December 2018, Vol. 13 AIMers Alley A personal note from Ashton Loyd From the office, we wish everyone in the Short- Term Missions community a Happy New Year! I hope you felt loved and appreciated during 2018 and into 2019 because you certainly are. These past two months have been a breath of fresh air. We hosted the first ever TESOL Certification Course here at UPCI WHQ, and we ve been in planning mode for next year with a ton of exciting events coming up! 2019 will be the best year yet! I m sure you, like me, have thought and prayed about what will happen in your life in 2019. So, I m interested to hear from you. What exciting AIM resolutions or adventures do you have in mind? Have you felt God call you to something specific or different recently? Maybe you could share a spiritual or personal goal that someone else might want to practice with you. Click here to share. I know not everyone does yearly resolutions for one reason or another, so no pressure. However, a friend told me once that they re popular because everyone feels they could use a little improvement. As GoNEXT Seminar: Texas Lufkin, TX February 22-23, 2019 GoNEXT Seminar: North Carolina Winston-Salem, NC March 29-30, 2019 Next Steps Program Puerto Rico & New Zealand June/July 2019 North American Youth Congress St. Louis, MO July 31-August 2, 2019 AIM Training St. Louis, MO August 15-17, 2019 Upcoming Events a disciple of Jesus, we are constantly in the process of perfecting. I will always have room for spiritual improvement, and I know the AIM community is dedicated to spiritually perfecting. God Bless. ANNOUNCEMENTS If you have received funds in excess of $600 from GM in 2018, you will be receiving a Form 1099 which is taxable income that we will be reporting. Included in this total are any ministerial fee payments we have made on your behalf plus any medical insurance we have covered from AIM funds. Please provide us with an address for this to be mailed to if it is different than what we have on record. If you have a tax preparer they need to go to, we need that address. The 1099s typically go out the end of January, first part of February. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
2 Providing refuge in the refugee camp In Malawi, AIMer Jennifer Short, along with a team, traveled to the Dzaleka (pronounced Zzah-leak-uh) Refugee Camp right outside the city of Lilongwe where a mini crusade was being held. During the crusade, 22 souls were filled with the Holy Ghost! There are nearly 43,000 people living in the camp and approximately half of them are children. Jennifer says, Please keep this area in prayer, as the UPC of Malawi reaches into the camp with materials on the oneness of God and His life-giving salvation! Opening new countries for Christ! A new work in Andorra had a record-breaking 21 in attendance! The Beebe Family, Associate Missionaries in Spain, moved from Madrid, Spain to Andorra this past September. Andorra is a small country nestled between Spain and France. As of September, there was only one Apostolic lady in the whole country. They have been praying and doing outreach, and now are beginning to see the fruits of their labor! Out of the 21 in attendance, seven were from a weekly Bible study group. The leader of that group was renewed with the Holy Ghost that Sunday! First ever TESOL/TEFL Certification Course a success! This past November, Global Missions organized and hosted the first ever TESOL/TEFL Certification Course with 15 students attending! Each student graduated with a 60 hour certificate that certifies them to teach English abroad. Sixty in-class hours were accomplished in one week s time with Vani Marshall, Angie Clark, and Mary Standish instructing. The class included previous and future AIMers, former Next Steps participants, and more! There was also a special appearance by previous AIMer Abby Mustread who has been using ESL as an outreach tool here in the States. Many of the students have plans to travel overseas on AIM using their English teaching skills and/or use them right here in the US! After the in-class portion ended, students were given the option to continue with an additional 40-hour self-directed online study which makes their certificate 100 hours and better candidates for job positions.
short-term workers Newly Appointed or Change of Field EME Tyler Flemon Russia/CIS Mark Shutes Derek Fyfe Scotland Robert Kelley Hannah Katt Greece Joshua Moreno PAC Alyssa Carrico Brandon Borders New Zealand Haylee Hebert Brandon Borders New Zealand Naomi Strong Brandon Borders New Zealand Lonnie Vestal Peter Gration Vanuatu CAC-sam Cambryn Hunter Gary Landaw Puerto Rico Lindy Levron Gary Landaw Puerto Rico Keri Reeves Gary Landaw Puerto Rico AFR JJ Wilburn Representative Mali Bradley Gray Mike Long Botswana Matthew Nash Mike Long Botswana Global Christians Speak: Interview with AIMer Tricia Ball in Japan Q: What was your first interaction with the mission field? A: My first on-the-field interaction with missions was in 2007. I was in Bible school and our missions club went on a trip to Mexico. Its was an exciting trip. We drove from St. Louis down through Texas and crossed over the border. It felt so adventurous; bargaining in markets, dodging traffic, trying the new foods. We even made great friends with a chicken who laid an egg in our van... what stuck in my heart was the hunger of the people we encountered. My Pastor would always say Exposure breeds burden and I think that s so true. The more you expose yourself to the needs of people, the more burden and compassion you will have for people. Q: What does missions mean to you? A: Allowing God to replace my heartbeat with His He s all about people and meeting them where they re at, bringing them truth. To me that s missions meeting people where they are with God s light and love. Q: What is your go-to verse of scripture? A: I feel like I have so many, but I really like 2 Timothy 1:9 Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Q: What piece of advice would you give those just discovering their calling in Global Missions? A: (1) Don t hold onto your failures too harshly. What you think is a failure now may be just what God will use when you re on the field. I can look back on a season of my life I thought was filled with failures, but that season has been the most vital to me on the field. (2) Find people to be in your prayer corner. These are people you can trust, and you know will pray when you ask. They will be so important as you grow, prepare, and go. (3) When you get to the field, remember that you are there to serve the people. They will do things differently than what you are used to. It s ok roll with it, embrace it, but don t try to force new ideas right away. People don t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Build relationships first! You will learn a lot, and be more effective when the time comes to share ideas.
4 Being the witness they see In Sweden, an elderly couple wrote a letter to the assistant Pastor. They had heard of the church because their granddaughter goes to school with the assistant pastor s daughter. They wrote a note to him and asked, are you the people who believe in Jesus name baptism, women not cutting their hair, and women wear long dresses? AIMer Kirstie Chrestman (left) says, Simple things like not cutting your hair are still a powerful testimony. They attended church this past Sunday and the presence of God was falling on them greatly. I am excited to see how their relationship with God and the church will grow. Note from an AIMer: God has given me my mountain! In our AIM Training in January, Brother Howell preached a message titled Give Me This Mountain. The message was based out of Joshua 14:12, which reads, Now therefore give me this mountain, where of the Lord spake in that day, for thou heardest in that day how the A new church despite tribal tension Associate Missionary Richard Carver and his family in Papua New Guinea were able to attend the opening of a new church in Baraguma, Eastern Highlands (building pictured below)! He says, There was such joy and excitement among the church people. There has been much unrest in the area with tribal fighting, but the Lord has been triumphant and the gates of hell shall not prevail! Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said (KJV). One of the objects in his lesson was a pack of raisins. Upon my return to the Dominican Republic, the first sermon I heard was from my pastor who preached, Don t Lose Sight of the Grapes. The thought of this message mirrored so closely the message from January and was an incredible reminder that the dreams and callings that God gave me years ago are finally coming to pass. Brother Howell, God has given me my mountain!!! A note from AIMer Theresa Blash, Dominican Republic For Brother Howell s full message, click here!
5 An AIM term in pictures: Fiji All photos from AIMer Sara Gabrielsen Happy New Year!