AFLC World Missions has teamed up with World Relief to provide compassion to the poor around the world. You can give to World Relief directly or with your normal giving to AFLC World Missions.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
World Relief
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Rev. Robert Giles goes Home
AFLC pastor, Rev. Robert Delmar Giles went to be with the Lord yesterday, November 16, 2009. Rev. Giles served in South Africa from 1982-1986.
Robert is the father of missionary Dan Giles who served with AFLC World Missions with his wife Debbie. Robert’s grandchildren, Danny and Marcela Giles and Ingrid Giles currently serve as Short Term missions Assistants in Mexico with AFLC World Missions.
Rev. Giles was born June 23, 1917 and is survived by his wife Muriel who lives in the Phoenix, AZ area.
The Memorial Service will be held at Calvary Free Lutheran Church, Mesa, AZ, on Saturday, November 28th, at 2 pm.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Pray for Justo Pillman
Please be praying for continued good health and healing in the ministry down here. It seems like many people from the church have been coming down with the flu this week. I just got off the phone with one of the home school dads and two of his children were diagnosed with the H1N1 flu today. On top of that, the oldest son has the beginning symptoms of pneumonia as well. I'm not paranoid about it, but need wisdom to know if/how to take any precautions. Today I also found out that one other youth from the church also has the swine flu.
Thanks for your prayers and support!
-Justo
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Pray for Visas
Nathan Olson and Jon Nelson have been waiting for several months now to receive their visa to travel to Brazil and work as Short Term mission Assistants (STA). Please pray that the Lord would open the door for them to serve Him in this way. Below is the text of a recent email sent out by Nathan and Jon.
“I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait
I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait.”
John Waller “While I’m Waiting”
We didn’t get the positive response from the consulate that we had hoped for last Monday. We were told to check back today, instead we received an email this morning informing us that we still need another document before our visas can officially be approved.
The document that’s needed is a notarized letter from the mission in Brazil about where we are going to volunteer, describing the activities and places where the activities will take place. This letter is very similar to one we had sent in a couple months ago, but this document needs to be more in depth with the information provided than the one we had sent in previously.
As of now we’ve already notified the Abel’s letting them know that the letter is needed and we hope to get it to the consulate as soon as Wednesday. From what we’ve been told, the letter just needs to go to the consulate in Chicago and not back to Brazil. Please be in prayer as we send in this document! If our files do go to Brazil it could take another month before we hear a response.
Overall this has been a time of waiting for Nate and myself. At times discouraging, but overall encouraging, with people voicing their concerns and offering their prayers. We are continuing to wait on the Lord, looking to Him for guidance and strength as we keep preparing. Nate and I can both see the Lord working in our lives as we wait and as He molds us and uses us while we’re here. The Lord is faithful in all that He does and we thank you for your prayers. God bless!
Jon Nelson and Nathan Olson
AFLC Student Missions
The Youth Department of the AFLC has announced their 2010 Student Mission’s trips. They have trip to Ukraine from July 11th – 25th. A second trip, to India is scheduled from July 25th to August 20th. For more information click on either of the graphics and you will be taken to the Youth Department website for more information. 
Friday, November 06, 2009
Update from Waama
Dear friends,
Can you believe Thanksgiving is already approaching?!? We certainly have lots to be thankful for.
Before I forget, I want to thank you all for your prayers for the dean and the health issues he was dealing with. He has seen much improvement in his condition and was able to join us here only about a week after classes started. He seems to be doing well and we are grateful for his leadership.
Our classes have also been going well. As I stand in front of the various classes, I am often impressed with the honor and especially the huge responsibility of helping to shape the understanding of these students with regards to spiritual matters. I have been reminded of the weight of this responsibility in a special way as I am teaching the book of James this semester which says, “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1) Please keep us in your prayers – that we would be faithful to the Word of God and accurate in our teaching.
