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WOMAN IS A TREASURED DISCOVERYPAGE 4

LFTL HELPS WOMEN “SAY HELLO” PAGE 3 • NEW PRAYER CENTER BRINGS COLLEGE TOGETHER PAGE 5 • A GIFT TO THE REGION PAGE

6 • THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY PAGE 8

THOUSANDS OF GIRLS ATTEND SLEEPOVERPAGE 5

A SURVIVOR’S VICTORY PATHPAGE 7

A COLLECTION OF THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES FROM PENEWS.ORG

SUNDAY,NOV. 13,2016

THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY RUTHIE EDGERLY OBERG

As early as 1917, the Assemblies of God General Council approved a motion to “adopt every available means consistent with Scriptural teaching and example to co-operate with every approved agency for revivals among our soldiers.”

However, at the 1941 General Council in Minneapolis, it became apparent that a more complete plan for providing ministry to servicemen was needed. This plan came to include quarterly publications for military personnel, service centers, and the creation of resources for local churches to minister to soldiers. The AG also felt led to provide ministers as U.S. Military chaplains.

Clarence P. Smales, who received his commission in June of 1941. During World War II, 34 AG ministers served their country in providing spiritual care for military personnel.

In a Nov. 11, 1944, article, “Hard But Glorious,” AG Navy Chaplain Joseph Gerhart tells of a seaman needing an immediate removal of an appendix. After hearing this, he prayed for the young sailor’s healing. Shortly afterward, the doctor came in and concluded that the operation would not be necessary. The boy was back on his feet the next day.

Read Gerhart’s full account in “Hard But Glorious” on page 9 of the Nov. 11, 1944, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel

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Read the full versions of these stories on PENews.org

RESPONSE TO THE 2016 ELECTION PAGE 2

online at s2.ag.org/nov111944. The first AG chaplain was

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We know the winners of federal, state, and local elections. We know the issues and referendums that passed and those that failed. Among the things we have yet to learn, however, is how these decisions will impact our nation and our future.

Regardless of whom you supported in this election, we must continue to be fervent in prayer.

1) Pray for our leaders. The first presidential election we saw

in Assemblies of God history was 100 years ago in 1916. Woodrow Wilson’s narrow victory came down to 3,800 votes in California.

On the cover of the Nov. 11, 1916, Pentecostal Evangel was a call for fervent prayer “that God may grant divine wisdom to the newly elected President of the United States for the coming four years, that our nation may be governed wisely and preserved in peace in the midst of these ‘perilous times’ in which we are now living.”

I echo that call. As Donald Trump steps into the Oval Office, he will need

wisdom from God. The apostle Paul taught us in 1

Timothy 2:1-2, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

When Paul issued this call to pray for governmental authority, it was in an evil and corrupt Roman Empire. Still, Paul urged believers to pray for these leaders. How much more should we pray for our leaders!

Pray fervently for your leaders on a local, state, and national level. Pray for the Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of those making decisions within the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government.

2) Pray for the issues we’re facing.As Assemblies of God leaders called

the Fellowship to prayer in 1916, it was truly “perilous times.” The Mexican Revolution was raging on our southern border. Europe was in the middle of World War I — a war the U.S. would

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T H E A B C s O F S A L V A T I O N

ACCEPT that you are a sinner, and God’s punishment for yoursin is death and separation from God forever.

BELIEVE that Jesus paid God’s price for your sin when He died on the cross.

CONFESS “Jesus, I believe You are who the Bible and historydeclares Your are – the Son of God. I humble myself and surrender to You. Forgive me. Make me spiritually whole. Change my life. Amen.”

A SURVIVOR’S VICTORY PATHBY PETER K. JOHNSON

Roger Helle, executive director of Teen Challenge of the Mid-South (TCMS) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, relates well to men and women trapped in various addictions. As one who suffered serious war wounds, the U.S. Marine veteran understands their pain and scars.

While leading a rifle platoon on his third tour of duty during the Vietnam War in 1970, Helle suffered life-threatening injuries within a few minutes. An exploding grenade knocked him to the ground. Helle, covered in blood and burning phosphorous, but still able to rise, was shot by a Vietcong soldier firing from 40 feet away. Another enemy combatant suddenly appeared and thrust a rifle bayonet into his stomach and left him for dead.

