have contacted us after the news broadcast of the mass shooting here in Santa Barbara, specifically the college town of Isla Vista where most of us live. We were very touched that so many wanted to check to make sure everyone was okay, which we are! After seven killed and seven more hospitalized, the town is in mourning. Please be praying for the families of the victims and the hearts of the students here, that it opens up their heart to seek after God. This morning at church, we already had one visitor who said he was prompted to come in light of the tragedy! And most importantly pray for the disciples to have the boldness to preach to a very lost and dark city. We love you all with the love of the Lord! 

Anthony Eckels: Greetings from Houston International Christian Church! We are super proud of the church, their hard work and perseverance! The Bible Talks have had a record breaking attendance the last two weeks, producing many studies. Here in Houston, many people go to mega-churches, like the famous Joel Osteen Ministries. One couple that are members of his church came to Bible Talk last week, and were so excited because they said, “We don’t really have Bible studies at his church!”

Amazingly, a brother had a Bible study in Subway with a friend this past week, and by the end of the study, he was approached by four more people who saw the Bible opened and want to study! Houston is hungry for the Word… just like Shameka Johnston, a Houston Community College nursing student, who was baptized into Christ this week!

Also, Sharon Campbell’s daughter and teen disciple Joshua Kelly’s sister, Maya was baptized! Maya’s youngest sister shared in tears how she wants to be just like Maya! After this inspiring baptism, one of Maya’s older sisters asked if the women in the church could study with her as well!

Please continue to pray for us, as we fight the false doctrine and religiosity of Houston with the Holy Scriptures!

Ron Harding of Washington DC: “The Word of the Lord spread through the whole region.” (Acts 13:49) Greetings from the Capital of the United States! The gracious hand of God has blessed us this year with more than weekly additions and brought our average attendance up to just around 200 on Sundays!

While the Word of God is spreading throughout the entire DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia), we have seen the need to imitate the structure of our great City of Angels Church by dividing our congregation into four separate regions – Baltimore, East, West and Teens – to drive, not only a numerical increase, but also the geographical expansion of God’s Word! Excitingly we have full-time leadership in three of the four regions!

Thrillingly in our East Region Leo & Nikita Espinal placed membership from our former fellowship, finding revival in “The church they got baptized into!”

Then in our West Region, we celebrated the amazing victory of Vanessa’s baptism! She initially was met by our amazing campus sister Shilo, but pulled back. Seeing her sister Jashana study the Bible, change her life, and get baptized two weeks ago, the fire was again lit inside her! We all marveled as we watched my amazing wife Tracy receive a birthday present from God as she baptized Vanessa in the same moment that Vanessa received the gift of salvation as her everlasting birthday present from the Lord! Sharing the same physical birthdays and having Vanessa’s baptism on their birthdays was a very special gift from God!

Jay Hernandez of Hilo: Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii! God continues to bless the WaterDogz! Last weekend, we celebrated a monumental victory as our recently planted Bible Talk in Kona had their first baptism! (The planting of Kona represents us moving beyond what our former fellowship ever did here on the Big Island!) “Sunshine” was baptized under a full moon in beautiful Kua Bay!

This week, we celebrated as a church family as seven of our campus disciples graduated from college! Three graduated with Associates Degrees from Hawaii Community College, and four graduated with Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Hawaii at Hilo!

Mike Underhill: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) The most recent baptism that we had in San Francisco was one I personally wish all of you could have seen!

Courtney, a 20 year old UC Berkeley student, shared at her baptism how she received a miraculous heart transplant at the age of 10 years old. Up until her baptism, she wondered why God had chosen her to be saved and allow others to die; then she explained that now she understands God had chosen her so she could become a disciple! She is now studying with her friend and also her sister to help them become disciples! God has now, for a second time, given Courtney “a new heart,” but this second time it’s a spiritual one!

