“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,

despising the shame,

and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

~Hebrews 12:2~

Carl Wayne Stevens was not yet out of surgery by the time I went to bed last night. I’ll post an update later today.

Please continue to pray for the Brabham/Birch families as they gather and plan Kyle’s final arrangements. I’ll post the obituary when it becomes available.

Goombis Minister to Native Americans on Four Kansas Reservations

By Mickey Noah

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Daniel Goombi is a full-blooded Native American, a member of the Kiowa-Apache Indian tribe, originally nomads who left Canada to settle in Oklahoma. Daniel is proud of his heritage, culture and tradition.

“I am a Kiowa-Apache and I do live in a tepee,” admits Goombi with a tongue-in-cheek grin. “It’s just that it’s a two-story brick tepee with central air conditioning, just a couple blocks from Walmart. We wear plain clothes as you can see – no buckskin loin cloths. I eat meals that weren’t just running in front of me, and I don’t hunt with a bow and arrow. I don’t whoop and holler or attack white men, wear feathers or ride a horse.”

Despite his self-deprecating humor, Daniel views his job as a missionary as serious business.

As directors of Kansas Reservation Ministries, Daniel, 24, and wife Kimberly, 23, share the Gospel of Christ on four Native American reservations – among the Kickapoo, the Sac and Fox, the Iowa and the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribes – throughout Kansas. The Goombis, based in Lawrence, are Mission Service Corps missionaries for the North American Mission Board and church planters for the Kaw Valley Association.

Daniel and Kimberly are only two of more than 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions and the Cooperative Program. The couple is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer (WOP), March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million.

As NAMB Mission Service Corps missionaries, the Goombis must raise their own support among family, friends and related churches. Although they are self-funded, they also receive additional support – such as training, administrative support and field ministry assistance – from the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

Daniel is unique among all the NAMB missionaries honored as Week of Prayer missionaries in the past. He is the first-ever, second-generation Week of Prayer missionary in NAMB’s history. His parents, Ron and Alpha Goombi – who still minister on Native American reservations in Nebraska – were WOP missionaries in 2003.

Daniel became a Christian at eight years old, during a revival service led by his dad in Omaha, Neb. Although he lived in Omaha most of the time, Daniel remembers that “we pretty much grew up on the reservations. We traveled as much as we could almost every weekend. And we spent almost all summers on the reservations, working with the people.”

Ministering on Native American reservations is both heartbreaking and difficult, according to Goombi. Every tribe in Kansas is different – each has its own language, heritage, culture and beliefs.

“There are a lot of single-parent families with single mothers or even grandparents raising their grandkids. Alcohol, drug abuse and suicide are big issues. People are secluded from the outside world and when you’re on a reservation, you’re limited to what’s around you and it’s really not much.

“The spiritual climate on the reservations is difficult,” Goombi said, “because Native Americans have a misconception of who we believers are. They think they have to give up who they are to follow God, and they believe God is still a white man’s God because of the history Native Americans experienced with organized religion.” Goombi reassures his peers that “God has blessed us Native Americans with who we are, with our heritage, and would never take that away from us.”

Goombi’s heartbreak came when he learned early on that on some reservations, 50 years – half a century – had passed without Native American children having a church or even a Vacation Bible School to attend. Goombi changed that in 2006.

“In Summer 2006, the first time we held Vacation Bible School for the Prairie Band Tribe, a lot of the elders of the tribe told us that it had been 50 years since an outside organization or church had come on the reservation. That’s 50 years of children growing, living their lives and dying without a chance to hear about God,” he said.

Goombi says for the most part, there are no reservations with Bible-based churches that meet on a regular basis. They meet now and then, when a visiting pastor comes through. But as a church planter for his association, Daniel wants to plant permanent churches on the reservations he serves.

“Our hope as church planters is to have four self-sustaining churches on each of the four reservations – facilities that each tribe could call their own and a place where people would gather and worship the Lord and take advantage of the church’s programs.”

