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THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY DARRIN J. RODGERS Paul and Virginia Weidman, pioneer Assemblies of God missionaries to Africa, traveled in 1937 to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), where they worked among the Mossi people. One of their sons, Paul Jr., learned the Mossi language quickly and was able to interpret for his father. The Mossi loved this little boy. But little Paul’s life was cut short when he contracted blackwater fever and died on Feb. 8, 1938. He was 7 years old. Virginia Weidman shared this account: “Saturday afternoon, he lay in his bed and sang with all his heart (in the More language) . . . . He preached, as he so often did, saying, ‘Do not follow Satan’s

road, but follow God’s road, for it alone leads to heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ In a short time, extreme pain started. How we did call unto God for deliverance; yet He gave us grace to say, ‘Not my will but Thine be done.’ . . . In times like this, we are made to know that our Redeemer liveth.” Was the Weidmans’ suffering worth it? Today, the AG is the largest Protestant denomination in Burkina Faso, with more than 1,204,000 members and over 3,600 churches and preaching points. Read the article, “Little One Called Home,” by Virginia Weidman on page 7 of the March 26, 1938, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel online at s2.ag.org/mar261938.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONTAINED IN EASTER’S EMPTY TOMB

PASTOR PUSHES PASSIONATE PRAYERPAGE 3

JOHN KERRY: ISIS IS GENOCIDAL AGAINST CHRISTIANS PAGE 5 • SAGU TO PARTNER WITH AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE PAGE 5 •

CHURCH RUNS KIDS’ ACTIVITIES CENTER PAGE 7 • THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY PAGE 8

SAVING PENNIES TO FIGHT TRAFFICKINGPAGE 4

CHAPLAIN HELPS INMATES TRANSFORMPAGE 6

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

SUNDAY,MARCH 27,2016

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When he moved to the remote, rural community of Chadron, Nebraska, in 2012, Pastor Grant Curtis of Chadron Community Church (C3) recognized the need for a place where families could bring their children to play. He and his wife, Stephanie, have three young daughters. “The winters get pretty tough here,” he says. “There’s not much to go and do.” Board members supported him in efforts to open an indoor activity center for kids and their families. Since opening in July 2015, the new center, called The Refuge, has been bursting with activities, and the town of 5,850 has made good use of it. The Refuge is staffed entirely by church volunteers. The center is equipped with inflatable bounce houses, a game room, foosball table, air hockey table, and bubble soccer balls. The main event is Family Day, hosted twice a week for two and half hours in the morning. Parents can enjoy fellowship with friends and free WiFi in the coffee bar area while kids play. As many as 65 kids and their families have visited on Family Day. The building is available to church and community groups to rent for free during the rest of the week except on Sunday mornings, when C3 services are held. The church’s youth group, as well as many families and businesses, utilize the Refuge for birthday parties, bridal showers, and meetings. A whopping 53 events took place at The Refuge in January — 33 of which had no C3 connection. The growing church, which averages around 185 attendees, provided a generous offering to open the center and continues to provide monthly support for expenses.

Years before the apostle Paul wrote his Ephesian letter from a prison in Rome, he had planted and pastored the church in Ephesus for two and a half years. During that time, he sent letters to the Corinthian church that was beset with problems and pride. He told them in 1 Corinthians 13 what was missing in their community life: they were not rooted and grounded in love. This is always a sobering word to the church because in our desire for the restoration and presence of the charismata, we may be tempted to build on the gifts rather than the Giver; on the sensational above the ethical or moral; on success and numbers rather than love. • If we speak in tongues and do not have love, it is just a headache noise to God, a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. • If we fathom all mysteries and knowledge, but have not love, we are left with massive egos and abusive personalities.

• If we can prophesy and preach without love, we might as well pack up and go home. • If we have faith to move mountains but don’t have love, we have a loveless faith. What good is a goal-oriented, task-focused, success-driven minister without love? • If we give everything away, but do not do it from a motive of love, what good is it? • Even if we give our lives for Christ, becoming a martyr, but do it without love, we gain nothing. But, when we are rooted and grounded in love, then we can … Grasp the breadth of His love. It is wide. It begins before the stream of time and flows into the ocean of eternity. It embraces all ethnicities, all ages, male, and female. There is not a single person God does not love. Grasp the duration of His love. It is long. The songwriter put it well:“Could we with ink the ocean fill,And were the skies of parchment