Dragged to safety and flown by helicopter to a U.S. Army evacuation hospital, Helle faced an almost certain demise. In a hospital bed, Helle bargained with God, pleading, “If you

let me live, I will do anything you want.” With his life spared, Helle delayed

that promise before passing through a dark tunnel of 27 operations, plastic surgeries on his face, alcohol abuse, and a failing marriage. Nightmares of Vietnam and survivor guilt invaded his sleep every night for more than four years.

In 1974, Helle and Shirley, his wife of only two years, reunited after a separation and surrendered their lives to Christ. They began a journey serving God, working for Teen Challenge beginning in 1978.

“We meet the residents on the worst day of their lives when they are hopeless, and offer real hope and love through the gospel of Jesus Christ,” says Helle, who was awarded three Purple Heart medals for his combat wounds in Vietnam.

RESPONSE TO THE 2016 ELECTIONBY GEORGE O. WOOD

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During her first week at college, Monique A. Calderón’s grandfather died. The only man who had loved and protected her was gone. Without him, Calderón says, ongoing physical, emotional, and verbal abuse perpetuated by another male relative destroyed her sense of self-worth.

“I was now an angry girl who hated men,” says Calderón, now 32. “I became selfish, violent, reckless, and mean.” She adopted a lifestyle of promiscuity, using sex and alcohol to escape sadness and depression.

Despite graduating with honors in 2008 and occasionally attending Family Church, an Assemblies of God body in Whittier, California, Calderón says she eventually began selling herself as a private party stripper.

Though the money was enticing, her lifestyle led to a series of poor choices that ended with her incarceration at the Ventura County Jail for the attempted murder of her boyfriend. There, she received a Bible. While lying on a bunk in jail, Calderón tried to bargain with God.

“I told Him if he could get me out of that mess, I would leave the sex industry,” she recalls. After the district

attorney dropped all charges, Calderón accepted Christ as her Savior in 2011.

The welcome she had experienced on occasional visits to Family Church drew her back. Calderón poured out her struggles to Eva Byrd Munoz, women’s ministry director at the church.

“I kept telling her she was worth more and God had a great plan for her life,” Munoz says.

Eventually, Calderón became an AG MAPS worker in the Philippines. The experience was transformative.

“I lived for nine months in a squatter village with the poorest of the poor,” says Calderón. Despite no running water, no air conditioning, and omnipresent insects, Calderón knew that’s where God wanted her.

In June, she traveled back to the Philippines from her home in Monterey Park, California, to give her testimony at an international training event for Treasures, a nonprofit that reaches out to former sex industry workers and sex trafficking victims. For Treasures, Calderón hosts a therapist-led support group, is the outreach blog coordinator, and participates in monthly outreaches in bringing gifts to women at clubs.

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WOMAN IS A TREASURED DISCOVERYBY PATTI-TOWNLEY-COVERT

ANNUAL SLEEPOVERBY DAN VAN VEEN

Girls across the country recently went to an “All Star” Girls Ministries Sleepover, as thousands of girls and leaders gathered in churches to play games, watch movies, eat, devote time to God, and — despite the event name — very likely get less sleep than usual!

The Sleepover’s theme was All Star Celebration, a link to the Girls Ministries 2016 theme of All Star Girl, which focused on helping girls come to love Jesus, honor others, value themselves, be confident in Christ, and influence their world for Christ.

Mark Entzminger, senior director of Children’s Ministries, states, “One of the key opportunities Sleepover provides clubs is to introduce other girls . . . to Girls Ministries clubs and, more importantly, a relationship with Jesus Christ in a fun and non-threatening environment.”

“We heard from a club in Georgia that had 16 girls attend its sleepover, and five of the girls did not attend the church — that’s exciting!” says National Girls Ministries Director Mandy Groot. Groot explains Sleepover includes a devotional time where the gospel is shared.

Sleepover also provides the opportunity to encourage girls in raising funds for the year’s Coins for Kids project: building a Christian school in Senegal, West Africa.

COLLEGE TOGETHERBY DAN VAN VEEN

Faculty and students alike at Trinity Bible College and Graduate School (TBC) in Ellendale, North Dakota, are excited about the completion and dedication of their new $2.5 million, 12,000-square foot prayer center on campus — for both spiritual and practical reasons.

Made possible through the generosity of alumnus Reuben Liechty and his wife, Clarice, the prayer center has already become a focal point of prayer on campus.