Parents of two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia, the Goombis have a real soft spot for Native American children on the reservations.

At the Prairie Band Potawatomi Indian Reservation near Mayetta, Kan., Daniel recently was spotted playing dodge ball, football and basketball with the kids there. Kimberly spent time making “salvation bracelets,” teaching and singing with the girls there.

The Goombis subscribe to the phrase in Isaiah 11:6: “. . .a little child shall lead them.”

“The kids on the reservation are really receptive to what we are doing,” says Daniel. “It’s amazing to see the kids grow, learn church songs and go home and sing them to their parents, who notice how their kids are changing. We offer them an opportunity to learn about God and have fun in a clean environment.

“Working with the kids helps us get to the families and get into the homes. The parents start asking questions and start coming around, and we’re able to share the Gospel with them through their kids.”

Because it’s usually only he and Kimberly to cover the four Kansas reservations, Daniel pleads for help from other Southern Baptist volunteers around the United States. He said they rely on volunteers who will come to Kansas for just a weekend or for the entire summer to donate their time and talents to reach Native Americans. It could be assisting with block parties, carnivals, Vacation Bible Schools or Backyard Bible Clubs.

“In addition to Kansas, there are more than 450 tribes recognized by the federal government,” said Goombi. “So many of these tribes are going unreached. We want to encourage churches and associations to remember these needs and take action. We need to live with urgency and together sow seeds on these reservations to further God’s Kingdom.”

Kimberly agrees.

“When people think of missions, they always think of Africa or foreign countries. But reservations are like foreign countries,” she says. “They are their own sovereign nations. The people on reservations live differently and speak other languages.

“So we just want to get the word out to Southern Baptists that you don’t have to spend money to travel overseas, when we have a mission field 20 minutes north of Topeka, Kan.”

Layaway

(DID YOU KNOW that some advice is offered on the layaway plan…?

You may have no need of it today, but it can be stored in your mind and reserved for some time later. (I use advice today that I laid away years ago–advice that made little sense to me as a teenager but has wisdom I can fully appreciate today.)

Someone gave me advice on how to keep a job before I even filled out my first resume, advice on how to handle bills even before I ever had any, and advice about marriage long before I ever started dating. (My parents told me the best way to keep my marriage healthy was to “board up the kitchen and eat out.”)

I couldn’t use much of that advice in the fourth grade, but I still listened. And when the day came that I got a job, got my first bill, and said, “I do,” I had a storehouse of good advice to draw from.

When someone gives you good advice, don’t tune it out because you don’t feel you need it right now. Put it on layaway. Keep it in reserve. Who knows? It could come in very handy some day. (Martha Bolton)

“Hold on to instruction, do not let it go;

guard it well, for it is your life.”

Prov. 4:13

Have a terrific Tuesday. Please feel free to share your praises, requests, and updates so others can pray with you.

Anna Lee

“Sing praises to the Lord,

who dwells in Zion!

Declare His deeds among the people.”

~Psalm 9:11~

Kyle Brabham has been airlifted to University Hospital in Jackson, MS. The doctors in McComb have determined Kyle has a problem related to high blood pressure. He is a very sick man. Please be in prayer for Kyle, his family, and medical staff working with him. Your prayers are needed and greatly appreciated.

Mrs. Faye Price continues to improve. She was able to walk a little by using a walker. Pray for her to continue to improve if it is God’s will. Pray for her family as they continue to stay with her on a daily basis.

Don Denton

Please pray for Don. He is not feeling well today. I called primary care on call this morning. We will get a doctor appt. first thing in the morning. More dizzy today, more headache today and a few other symptoms.

Pray for the many people who have been sick with flu, cold, etc. For example, Lauren Gehringer has pneumonia and is well now, but her mother Kelly has been hospitalized with pneumonia most of last week. She is also better, but this kind of problem is repeated over and over throughout our area. Pray especially for the younger and older people who fight this health issuses.