Also, the women here in SF had a Women’s Day where 26 disciples had 80 women in attendance! I want to honor my gorgeous wife Brittany for her amazing hard work! She is the greatest woman I’ve ever met and God has helped my heart through her love!

Amidst all this, it’s been very moving to me personally to have the McKeans and Dimitrys here last weekend to inspire the church with the summer plans for SF! Everyone’s heart was truly refreshed to hear that God is taking care of SF by bringing a total of 18 disciples from Vegas and Eugene to help build up the San Francisco Bay Church! To God be the glory!

Kelly Bartholomew: Greetings from San Diego! Our minds have been blown over the past few weeks as we have witnessed God’s glory through the saving of three incredible souls – Dylan, Vanessa, and Brandon – and the miracle of hitting our 20X Special Missions Contribution!

Of special note, I found Brandon’s baptism very encouraging. His wife, Krista, was baptized last August after our son Chase “reached out” to her daughter! Not quite sure what to make of the church, Brandon reacted to her baptism with persecution. However, when an extremely challenging situation occurred in their marriage last month, Brandon quickly picked up the phone and called my husband for help. Later, Brandon shared that he knew the only that way Krista & he were going to be able to “work things out” was through “the church!” Praise God for giving us His Kingdom which binds the wounds of the brokenhearted and puts marriages back together again!

As far as Special Missions is concerned, I am so moved by the hearts of the disciples in San Diego who have continued to give so sacrificially and who have yet to miss a Special Missions Contribution Goal! This year, our Prayer Goal was a very challenging $47,780 dollars – about $1,200 per disciple! The disciples scraped together all they could possibly sell, called their friends and families to donate, hustled the streets “tagging” for money, took up a “loose change contribution,” and even fasted for several days so that they could donate their normal food money for missions! In the end, we squeaked by our goal giving a total of $47,894!!! To God be the glory!!!

Ricky Challinor of Portland: Good news from the City of Bridges!!! Today was an incredible Sunday as we had a Congregational Park Service! For the service, we had a fundraiser in which the Latin Ministry had a food festival! There were all types of food for sale… And to God be the glory we raised $947! Which means that as of now one week before our 20X turn in date, we have raised $32,000!!!

My personal highlight was one of the “taco chefs” Junior Salmeron who was restored this past Sunday! His sharing was short and powerful as he simply said, “If you’re thinking of falling away, DONT!!!” As in the lesson today, let EVERY DAY be a Memorial Day for the cross!

Brian Carr of Boston: “But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.” (Hebrews 3:6) Greetings from Boston! This past weekend was extremely faith building as we had our Campus and Singles Retreat entitled, My Father’s House! We met at Ted & Sheila Karonis’ home right by the Atlantic Ocean in Lynn!

Our theme Scripture (above) inspired all of us to “hold firmly to our confidence” as disciples who truly get to be “God’s house” here in Boston. The weekend was packed with early morning group prayers on our knees, lessons that moved our hearts, a singing devotional that stirred the angels, and many “home cooked meals!”

But before we could even start the retreat on Friday night, the Lord decided to encourage us all with Tevin and Jonathan proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” and a walk down to the ocean where they were both baptized into Christ!

After a powerful Sunday service, the retreat was coming to an end, but the Lord just wasn’t ready for us to leave! Lisa, who Mercedes reached out to last year, has been studying the Bible and coming around the fellowship for close to a year. She joined us on the retreat and was so impacted that she decided to study the Bible after service with the disciples until she could be baptized. So she did just that and at about 8:00PM on Sunday night she was baptized into Christ in the ocean! Needless to say, as God added three souls to our number this weekend, we all left refreshed and excited to continue building “God’s house” one soul at a time!

Amy Ciaramella of Phoenix: Very warm greetings from the Valley of the Son! Despite the desert summer heat, many disciples joyfully and enthusiastically participated in this weekend’s tagging event for missions! We have raised over $2,000 simply from our efforts through tagging!