I don’t think I have mentioned in any of my general updates that I have the opportunity again this year to go represent my former employer, LEKTRO, Inc. in Dubai. Please pray for this trip which will be from November 11th to the 21st. Pray for safe travel, positive interactions with potential customers, and that Ben would not be too overwhelmed with the extra responsibilities I am leaving to him. Thankfully, due to the way I have been able to arrange things, he will only need to teach 2 class periods for me. This is partly because I have arranged for a guest teacher who, in my absence, will teach some special classes to my third-year Evangelism students on “How to Witness to Muslims”. Pray that these special classes be a blessing to those students. The 1st and 2nd year classes that I have, I am simply making up for by taking extra class periods – some before I leave and some after I come back – so that I can cover all my material. Please praise God with me for this opportunity to work again with my good friend, Eric…and to raise some of my own support, which is always a huge blessing! I am looking forward to the change in pace.
I would also like to ask prayer for our weekend of ‘Spiritual Meetings’ for this first semester that will take place here at the school from November 20th-22nd. The theme is going to be “Salvation”. Pray that those days will be a time of special growth, encouragement and blessing for the students and staff alike.
As some of you may know, one of our major projects this year is to help equip local evangelistic teams with solar-powered audio/video sets that would enable the Jesus Film ministry we have been involved with to continue even after we leave. We have been able to come up with several of these sets but are now in the process of finding local evangelists/pastors who not only have the capability of learning how to run and maintain the equipment but also who are committed enough to this work to come up with a portion of the equipment’s cost. By the time you receive this email, we anticipate having already met with the first of our contacts to entrust him with a set and train him on its operation. Please pray for this pastor (who has a real passion for evangelism) as he seeks to establish a national evangelistic team to minister in his region. Pray that this equipment would continue to operate well for years to come and that there would be much eternal fruit from this particular team’s efforts.
I am going to close here for now. Thank you so much for your ongoing support in so many ways. As I have access to a better internet connection in the next couple weeks, I hope to be able to get some new pictures up on our blog – http://benandjesse.blogspot.com. Stay tuned!
God bless you all!
Love in Christ,
Jesse Long
Mbulu, Tanzania
Friday, October 30, 2009
Addition to Chmiel’s Update
We just sent out our October prayer update but we have one more prayer request. Our youth camp in the Czech Republic is ending this weekend and we will be taking the kids back to Lviv this Sunday. We just learned that there is an unknown flu epidemic in the Lviv region (read the article below) so please pray for safety for everybody. We would consider keeping our students out of Ukraine a little longer (all schools are closed anyways) but their visa expire on Sunday and we could only apply for their visa extension on Monday morning (everything is closed on Saturday and Sunday) and the students do not want to risk having trouble obtaining European Union visa in the future. So they decided they wanted to travel back to Lviv on Sunday despite the epidemic. Tomasz will take them back to Ukraine. Miriam and Hannah will wait in the Czech Republic. We have couple more meetings with the church in the Czech Republic next week so we planned on one more week in Czech even without knowing about the flu. But after that we would really like to go back home to Lviv. Please pray for the whole situation. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Tomasz, Miriam and Hannah
Ukraine’s health minister has announced a state of emergency after thirty-three people died from unknown flu virus in western Ukraine, near the Polish border.
Schools have been shut and people have been asked to avoid public places. The Polish-Ukrainian border has not been shut yet but Poland’s Health Minister Ewa Kopacz is considering closing border crossings if the virus turns out to be dangerous for Poles.
Almost one thousand people, mainly from the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv Regions, infected with a virus have been hospitalized, including almost 500 children. Hundreds of people have been referred to medical centres and clinics with flu symptoms.
Preliminary tests have shown that eleven, out of thirty-three fatal victims, have died from swine flu.
“Unfortunately, we have to state that an an A/H1N1 flu epidemic has in fact started in Ukraine," said Kniazevych at a press conference. Ukraine’s Health Ministry is planning to impose quarantine in the whole country.
The news has caused a panic in Ukraine. People are buying up anti flu medicines, vaccines and masks. As Ukrainian chemist's' are running out of stock, some Ukrainians are going to Poland to get necessary medications. Ukrainian hospitals, which are being stormed by people, will probably have to ask medicine students for help.