Day Two (March 2)
Al and Noemi Fernandez, Florida

Church Planting

Al Fernandez ‘God-made’ to serve in Miami

By Mickey Noah

MIAMI, Fla. – There’s an unglitzy side to Miami you’ll never see depicted on “CSI Miami.” Sure, there’s the flaunted wealth, the big beach-front homes, the flashy cars, the fast boats, and glamorous life-in-the-fast-lane for the celebrities and superstar athletes who live here.

But Miami is a city of paradoxical extremes. While the city has been ranked the third-richest in the United States, it also has more citizens – about a third of the population — below the federal poverty line than any other U.S. city except Detroit and El Paso, Texas. Miami is the seventh largest metro area in the U.S., with over 5.4 million people.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Southern Baptist missionary Al Fernandez, 50, loves Miami like only a man born and raised there could. As a native, he actually witnessed the start of the huge influx of Cubans, Latinos and other Hispanics into Miami in the early 1960s.

Al’s parents were already planting churches in the Miami area when Cubans began flooding into Miami to escape the Marxist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Al accepted Christ when he was only six, and felt called to the ministry at 15.

“But it took me 15 more years to let go and to allow God to work in my life,” he says. “I’ve been here all my life, grew up Southern Baptist and feel this is the place God has called me. I feel uniquely gifted to work here.”

Al, who earned a B.A. degree at Florida International University, Miami, and an M.A. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, is married to Noemi, also a Cuban by birth. They have two sons and a daughter.

Director of the Florida Baptist Convention’s “Urban Impact Ministries” in Miami, Fernandez is one of some 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. He is among the North American Mission Board missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Fernandez.

“Urban Impact is a ministry that was established three years ago,” Fernandez says. “We felt there was a need to establish a stronger Southern Baptist presence in South Florida. We felt we really needed to have an impact on our churches, pastors and associations in a complex urban setting like Miami. We want to impact Miami with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

His work depends on a close partnership among three key associations in South Florida: the Palm Lake Association in the West Palm Beach area; the Gulf Stream Baptist Association just north of Miami; and the Miami Baptist Association in metro Miami. Fernandez has three distinct areas of responsibility: urban church planting, urban leadership development and urban evangelism.

Bi-lingual, Fernandez believes God has uniquely equipped him to minister in South Florida.

“I grew up in Spanish-speaking churches so I understand the context. I’ve also pastored in English-speaking churches. It’s like God has allowed me to be a bridge across the different cultures and nationalities in Miami. Like the Apostle Paul said, I believe I am all things to all people.”

Miami has the largest Spanish-speaking population in the Western Hemisphere outside Latin America. Miamians who use Spanish as their first language make up 67 percent of the population. One might think that would make Fernandez’s job easier. But language doesn’t tell the whole story.

“The No. 1 challenge is Miami’s diversity and multi-culturalism,” he said, stressing that not all Hispanics are alike because they come to Miami from different nations – Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, etc. “Hispanics from different countries may all speak Spanish but still have different customs, traditions and cultures.”

Fernandez said the three Baptist Associations include 540 churches, three hundred in the Miami association alone.

“We need a sense of unity and cooperation within our churches and associations,” he said.
And we need each other because it doesn’t matter how large a church is in Miami, no one church can reach all the people in this environment. We have to work together.”

Another reason for Miami-area churches to come together – especially in today’s gloomy economic recession – is money and resources, according to Fernandez.

“South Florida is a very expensive place to live, and many of our pastors and churches are struggling because it’s not a cheap place to live and minister. Miami is a city of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ You see the entertainers and the athletes who live here, yet you’ve got average people who have to work hard every day in their jobs just to survive. These dynamics make it hard to minister here,” he said.

Gary Johnson, executive director of the Miami Baptist Association, says Miami’s high property costs also translate into the small number of Southern Baptist churches who own their own facilities in the area.

“Only one-third of our churches own their own property because property is so expensive in Miami,” Johnson said. “A third of our churches are less than 10 years old. Many have to rent from another church, or meet in warehouses or in store fronts. A big issue is always property – either you’re trying to keep it or looking for some.”

