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THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY GLENN W. GOHR

Assemblies of God missionary Lillian Hunt Trasher accepted the Lord at a young age. At age nine she prayed, “Lord, if ever I can do anything for you, just let me know and I will do it.” A few years later, she was invited by evangelist Mattie Perry to work in a nearby orphanage. During her apprenticeship, Trasher learned how to make clothes, care for infants, and teach children, all on a shoestring budget. This experience would prepare her for her life’s calling. She left the orphanage to study for one year at a Bible school and then traveled for a time as an evangelist. In her travels, she met George S. Brelsford, a missionary working in Assiout, Egypt, and the door opened

for her to sail to Egypt as a missionary in 1910, with no mission board to support her. A few months after arriving in Egypt, she was called to the bed of a dying woman who had a small baby that was left an orphan. Trasher took care of this baby, and this led to the establishment of what today is known as the Lillian Trasher Orphanage in Assiout. In 1914, she affiliated with the AG. During the 50 years that Trasher operated the orphanage, thousands of Egyptian children and families received food, clothing, housing, spiritual nurture, and education, winning Trasher the Egyptian government’s respect. Read this issue of the 1935 Evangel online at s2.ag.org/dec211935.

WHERE’S THE BEEF?

STUDENTS FIND FINE ARTS GIFTSPAGE 3

YOUTH ALIVE EQUIPS STUDENTS IN PENINSULAR FLORIDA PAGE 5 • MINISTERS SEEK TO PRESERVE DESERT LANDS PAGE 5 •

CONNECTING GENERATIONS: GIVING THEM WINGS PAGE 7 • THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY PAGE 8

SOONER STATE MISSIONARIESPAGE 4

MEETING ALASKA’S URGENT NEEDSPAGE 6

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

SUNDAY,DEC. 27, 2015

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A few years ago in Sioux City, Iowa, then youth sponsor Shery Miller noticed that young girls were reaching their 20s still struggling to use the gifts God had placed within them.Miller had a ministry idea of providing a framework for young women to reach their potential socially, spiritually, and individually; she called it Wings. “We offered a support system as these girls reached for their dreams, explored their callings, and developed their abilities,” Miller explained. Women in their 40s and 50s joined Miller in committing time to the women of Wings in their early 20s. “We did surveys with the girls, researched their needs, then prayed.” She continued, “The women committed to listening to the girls’ heart passions, and encouraging them to step into God’s timing and plan. We offered the benefit of our adulthood without judgment or control. We became vulnerable about the years we personally spent searching for answers. We gave the girls a safe place to work through their ideas.” For each meeting, the leaders chose a specific word theme. The group then explored that word from different perspectives. The group discovered the spiritual aspect of themes through “Think About It” segments of meetings. Wings meetings also included art activities, mixers, book and movie reviews, and snacks. Segments of each meeting were fast-paced, allowing girls to come and go as needed to accommodate their busy schedules without feeling guilty. Miller concluded, “What resulted from Wings was great fun, seeing these girls begin to lead in their churches and communities.”

After Jordan Weaver, pastor of Shiloh Ranch Cowboy Church (SRCC) in Powell Butte, Oregon, delivered the opening invocation for a spring session of the Oregon House of Representatives, one of that church’s most prominent members addressed his fellow lawmakers about a project close to his own heart: Shiloh’s 1017 Cattle Project. House Minority Leader Mike McLane, who represents central Oregon’s District 55 and attends Shiloh Ranch, described 1017 to his colleagues: “We buy calves, raise them on church property and other areas in Powell Butte, use them for amateur rodeos, fatten them up, and give them away” to food banks in central Oregon.That idea was Weaver and his wife Lacey’s answer to a headache they say is faced by cowboy churches that incorporate rodeo activities in the life of their congregations: Where to get cattle suitable for roping? The 600-member church, which the Laceys planted in 2012, needed to get

on its feet financially. “We knew we didn’t have the funds to keep buying roping cattle,” Jordan Weaver says. It’s a common problem, according to 32-year-old Weaver, an Assemblies of God U.S. missionary in training and rodeo chaplain. “Most cowboy churches lease cattle — they pay somebody to provide cattle,” Weaver says. He adds that leasing stock is not only money lost, but producers must repeatedly be asked to provide more stock. The Weavers pondered a creative option: What if Shiloh Ranch Cowboy Church had its own herd? Once the calves became too big to rope, what if the church partnered with area food banks to provide a steady supply of quality beef? “We were buying tuna fish because the beef was so expensive,” says Kate Mura Erickson, president the largest food bank in the area, St. Vincent de Paul of Crook County. Weaver had never heard of a church