Lastly, our Southwest House Church baptized Mira today! This passionate woman of endurance with a severe case of lupus was met by Nubian through door-knocking in the neighborhood. Despite living off a minimal income, Mira had long decided to turn in a pledge card and give to missions a couple of months ago! We are so proud to now have another beautiful face added to our mature women’s group, the Pearl Ministry!

Andrew Smellie: Greetings from the skyscrapers of New York City! The Lord has blessed the desire of our hearts to honor Him through the sacrifice of our 20X Missions Contribution and our commitment to forcefully advance His Kingdom by enabling us to see three baptisms (Kayla, Freddie and Elder) in the past two weeks and a place membership (Elaina Crockett – Syracuse) today! By the working of His power, 115 disciples (mostly campus & singles) cranked out our goal and have now raised over $102,000 for missions!

Today was also the farewell sermon and sending out of our dearly loved brother Kwaku Sarkodie to Los Angeles, as he will be serving as a Fulltime Intern in the West Region! Soon Patrique & I will be joining him there to build and prepare the Johannesburg Mission Team to be sent to South Africa – Lord willing – in 2016!

As we celebrate Memorial Day Weekend, it is important to remember those who have laid down their lives for our freedom. I thank God that we have been chosen to give our time, our effort, our resources and even our lives to help rescue souls out of their slavery to sin and into the light of grace and eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord! May our sacrifice bring Him the honor that He deserves!

Courtney Parlour: God is so gracious to us in the great city of Syracuse! About two months ago our zealous brother Tyler was baptized! Less than a week later, we saw his girlfriend Sarah baptized! Sarah, being the excited new Christian that she is, shared with her sister Jessica all about what she was learning. Jessica was in a “discipleship program” in Michigan where she paid thousands of dollars to learn what she came to know of as the basics of discipleship. When Sarah shared with her sister about her new life and her new church, Jessica had to come see it for herself.

So three weeks ago, Jessica visited the Syracuse Church! Then she decided to go back to Michigan to quit her job as a manager at a retail store, say goodbye to her friends, quit her discipleship program, and say goodbye to her family! And, oh yeah, she is only 19 years old! Saturday, she continued studying the Bible and was baptized the following Saturday night at 10PM in the Jamesville Reservoir!

In addition to the miracle of Jessica, this Sunday was our Missions Sunday! My faith-filled husband Joel preached a fiery lesson based on the motto of the 1980 film entitled, The Blues Brothers. Those of us who have seen the movie know the tag line: “They’ll never get caught. They’re on a mission from God.” For us as disciples, we know from Acts 5:39 that “We’ll never be stopped. We’re on a mission from God!” He challenged us to not become “old disciples” but to become “mature disciples” and for those of us who have seeped into Satan’s trap of lukewarmness to make a vow to recommit ourselves to the “mission from God!” With a faithful 15X Goal of $42,000, the sacrificial Syracuse Church gave $45,673.66! It was such a victory for the church that there was a standing ovation at the end of the announcement that lasted a few minutes! To God be all the glory!

Maria Franklin of Chicago: “All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name. Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.” (Psalm 66:4-5) Good news! Two weeks ago, Jilicia was baptized into Christ! Jilicia is a young married woman from Jamaica! She was reached out to by our sister Jhenelle. Although Jilicia had a religious background, she heeded to the truth of the Scriptures and made Jesus Lord at our Marrieds Midweek!

That same night, Ben was baptized! Ben is the husband of our dear sister Sharlett! Sharlett is such an amazing example of 1 Peter 3 as her behavior “won over” her husband to the Lord! It is so encouraging to see the Marrieds Ministry grow here in Chicago!

This Saturday, so many gathered to attend our Annual Latin Festival!The festival was complete with Latino entertainment, dancing, games, amazing food, children’s entertainment and much more! It was incredible to see so many visitors as well as many more just walking on over to check out what was going on! It is awesome when we can have fun and do the work of the Lord at the same time!