Tomasz Chmiels
This week we are at a youth camp in the Czech Republic. As we mentioned in our earlier updates, we are organizing this camp together with a youth group from Oldrichovice (Czech). At first we were really disappointed when instead of ten students from Lviv, we ended up bringing only three. But we are very grateful that those three can be here. What a blessing to see the Oldrichovice youth witnessing to our students!!! What a mature group of young people they are! It is so exciting for us to see our three girls from Lviv being part of this healthy group for a week. 
We pray that God would use this camp to do big things in their lives and that they would then pass it on to the other students in Lviv.
The three girls from Lviv that were able to come (from left to right): Ira, Katya, Yulia
Here we are presenting a little bit about our Lviv group during Oldrichovice worship service
A short video of the youth playing a game (one person is trying to get a seat and everybody else is moving trying to always fill the empty seat) http://picasaweb.google.com/chmiels05/HannahDvacatyctvrtyTyden5Mesicu#5397957801580929058
The hard thing about our last couple of months is that it feels like we are traveling all the time. In the picture below Hannah looks happy helping Daddy drive to camp but it is not always easy for her to be traveling all the time, not to be home when it is her bedtime, to be passed around from one youth group girl to another because they all want to hold her etc. But we praise God for His protection during our travels and for helping Hannah deal with all the constant changes fairly well.
Before going to the Czech Republic for the camp, we traveled to Odesa to a youth ministry conference. It was Hannah’s first time on a train and she did really well during those 12 hours of travel.
The conference was for people interested in youth ministry from all the German Lutheran congregations all over Ukraine. It was good for us to be there because we wanted to meet these people to see what our role could be in the future, how we could help them in their ministries. We would love to see healthy youth ministry grow in the Lutheran church in Ukraine. Right now there is not much youth ministry going on in the German Lutheran church at all. Pastor Gross (from Odesa) told us that there are really just two functioning youth groups in the whole denomination, one is in Odesa (where the denomination headquarters is) and one in Lviv (ours). The rest of the people who came to the conference were somehow connected to working with youth but they did not do this on regular basis (they maybe go to a camp as counselors in the summer or help prepare a Christmas program or something but they do not work with the youth regularly during the school year).
These were some of the conference participants. The guy in the blue shirt (third from left) and the guy in the yellow and black T-shirt were speakers from an organization called “Youth For Christ”. They were not Lutherans but we really enjoyed their seminars. It was all Bible-based and Christ-centered. We pray that healthy seeds were sown. It would be wonderful to have people like this, on fire for the Lord and excited about youth ministry, also in the Lutheran church in the future.
At the beginning of October, “Thanksgiving Day” is celebrated in the Lutheran church in Ukraine. Here is a picture of our youth group in Lviv singing and sharing Scripture during the Thanksgiving worship service. If you would like to hear the students sing, you can click here http://picasaweb.google.com/chmiels05/LetoAPodzim2009#5388740701017138338
In our last email update, we asked you for prayers for our visa renewal situation. At first it looked like it would all go really well this year. We submitted all the needed things and the lady in charge kept telling us that it would not be a problem to receive a one-year visa renewal and registration. So even though they charged us almost three times of what it cost last year, we were really thankful that it would be done quickly and without any problems. But then when we went to pick up our passports with the renewal stamp, the lady told us that it was all complicated, things had changed and blah blah blah... In short, we did not receive the visa renewal. What she did was she registered us for three months to her own home address (without our knowledge or consent!) and told us that we need to go to a Ukrainian embassy somewhere outside of Ukraine and again try to apply for a religious visa there. So after we come home from camp, we will again be gathering documents and then we will have to travel to Krakow (Poland) to apply for a new visa. And only after that we can again try to register... It is really disappointing but we guess those are some of the “joys” of missionary life. :(
We cannot write more now because we are still at camp and there is not very much time for email or anything else besides camp program.
Thank you so much for all your prayers.