Johnson said his Miami Baptist Association – which will celebrate its centennial in 2009 — is comprised of some 300 churches and missions. About 100 are English-speaking, 100 are Spanish and 100 speak Creole (Haitian). The balance is Chinese, Russian and Portuguese. Seventy percent do not use English as their first language.

Two thirds of the local pastors, Johnson says, are bi-vocational, so churches tend to be small. “The average size church in Miami-Dade is 45 members,” said Johnson. “Churches are small and they don’t have a lot of money. It takes all their money just to pay the rent.

“Al’s strength is that he’s from here and people in Miami tend to trust someone who’s from here,” Johnson said. “Al’s not only from here but his dad was a pastor and his brother, Otto, is a pastor so he’s well-rooted in Miami. When Al comes to a church or visits a group of pastors, he’s already earned their respect and the right to be there,” said Johnson.

Fernandez believes that Miami’s continued growth in Hispanic population and culture foreshadows the way the United States will look in the future.

“What you see in Miami today is what you’re going to see in the rest of this nation in the next 20 years. No matter where you live, it’s coming. So whatever we learn here as Southern Baptists, using Miami as a laboratory, the principles will be the same and will work elsewhere in the country. For instance, there’s a big interest in urban ministries because cities are getting bigger and the outskirts are getting smaller.

“We need to realize that the Apostle Paul used a strategy calling for him to stop in big cities because that’s where the most bang for the buck is, where you get the best results,” Fernandez said. “I think as Southern Baptists, we need to change our strategies and understand that in the future, we need to know how to minister and be effective in these large urban settings.”

But while Fernandez said Southern Baptists have historically been good at reaching rural to mid-size cities and towns, “Baptists have not been as effective in the large urban areas,” he added.

When asked how valuable the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is to his work, Fernandez said he couldn’t even describe how valuable it is.

“The reality of these ministries is that they cost money. And one size ministry does not fit all. We need a lot of resources to do the work of the Lord in South Florida.”

Prayer Concerns: Pray for churches and leaders Al works with to understand the importance of, and become active in, spreading the gospel beyond their neighborhoods to the many unbelievers living in South Florida.

THE FASTEST MAN who ever lived was Ben Johnson, a broad-shouldered Canadian sprinter…

In the Seoul Olympics of 1988, he ran the fastest one hundred meters in history. But don’t look for his name in the record books, because he was disqualified. Not because he wasn’t fast. Not because he wasn’t talented. Because he broke the rules. He was taking anabolic steroids.

Could your Christianity be disqualified? You may not want to read on, but you must! You don’t want to be disqualified.

James begins by saying, “If anyone considers himself religious.” If you’ve read this far, you probably qualify. You don’t consider yourself a pagan! This verse is about you. So, if anyone thinks he is a Christian, yet does certain things, he “deceives himself, and his religion is worthless.”

We might go to church and sing the songs. We might study the Bible and preach sermons. And still be disqualified. And, what is even more frightening, all along we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we are religious!

So what is this deadly spiritual steroid that will disqualify us from the race? Is it murder? Embezzlement? Racism?

Some people, James says, fool themselves into thinking that their religion is sound, yet they will be disqualified because they fail to control their tongues!

Angry words. Gossip. Spiteful, or demeaning remarks. Destructive and bruising words. Are you guilty? Am I? Be careful how you respond. James insists that many are “deceived” into thinking that their religion is OK when it is not. In a word, if you think that this verse does not apply to you, that may the very sign that it does!

Words can bind the wounds of the injured and heal the broken bones of the fallen. Or they can strip bare another’s heart. Use words carefully. In the race of life, there is a record book, what the Bible calls the “Book of life.” And you want to have your name written there. (Stan Mitchell)

“And do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

that you may prove what is that good

and acceptable

and perfect will of God.”