Finally, we announced our new Central Region Leader-in-Training, Paulina Garcia, who will be leading alongside of Victor Montano! We are so very excited to see what God will do through her as the Chicago Church boldly moves forward to honor God with our lives!

 
Jeremiah Clark: Greetings from the Mighty Denver Church! Though less than a year old as a planting, today was another incredible service for the Denver ICC as we have averaged over 90 in attendance the last two Sundays!

In January 2000, Chuck Hess was met and baptized in Tucson, Arizona at the University of Arizona. He became good friends with a brother who was in his studies named Robert Surprenant who was originally from Denver, Colorado. Time passed and the two friends lost touch. 14 years later Chuck moved to Denver on the mission team and recently while shuffling through old papers from years past came upon an old Campus Ministry Directory from Tucson and was reminded of Robert and the fact that he was from Denver. Without knowing where and how to find Robert, Chuck simply prayed that he would be able to find his friend of old.

Low and behold four Sundays ago, Robert was seeking the movement and God once more! He looked up the Denver International Christian Church on the web and came to Sunday service all on his own. Chuck met Robert at the door and it was as if the 14 years were simply days! Robert expressed his interest to be restored and after some studies and much needed catching up, Robert was restored to the Lord today!

Lou Jack Martinez of Honolulu: ANOTHER BAD DAY FOR THE DEVIL AS FINANCIAL PLANNER, THEO STILLER, IS BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST!!!

Theo Stiller (pronounced TAY-oh) is an amazing “five talent guy” and family man who speaks FIVE (5) languages and seems to know everyone on the Island of Oahu!!! He just “happened” to be hiring when Terra Utter “happened” to be looking for work in his field. Terra got the job, took her husband Scott to the company Christmas Party last year and Scott and Theo hit it off amazingly well!

Scott continued to build his relationship with Theo by stopping by his office, attending Terra’s company functions, and playing GOLF with Theo via our Christian Golfers Fellowship started by Chris Teves! 
 

Theo “ate up” the Bible studies, and couldn’t wait to be baptized to get right with God; but he ran into some major persecution and discouragement, even on the day of his baptism!!! Nevertheless, Theo recalled 1 Timothy 4:16, and remembered that if he wanted to save those closest to him, he would have to PERSEVERE!!!! And THAT is what he decided to do!!! So, in the midst of intimate and intense persecution, Theo decided to become our brother in Christ, and he was BORN AGAIN, baptized just last week!!!

Additionally, we are so very excited about how God is raising up LEADERS in Honolulu as Scott & Terra Utter have been chosen to lead our amazing Hilo International Christian Church!

As well, David & Beth Kelly have also been chosen to lead our brand new Kona House Church!!! And to help with that transition, Martin Justinevicius and Sarah Chang are also moving to Kona!!!

Finally, our Campus Intern Bryson Okuno is moving to Los Angeles for further training and to commence study at our International College of Christian Ministries (ICCM)!!! We will greatly miss Bryson, but we know that God has even greater plans for him in Los Angeles as he will helpKyle & Joan Bartholomew with our fledgling USC Campus Ministry!!!

 
NEWS FLASH – Jason Dimitry of Las Vegas: Greetings from “Saint City!” On May 19, 2013 we held our Inaugural Service. With the 15 faithful disciples on the mission team, God blessed us with 125 at that amazing service! But God was just getting started! Over the next 12 months, the Lord powerfully gave us 49 additions – 45 baptisms, two restorations and two place memberships… Three of which have been in the last two weeks!

Our goal for this Sunday’s Missions Contribution was $23,000 and we raised $23,748! I am extremely humbled and honestly a bit shocked by the goodness of my Father in Heaven! In a little over a month, Sarah & I along with a group of incredible disciples will be going to fight alongside the amazing brothers and sisters in the San Francisco Bay Church! Leaving Las Vegas will definitely be a tearing away as the disciples here have won my heart for all time. Please check out our One Year Anniversary Video at https://vimeo.com/96470409!