“The dream for the chapel portion of the facility,” explains Ian O’Brien, executive vice-president at TBC, “is that it would help renew a focus on missions, be a place where students are drawn more and more to the pursuit of God, and are called to serve, within the United States or internationally. And we’ve seen that already happening!”

The newly dedicated facility includes two large classrooms, a conference room, the prayer chapel, a kitchen, and other features. However, students and guests readily appreciate that the prayer chapel corridors connect all the campus buildings together, with the exception of the dormitories.

GIRLS ATTENDTHOUSANDS OF

CENTER BRINGS NEW PRAYER

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soon enter.Today, our challenges are different,

but grave. Our most basic freedom — religious liberty — has faced the largest threat it has in our nation’s history. Individuals with evangelical views have found it a difficult, if not impossible, path to federal court appointments. Join me in praying that President-Elect Trump will honor his commitment to appoint judges with biblical values.

As the founders of this Fellowship knew, we know our hope is not found in the Oval Office, Congress, or on the judicial bench. We have hope in Christ

alone.Let’s also pair our faith with action.

With love, make your voice heard to your representatives on a local, state, and federal level.

3) Pray for a spiritual awakening.Although the challenges in front

of this nation are great, our God is greater. We desperately need a great spiritual awakening. May the Holy Spirit do a work in our hearts, in our churches, in our communities that will reverberate across our nation.

Join with me in believing for the greatest spiritual awakening this world has ever known!

A GIFT TO THE BAKERFIELD REGIONBY KEN WALKER

The crowds flocking to Sunday evening’s young adult services are already jamming the parking lot at Bakersfield City Center. But the vision Canyon Hills Assembly of God has for this Southern California development go far beyond revitalizing a defunct Montgomery Ward department store.

The megachurch’s plans include remodeling the 165,000-square-foot facility so it can serve as a regional training and resource center for church-based compassion ministries. It also will serve as an epicenter for SoCal Network congregations in the Central Valley to collaborate on church planting and revitalization as well as world missions with a state-of-the-art conference center and support hub.

In addition, City Center will one day be home to separate English and Spanish-speaking worship services, with unified children and youth ministries for Anglo and Hispanic children. It also will be the site of a regional Convoy of Hope operation, with the compassion ministry able to deploy fleets of trucks from the bays once used to load and unload merchandise.

“It gives us the opportunity to go back to the heart of the city,” says Senior Pastor Wendell Vinson. Canyon

Hills is nearly seven miles from downtown.

The story of the ambitious development started last year, when a generous donor approached the SoCal Network, and then offered to help the church acquire the onetime Montgomery Ward store, a multimillion-dollar gift.

“It will allow for a real quantum leap in terms of outreach,” says Executive Pastor Steve Vinson, Wendell’s brother. “No other place has the space, the parking area, the staging area, and so much need.”

Canyon Hills is about halfway into its $5 million redevelopment, which has included repairing the heating and air conditioning system, plus considerable demolition and rebuilding. Wendell anticipates it being fully operational next year.

Providentially, the day after Canyon Hills closed the deal came the announcement that the Bakersfield depot for the state’s high-speed rail line to run from San Diego to San Francisco will be located next to City Center.

“It’s becoming an epicenter,” Wendell says. “It’s a chance for God’s people to work together and finish the assignment we’ve been given.”

Muslim women make up 10 percent of the world’s population — standing shoulder-to-shoulder, they would wrap around the world at least 11 times — and nearly all of them have never heard a clear presentation of the gospel.

Lynda Hausfeld, the founder and director of Say Hello: Serving Muslim Women, says the solution to reaching Muslim women with the gospel cannot be relegated to only missionaries and ministries.

Instead, Hausfeld believes that the key to reaching Muslim women for Christ includes women sitting in the pews. Relationship is what it takes to be able to speak into a Muslim woman’s life, which starts with a simple “hello.”

The ministry “Say Hello,” which is

the women’s component of the Assemblies of God World Missions Global Initiative, Reaching Muslim Peoples, invites Christian women into the joy of Christ-like friendships with Muslim women, who are “more like us than we think.”

Light for the Lost helps women prepare for developing those friendships by printing English and Spanish versions of Say Hello, a booklet that has opened many doors to witness among Muslims in nations where Muslims and Christians are neighbors.

“The key,” Hausfeld emphasizes, “is to love our Muslim neighbors like Jesus loves us.”

LFTL HELPS WOMEN “SAY HELLO”BY DAN VAN VEEN