~Rom. 12:2~

Week of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering^®

March 1-8, 2009

National Goal: $65 million

Theme: Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest

Scripture: John 4:35-37

Week of Prayer Missionaries:

• Gary and Sue Smith, Church Planting Missionaries, Canada

• Al and Noemi Fernandez, Church Planting Missionaries, Florida

• Daniel and Kim Goombi, Reservation Ministry Directors, Kansas

• Brenda Crim, Collegiate Evangelism Missionary, Alaska

• Song and Fanny Kim, Church Planting Missionaries, California

• Lamar and Dolly Duke, Associational Missionary, Pennsylvania

• Paul and Elizabeth Biswas, Church Planting Pastor/Mission Service Corps, Massachusetts

• Willie and Ozzie Jacobs, National Missionary, Tennessee

2009 Week of Prayer Missionaries

Day 1

Gary and Sue Smith
Canadian National Baptist Convention
100 Convention Way
Cochrane, Alberta, Canada T4C 2G2
churchstarting@yahoo.ca

Gary is a national church planting missionary for the Canadian National Baptist Convention.

Gary Smith: fighting vast ‘lostness’ in vast eastern Canada

By Mickey Noah

WINNIPEG, Manitoba – Gary Smith and his 11-year-old son, Caleb, tooled down the Trans-Canada Highway in their rented Toyota on a winter’s day. They were in the middle of a 12-hour, 600-mile road trip from Quebec to Prince Edward Island when reality hit the 41-year-old missionary and he suddenly started to cry.

“What’s going on, Daddy?” asked an alarmed Caleb, the oldest of Gary and Sue Smith’s four children. “What’s happening?”

Through his tears, Smith asked his son, “Caleb, do you realize that in all of these towns, cities and villages we’re passing by, there are no Christian churches to tell the people about the Gospel? There are no Sunday school classes for kids. There’s nothing like you’ve known all your life.”

As he looks back now, Smith thinks that’s when Caleb finally got it – realizing why his daddy was gone from home so much. “He and I stopped and prayed together for those towns, cities and villages,” recalls Smith, “and it was a precious time for just the two of us.”

It’s a fact, Smith said, that some 1,000 communities in Quebec – spread across hundreds of – have no evangelical church at all, not one.

The Smiths are national missionaries for the North American Mission Board and the Canadian National Baptist Convention, responsible for planting churches all across Canada. They are two of the some 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions, and are among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8, 2009. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like the Smiths.

Smith, a native Kansan, realizes he’s not in Kansas anymore when it comes to the difficult challenge of planting new churches and sharing the Gospel amidst a vastly “lost” Canada.

“In eastern Canada, there’s a spiritual void,” he says. “If you’re under 40 years old and in Quebec, you don’t probably know who Jesus Christ is. I’ve had some people literally tell me, ‘Oh, that’s a curse word.’ That’s all they know about Jesus. And this is where we are trying to evangelize, witness and plant churches.

“It can be a hard place but it gives us an incredible opportunity,” said Smith. “Can you imagine the sweetness of sharing Christ with someone who is hearing for the very first time? They have no concept of Jesus. They’re a blank slate.”

Smith says only eight percent of all Canadians are connected to an evangelical church, compared to 28 percent in the United States.

“Montreal has nearly five million people. Almost all of them are lost. Only half of one percent are evangelical Christians. We’ve been here eight years now but only scratched the surface.”

As an example of the fading spiritual condition in Montreal – Quebec’s largest city – 95 percent of Montreal citizens attended a Catholic church weekly in 1955. Today, it’s only five percent. The Catholic Church has not only lost most of its spiritual ground in Montreal, it’s almost been kicked out of the culture, according to Smith.

But the same holds true for Protestant churches in other Canadian provinces such as New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Smith said despite local church planting by Southern Baptists – many of the churches in these provinces have either died out or been turned into art museums.

Smith says sharing the Gospel in Canada often calls for new, unique and creative tactics in lieu of traditional “hard-sell” methods. In a country where so many know of Jesus Christ only as a “curse word,” tangibly reflecting the love and compassion of Christ proves more successful.