HEADLINE NEWS – INTERNATIONAL 

NEWS FLASH – Joe Willis: Greetings from Sydney! It was incredible to see our newest sister jumping for joy as she proclaimed “Jesus is Lord” and was baptized into Christ last Sunday at Bondi Beach! Lok Ting Shuen, also known as Themis, was born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to Sydney to pursue a career in dental technology. Coming from an atheist background, Themis started seeking God in Hong Kong despite the disapproval of her parents, and after intense persecution from her family and feeling like God could not be found she stopped going to “church.”

After attending her first church service here in Sydney, she was not only touched by the love of the disciples and the impacting sermon, but was blown away to hear the plan to start a church in Hong Kong! Then inspired by her friend Kavindu becoming a disciple, she began her journey to seek God again but this time with her whole heart despite her family’s disapproval.

She studied the Bible with another one of our young disciples Chenyang Chen (Maggie) in Cantonese and with Rahnesha White! After wrestling with the Scriptures, she decided to have that hard talk with her parents about her decision to become a true disciple. At her baptism, Themis became a great joy for the entire Sydney Church as we are now all dreaming and praying for God to form the Hong Kong Mission Team here!

Our theme for the forming of the HK Mission Team is: TIME TO ENTER THE DRAGON! Therefore, I am extremely excited to announce the first Mission Team Lunch for China will be held at the 2014 Global Leadership Conference (GLC) this year on Sunday, August 10th at 2:30PM! I would encourage, even implore all Chinese Nationals and those interested in coming on the Hong Kong Mission Team, to make every and all efforts to come to the GLC from all around the world for this momentous event as there are 1.3 billion souls to save in China! Please pray profusely for God’s blessing in bringing this together!

If you are interested or have any further questions on the Hong Kong Mission Team, please do not hesitate to contact me Joe Willis via email at wotifgod@yahoo.com.au!

NEWS FLASH – Jared McGee: Greetings from the massive metropolis of Mexico City! Rachel & I are so honored and excited to lead the charge of the evangelization of the 25 million lost souls of this great city! We’ve suffered a tad bit of “Montezuma’s Revenge” but we are now 100% in good health and 100% focused on the mission! 
 

Though we have now been here for three Sundays, the Lord has moved so powerfully! After just three days after our arrival, doors were opened for not only ourselves to find an apartment, but also to initiate two singles households, putting a roof over all of our intern’s heads!

Incredibly, our apartment is on the property of UNAM, one of the largest universities in the world, boasting upwards of around a 260,000 student body! With our interns living just a stone’s throw away on the other side of campus, and after “counting the cost” with those who have been attending, all 23 “sold-out Mexico City disciples” are “prep’d and primed” to take over this university!

Also exciting is our new meeting place, the beautiful Hotel Ritz right in the heart of the city! The Lord blessed us with a great price! We want to express our deepest gratitude to the McKeans, the Mejias and Raul Moreno who sacrificed to make the trip to Mexico so as to make this leadership transition as smooth as possible! A special thanks goes to my evangelist Carlos Mejia, who took two weeks out of his schedule to be here with us, making sure that the work of the Lord would continue, and be firmly established!

With the incredible disciples converted by Vic & Aurora Gonzalez, our powerful newly appointed Shepherding Couple Abelardo & Elida Flores, and the “Fantastic 4″ Interns – Miguel, Josue, Sara and Dulce – we are completely confident that Mexico and all of Central & South America will be completely evangelized in this generation! And to God be the glory!