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CONNECTING GENERATIONS: GIVING THEM WINGSBY DARLA KNOTH

WHERE’S THE BEEF?BY DEANN ALFORD

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Otto and Saidy Orellana were among the first students who attended the Hispanic School of Ministry, established in 2009 by Assemblies of God U.S. missionaries Mark and Nancy Fitzgerald. Today, the Orellanas are senior pastors of Iglesia Pueblo de Dios (First Assembly-Spanish) in Norman, Oklahoma. Last year, the one-time church plant closed on a mortgage and moved into its own building. Otto says the lessons he and his wife received from the Fitzgeralds, who spent 16 years as Assemblies of God World Missionaries to Mexico, were invaluable. Mark and Nancy, as AG Intercultural Ministries missionaries, taught them ways to improve their preaching and teaching, to handle church finances, and how to care for their own family as a ministry. “Through their example, we have learned how to be methodical, to persevere, to listen, and to share with others,” Otto says. “They helped us be more caring for the people we serve.” When the Fitzgeralds returned to their native state in 2007, there were

three Hispanic congregations in the AG Oklahoma District. Today, there are 35 Hispanic churches and 20 preaching points. “We saw around 350 graduate from Bible college in Mexico,” Mark says. “What God is doing here is so much bigger.” There are just over 95 students presently enrolled at their training centers in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, an increase over the 80-plus who graduated last June. Eighteen of the recent graduates are already pastoring or are on a church staff. More than a dozen new congregations have been established by school of ministry alumni during the past three years. While Hispanics are the largest minority in Oklahoma, the district includes such diverse groups as Native Americans, Africans, Samoans, and a church of immigrants from Myanmar. “We have attempted to say that we need to reach people as aggressively as we send missionaries to the foreign field,” says AG Oklahoma District Superintendent Frank Cargill.

Assemblies of God Southern Pacific District Superintendent Sergio Navarrete and 100 other district Hispanic pastors signed a Dec. 8 letter asking President Obama to create the Mojave Trails, Castle Mountains, and Sand to Snow national monuments. “In the Scriptures, there is a very strong theology of creation, of God’s intention to protect and nurture what He has made,” Navarrete says. “For us, His children, we see the majesty of God in His creation, His power, wisdom, and love for us. We must protect this.” Navarrete and other supporters see the region’s desert lands in peril from proposals to pump critical underground aquifers to export water to the state’s thirsty metro areas, air pollution, urban sprawl, and wind and solar farms targeting hundreds of thousands of desert acres. In all, the new monuments would cover more than a million acres, an area between Palm Springs and the California-Nevada boundary line. “For centuries, Hispanic culture has found health and peace and emotional well-being from being in contact with the desert,” Navarrete says. “Many of our families spend a week in the desert, camping and hiking along its rivers and in its forests, all just enjoying God’s creation together.”

As the first ever Youth Alive missionaries in the AG Peninsular Florida District, Joe and Natalie Barnoske are fulfilling a calling to empower students to reach their campuses with the gospel. The Barnoskes held six one-day events, each in a different region of their district, on Saturdays throughout the semester. The interactive events, called Empowerment Days, included instruction, question-and-answer panels, and dream sessions in which campus missionaries had the opportunity to network and share their campus goals. Each event concluded with students being commissioned to return to their schools and share Christ. The Empowerment Days drew almost 1,000 campus missionaries. Nearly 200 students committed to become campus missionaries for the first time. The number of PenFlorida campus missionaries is now over 1,600, and dozens of Youth Alive clubs have started across the district. A resource called EmpowerME Challenge was distributed to each Empowerment Day attendee. Designed to accompany the Fire Bible each campus missionary receives, the EmpowerME Challenge includes daily practical insights from the Book of Acts, along with creative ideas for students to reach out to their peers.