“On an airplane recently, I met a young French woman who was a social worker in Trois Rivierre, Quebec, one of the most unreached cities per capita in all of North America,” he said. “Not only was she a social worker, she had a caseload of 50 unwed pregnant teenagers, average age 13.

“I asked her if she had ever heard of Jesus Christ and she gave the typical reply. ‘Yes, Jesus is a curse word.’ I told her, ‘No, He’s much more than that . . . He loves moms and babies.’”

Smith got her e-mail address and phone number and weeks later, told the young social worker’s story at a Baptist missions conference in Florida.

“The folks in Florida got so fired up that five weeks later, I had these huge boxes delivered to my doorstep in Montreal. We opened them up and it was incredible – baby snowsuits, diapers, wipes, things for the moms, etc.”

When Smith drove to Trois Rivierre to personally deliver the baby items to the social worker, she and her colleagues told him, “it’s so incredible what you’ve provided.”

“And I told them, ‘No, Jesus Christ provided these things for you today. This is who He is.’ That was these Canadian social workers’ introduction to the Gospel,” Smith said, adding that reflecting Jesus’ compassion in any lost place can make the mission field there much softer to plow and harvest.

Smith’s church planting role for NAMB and the Canadian National Baptist Convention is much bigger than himself – to the extent that he partners with fellow missionary Jeff Christopherson in Toronto, and oversees volunteer church planting “advocates” stationed in other Canadian provinces.

“Toronto is the most culturally diverse city on the planet,” according to Christopherson. “In 2001, over 50 percent of the Toronto population was born outside Canada. By 2016, there will be more than 1 million Mandarin-speaking Chinese from mainland China living in the Greater Toronto area. But 95 percent of them will be unchurched.

“People don’t realize it, but there are more Italians in Toronto than any place else in the world outside of Italy. You go to Brampton, a city of 400,000, and there are 90,000 Sikhs there. There are 50,000 Bengalis in Toronto.”

Christopherson said Toronto is also Canada’s headquarters for the country’s major corporations, media outlets, the Canada Stock Exchange and the major banks – making the city a combined New York City and Los Angeles. As such, Toronto impacts the rest of Canada.

“Gary and I work well together,” said Christopherson. “He’s an incredible guy – one of the most catalytic people I’ve ever met.”

Although Smith – who recently shifted his home base from Montreal to Winnipeg, Manitoba – is primarily responsible for Eastern Canada, including Montreal, and Christopherson oversees Toronto, the two men say there are no turf battles.

“We see ourselves working together, and there is no ‘this is my city’ or ‘this is your city,’” says Smith. “We don’t care whose name is on what – we want to see these two strategic cities reached for Christ.

“In Toronto, we need to see an explosion,” he said. “Jeff is right now following up on nearly 50 potential new church planters. We don’t have enough people, resources, or staff. It seems impossible to reach Toronto. But like the Old Testament says, ‘I’ll make a way where there seems to be no way.’”

Another Canadian church planter, Jarret Hamilton, who pastors Affinity Church in a Toronto suburb, Oshawa, and also sings Smith’s praises.

“Gary is, first and foremost, an enormous encourager and supporter,” Hamilton said. “Like everything we do, he’s the first one to celebrate and the first one to offer encouragement. Gary also has a tremendous amount of wisdom and knowledge that he passes on. But one thing I appreciate is that Gary doesn’t force it on you. He waits for you to ask for it and then gives you insight and encouragement.”

And what does the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering do for church planters in Canada?

“I’m thinking of a guy in New Brunswick,” said Smith. “It’s a dynamic church plant, supported by the Annie offering. They’ve led over 200 people to Christ in this one church plant. And that’s because of the Annie offering that supports that church plant.

“I believe a church planting movement can arise out of Canada that would turn the tide for North America.”

Prayer Concerns: Pray for Gary’s effectiveness as he sows together with others to start churches. Pray for God to open doors among the different people groups who need an evangelical witness and church. Pray for a great awakening to spread across Canada through Gary’s ministry.