Blessings,
Tomasz, Miriam and Hannah
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
AFLC World Missions Videos
Have you ever watched our videos. We have a collection of videos describing a number of our ministries. The latest addition to our playlist is a video from Justo Pillman who is ministering in Ecuador. Click on the graphic to the right and then go to Justo’s video named “Missionupdate.”
Paul and Becky Abel
Almost two months have slipped by and I realize it is time to communicate with our web of friends and supporters. We hope everyone has returned to another school year with a desire to do all to the glory of God and give Him thanks in all things.
Looking Back
We have had a full two months. I just want to give you a quick overview so that you can rejoice with us and pray for us as you have done so faithfully throughout the years of our ministry in Brazil. Paul had a complete recovery of his voice after weeks of struggling with laryngitis. Our time in Campo Mourão in September giving a course on courtship and sexuality was blessed by the Lord and we hope the decisions made will be significant in helping young people remain sexually pure. We taught the classes together this time because of Paul’s weak voice. As he ministered during the week his voice gradually strengthened.
The following week we drove to São Paulo to meet my folks and take them to visit a boy they support monthly through Compassion International. Then we returned to Curitiba to spend a wonderful three weeks together. It is almost hard to believe that this was their 10th visit to Brazil in the 25 years we have been here. How thankful we are for their faithful support and encouragement of our ministry! 
They kept busy the whole time they were here, painting our house and doing fix-up jobs that we just don’t get around to doing. Of course we enjoyed sharing our life and ministry and friends with them as well. One highlight for all of us was babysitting for Deborah and Sarah for 10 days while Joanna and Silvio were traveling. We had a great bonding time and memories to cherish for the years to come. We also enjoyed celebrating a host of birthdays. I feel like I have made plenty of fancy birthday cakes for awhile. Thanks to all of you who remembered to send birthday greetings to us!
We are praising God for the rentals at the ARCA. After several months of financial struggle we are thankful to report that we have bookings set in place until the end of the year. We are breathing a little easier now. Thank you, Lord! We had an Annual ARCA board meeting in September. Yara has decided to terminate her ministry with the camp for the time being but will continue to serve on the Board. Her husand Carlos continues to work as camp manager.
Paul took a quick trip to Campo Mourão a couple of weeks ago for the funeral of our dear friend Dona Vita. She and her husband have been caretakers at the Bible Camp in Campo Mourão for over 40 years. She was a dear saint and will be greatly missed.
Looking Ahead
The church construction in Borda do Campo is progressing (see photo) and they plan to have the dedication service on November 14th and move into unfinished quarters to escape the monthly rent bill.
We have started a weekly Bible Club on Saturdays in Campo Largo in yet one more attempt to reach out to the community. We have had several visitors and are excited about this new avenue of ministry.
This coming weekend the ARCA is hosting our Second Missionary Conference. The first one was in 2007. We hope to host this event every other year to encourage our Free Lutheran people in mission outreach. This year four different workshops will be offered in preparation for a practical mission outreach event in the community on Monday, November 2 which is a national holiday in Brazil.
The Mighty Fortress Church in São Braz also took the initiative to offer a bi-weekly course for training leaders in our area churches. We meet together on Tuesday evenings to learn and encourage one another.
We look forward to the arrival of four Canadian young men next week to help with some construction projects around here. The two short-termers from the States, Jon and Nathan, are still waiting for their visas to be granted, but we hope to see them soon. One other volunteer, Karyn Ballman, is in the process of applying for a visa to spend some time with us as well. Please keep these young people in your prayers.
I’ve already have gone on too long and I feel like I have barely scraped the surface. Life and ministry keep us busy all the time. We are still here because of the mercies of the Lord. We are so glad He never tires of loving people and offering opportunities for men to be reconciled to Him. His Word through the prophet Ezekiel expresses His desire for all mankind – “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” Ez. 18:32
Thanks for praying for us as we lead people to repentance and faith!
God’s best to each of you! Love, Paul and Becky
P.S. Our old website is no longer active, but I have put together another one if anyone needs information about us or would like to take a look – www.paulabel.shutterfly.com