 
Michael Williamson: Greetings from the London saints! Last week, Femmie was baptized into Christ! Femmie was originally brought to church over a year ago, but sadly the brother who brought him fell away and Femmie lost touch with the church. A year later, he met our faithful sister MJ Amaegbe as she shared her faith in a completely different part of London. Femmie came to church and was baptized! I’m so proud of the brothers in the West led powerfully by George Grima, who solidified Femmie’s faith by challenging him to be a part of the NIGERIAN MISSION TEAM before they baptized him. Femmie’s response was simply, “It would be an honor to go back home with the gospel!”

Two weeks ago we baptized a young teenager, Diana who Christine Alamu, our firey unpaid intern (and part time teacher), shrewdly shared her faith with at the high school Diana attended. Also it brought tears to the church when Nick Donnelly was restored. Nick showed acts of radical repentance including bringing out a string of consistent guests to Bible Talk and church, as well as giving one of the highest special Missions Contributions given.

It was such a glorious day as we announced that Jurij Zykov quit his high paying job to go “FULLTIME” in the ministry starting in two weeks!

This weekend was equally encouraging as disciples from Amsterdam, Madrid and beautiful Paris travelled to the historic city of Windsor to be a part of our Marrieds Retreat entitled, ENDLESS LOVE! George & Angelica, our Deacon Couple of Special Events, infused spiritual depth with a touch of class as our hotel was directly across the street from the oldest occupied castle in the world! At least ten British Monarchs lie buried in the chapel and the castle is one of the residences of the royal family!

The energy of the entire weekend was electric! The classes were powerful; the fellowship was rich; and the Bakers (followed by the Scheideckers, and Scott’s) won the dance competition for two years in a row!

Also congratulations to the Campus Ministry for being nominated one of the top new society’s at Middlesex University! And to God be the glory!

Sandra Vignault : Bonjour de l’Eglise Chrétienne Internationale de Paris!!! “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12) This Scripture is what motivated Aline, (a friend of our brother Bernard), to study the Bible! She is a student at the prestigious Sorbonne University, making her the fifth campus addition to the Paris Church. During her studies, she received persecution from her family, but having a “Berean heart” she made her choices according to the Bible, making it all the more miraculous when she made Jesus Lord and was baptized last Thursday! We love you guys very much!

Lola Lof of Kinshasa: Greetings from your brothers in the Democratic Republic of Congo! In the month of April, we have been studying the Books of 1 & 2 Samuel, where one can learn about David’s heart toward God. It is challenging to imitate such a zeal for God, as David’s problematic people later become his mighty warriors! So we thank God for these awesome lessons which moved our hearts and helped to revolutionize our ministries.

Therefore our Campus Ministry has baptized two young students: Priscilla and Gracia! Of note, Priscilla is the daughter of my elder sister! What a glorious privilege to see God saving my family members! To Him be all the glory!

Raul Moreno of Sao Paulo: “Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.” (2 Kings 19:4) The Lord loves His remnant! Because of that, it was great to see Luis & Simone place membership with the church two weeks ago! After seeing the love of the disciples in God’s new movement, they decided to turn themselves on in! God will use them powerfully!

Last, week we had our Annual Women’s Day entitled Unconditionalimitating the theme of our sisters in LA! The Lord blessed our 45 sisters who an attendance of 133! It was an amazing event, incredibly organized, beautifully decorated, with powerful testimonies, and a great lesson by my dear wife Lynda!

To finish the Women’s Day, it was inspiring to witness the baptism of Lia! Lia is the mother of Carol, who is our amazing USP (part time) Intern! After coming for a year to church to see what her daughter had gotten into, Lia saw her own need for God’s grace and forgiveness and is now our sister in Christ! “Nothing is impossible for God” and He can convert any of our family members!

Debs Rajan: Greetings from Chennai! “So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand.” (Nehemiah 8:2-3) As the Scripture says, “all who were able to understand” …I presume this was our Teen and Campus Ministries as in the month of May used their holidays wisely and made the most of every opportunity! The whole month they met every morning, prayed, evangelized and decided to finish reading the New Testament! Holidays (in India like most nations) are a time to relax and go on vacations but I really appreciate our teens and campus students working hard, when the “mercury level” was at its peak, they never gave up… And so God blessed them!