SOONER STATE MISSIONARIESBY KEN WALKER

MINISTERS SEEK TO PRESERVE DESERT LANDSBY ROBERT E. MIMS

YOUTH ALIVE EQUIPS STUDENTSBY AUSTIN JACOBS

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With approximately 60 Top 10 finishes and 10 National Merit recipients in the latest National Fine Arts Festival, Mainstream Orlando, the student ministry of Faith Assembly of God in Florida, is a pre-eminent force in the Fine Arts world. Directed by lead youth pastors Johnnie and Jamee Wilson, the ministry has built a culture of Fine Arts resulting in hundreds of students discovering, developing, and deploying their God-given gifts. For Johnnie and Jamee, Fine Arts isn’t a competition, it’s an evangelistic tool. One strategy they utilize is hosting a talent show for various public high schools. Through the show, they pull groups and individuals in and expose students to Fine Arts.

Mainstream Orlando’s unique perspective to Fine Arts puts discipleship on the forefront. Some students may not start off attending small groups or weekly worship services, but through Fine Arts practices full of intentional time for devotions, prayer, and accountability, students are encountering God. For Mainstream Orlando, a student’s initial involvement in Fine Arts leads to new levels of commitment of all types: a developed or reconciled relationship with Christ, student leadership, and even full-time ministry. “The ministry of Fine Arts has been integral to help steer that passion in a direction that will bring them closer to God,” Johnnie Wilson says.

setting up such a program, but he knew it could be done. If the Shiloh Ranch program succeeded, the church could have an abundance of animals for its rodeos, cowboy church Bible camps, and training workshops and outreaches. Shiloh Ranch launched the cattle program, named 1017 after 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” SRCC funded the initial purchase of the cattle and supports the ongoing project by funding the animals’ feed and care. In addition, SRCC takes donations from ranchers in the church and in the community at large. The church also receives partial and full sponsorships

for the purchase and maintenance of each animal, which are kept on church property as well as land donated by community residents. So far, the 1017 Cattle Project has supplied 6,000 pounds of beef to St. Vincent de Paul and other area food banks and has made direct donations to individuals in need. The herd currently numbers around 140 head. Through this program, families in need — between 15 and 35 each day — get two pounds of hamburger meat or a small roast per family of two, and more for larger families. The package supplies protein for approximately five days and supplements government benefits.

STUDENTS FIND FINE ARTS GIFTS BY NII ABRAHAMS

Drugs and alcohol are ruining many lives in Alaska, especially among teenagers in rural communities. Suicide is rampant. In answer to years of prayer, Pacific Northwest Teen Challenge (PNWTC), headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is launching a new men’s center in Wasilla, Alaska, to help meet these dire needs. “We go where God opens doors,” says Chris Hodges, PNWTC regional president and CEO. PNWTC purchased a vacant building on 1.3 acres from Summit Worship Center, an AG church in Wasilla, located 43 miles from Anchorage. Volunteer crews have renovated the new facility to accommodate 28 beds for students and interns. Ever since news about the Teen Challenge campus began circulating in the community, applicants have been lining up to join the program. The need for a Christ-centered rehab program like Teen Challenge in America’s Last Frontier is urgent. Substance abuse is the greatest contributing factor to violent crimes, including domestic violence and sexual

assault. Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs are the primary forms of abuse. Darin Van Dyken has been tapped as the Alaska campus director, a natural fit as he knows the street drill as well as anyone. “The Lord transformed my life, and I can share that hope with hurting people — that they can change,” he says. In 2010, Van Dyken hit rock bottom after 13 years of drug abuse, mostly methamphetamine and cocaine. He was a functioning addict, working on a dairy farm in Yakima, Washington. He stepped into the Teen Challenge’s Portland campus in 2011 as a total skeptic. But the staff’s authenticity and caring attitude made him stay and finally surrender his life to Christ. One year later, he joined PNWTC as an intern and was promoted to the permanent staff in 2013. Wasilla is home now, and he never tires of telling his story. “God has given me discernment to read through the lies and manipulation that addicts are known for,” he says.

MEETING ALASKA’S URGENT NEEDSBY PETER K. JOHNSON