During this time, Chester (17) who is Roger’s cousin, a great keyboard player, came to church. He was amazed by the love and fellowship so he went back and told his fellow musician Samuel, who is a great drummer, that he should come and check out this church! Nathaniel, our Summer Intern, went to follow up on Chester and studied with Samuel too! Yesterday, to the joy of all the teens and the campus students, we had Chester and Samuel make Jesus the Lord of their lives and they were baptized in the beautiful Indian Ocean!

Eugen Sobolev: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.’” (Zechariah 8:7-8) Privet from Moscow! God continues to gather Russian–speaking disciples in Moscow, Russia! This week, the Spirit brought to us Slava from Vitebsk, Belarus (350 miles west of Moscow) and Timur from Novosibirsk, Russia (2,150 miles east of Moscow)! They were both baptized in 1994 and now left everything AGAIN to be with God’s people! They already have jobs and are looking forward their wives and kids to come and join them!

Please keep the now 36 sold-out disciples in Moscow in your prayers as we will greet the Sirotkin Family this week to strengthen us in the Lord!

NEWS FLASH – Carlos Mejia: Greetings from the cooooold and wintery “South of the World!” In the past two weeks, God has been doing amazing miracles here in Santiago de Chile!

God has graciously given us one restoration (Ana Maria Gonzales), one place membership (our sister Isabel Martinez who joined us directly from the ICOC), and six baptisms: Sonia del Carmen Peredo (the grandmother of our sister Alejandra Gonzalez Anuch, whose mother was baptized the week before), Maria, Jorge & his wife Debora, Gina and Daniel (whose wife Ana Maria was restored)!

Six of these additions have been in our Centro Norte Region led by our fearless leaders, Jose & Daniela Otero! It is amazing because Daniela is six months pregnant and works full time as a dentist to help support Jose in the ministry! They’re both full of faith and zeal for God as their goal is to double their ministry of 52 by the end of the year!

Last week, we also had an amazing Campus and Teens Sunday! Three of our young campus leaders Guillermo Soto, Jorge Valenzuela and Felipe Rodriguez preached powerfully! These young men are fired up as they all have a dream to become evangelists one day!

“I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (John 4:35) God has indeed shown us how ripe the harvest is! Please keep us in your prayers, as we hope to have another kind of ripe harvest with our Special Missions Contribution this Sunday!
 
Dearest Brothers and Sisters: On Saturday, May 24 was our monthly session of the International College of Christian Ministries with over 80 in attendance! Excitingly, after visiting this session, two very special brothers were so moved that they decided to commit to our rigorous curriculum and become ICCM students and unpaid interns! Please congratulate Marc Carbonell and Stacy Ybarra!

Through the Spirit, our college continues to blossom, as at this month’s combined ICCM Faculty and Board of Regents Meeting, we approved to be awarded – at the Commencement Ceremony at the August 2014 Global Leadership Conference – 56 BA of Ministry Degrees, and Lord willing four Master’s of Ministry Degrees and one Doctorate of Ministry Degree! Also, unanimously selected to serve on the ICCM Board of Regents was Lou Jack Martinez (BA – Pitzer College; BA – ICCM; MPP – Harvard) of Honolulu! Congratulations to Luis!

Let’s continue praying for the 2014 Global Leadership Conference!This year our theme is from Psalm 126 – ZION’S DREAMERS! So register for this incredible event by going to the City of Angels International Christian Church Website – CAICC.net. As well, register on the same page for rooms at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort in Palm Desert covering the dates of the conference – August 10-12, 2014.

To best prepare for the conference, begin reading the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai and Zechariah, books written by the “Dreamers” of the remnant that restored “Zion!” “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.” (Ephesians 6:23-24)
Your fellow worker and dreamer,
Kip