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CHURCH RUNS KIDS’ ACTIVITIES CENTERBY JENNIFER NELSON

THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONTAINED IN EASTER’S EMPTY TOMBBY GEORGE O. WOOD

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Kermit Bridges, president of Southwestern Assemblies of God University (SAGU) in Waxahachie, Texas, and David Moore, president of American Indian College (AIC) in Phoenix, have announced SAGU is seeking to open an instructional site on the AIC campus. The new initiative will be referred to as SAGU AIC. SAGU received approval from the Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education to offer academic programs on the AIC campus beginning in the fall.SAGU is petitioning its accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission of Colleges (SACSCOC), for permission to establish a permanent, off-campus instructional site at the AIC campus beginning in the fall. A permanent SAGU extension site in Phoenix would provide AIC students with accredited degree programs, student services through SAGU, and courses taught by faculty familiar to the students. “We are excited about this new development that has been several months in the making,” Moore says. “This brings immediate programmatic strength to AIC while remaining true to AIC’s goal of preparing Native American men and women for life and ministry service.”

During her senior year at Southeastern University (SEU), one of Kendall Altmyer’s professors compared pennies to victims of human trafficking: often ignored, invisible, trampled on, and considered worthless. Altmyer determined never again to pass by a penny without picking it up and saving it, as it now represented “one of the Lord’s overlooked little girls.” Friends encouraged her to make jewelry with the pennies and donate the sale proceeds to an anti-trafficking organization. A month into her internship in Greece with the A21 Campaign, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Christine Caine that fights global human trafficking, Altmyer received a package from her friend Sara Beth Chambers. Inside, she found a penny bracelet. On the coin was stamped “Worthy.” Chambers informed Altmyer that she had made 10 bracelets and sold them at a football game, with the proceeds to go to A21. “I had prayed for God to somehow give the penny a voice,” Altmyer says.

With the help of family and friends — and a professional jeweler from her hometown — Altmyer got to work making and packaging penny bracelets. They sold out during a women’s conference in Texas. Grammy-nominated singer Kari Jobe invited Altmyer to travel with her so she could sell more bracelets and spread the word about the ministry. So far more than 14,000 bracelets have sold. Christine Caine shares that excitement. Caine notes that many people desire to blunt trafficking, but Altmyer’s pursuit is special. “Kendall has bravely looked in the direction of injustice, and decided to use what was in her hand to make a difference,” Caine says. “The penny story and bracelets have been so successful because of the meaning behind it, the passion within it, and the determination that Kendall has had to make a difference.” Altmyer, who will receive her master’s degree in counseling from SEU this May, has begun speaking to women’s groups around the country.

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SAVING PENNIES TO FIGHT TRAFFICKINGBY GINGER KOLBABA

Secretary of State John Kerry recently included Christians in a list of those being targeted for genocide by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.Speaking at the State Department on March 17, Kerry stated, “[ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims.” In December, PE News reported that George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, was among 30 signatories of a letter urging Kerry to issue such a proclamation. The letter contended that the State Department’s acknowledgement would be a step toward enforcing the Genocide Convention, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 in response to the Holocaust. Kerry’s statement followed a unanimous resolution passed on March 14 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which also labeled the attacks by ISIS as acts of genocide against Christians in the region. “I am pleased by Secretary Kerry’s acknowledgment today of the brutal persecution Christians have endured at the hands of ISIS,” Wood says. “I urge believers to unite in prayer for those suffering displacement, great loss, torture, and even death for their faith in Christ.”

ISIS IS GENOCIDAL AGAINST CHRISTIANS

SAGU TO PARTNER WITH AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE

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Ron Auch Sr. has been encouraging congregants, ministers, and married couples about the power of an active prayer life for 36 years. It’s a message he travels the globe to preach at conferences through his evangelism ministry, Pray-Tell Ministries, and puts prayer into practice as co-lead pastor of Prayer House Assembly of God in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a church he planted in 1999. “The thing that has burdened me all these years is how prayer changes the pray-er,” says Auch. “I’m focused on what spending time in the presence of God does to change the life and heart of the one who is praying.” Auch’s passion for prayer grew from personal desperation. In the 1970s,

Auch struggled with a pornography addiction that affected his relationship with his wife, Lou Ann. “In seminary, God really began to deal with me about prayer,” Auch says. “The things that prayer did in my life really healed me and my marriage.” In 1980, Auch designed a Bible-based teaching on how to develop a personal prayer life and soon had every weekend booked with speaking engagements for five months. Auch now travels two Sundays a month to continue speaking by invitation at churches and conferences. “People who come here know prayer is the heart of this church,” Auch says of Prayer House, which averages 270 attendees on Sundays.

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made;Were every stalk on earth a quill,And every man a scribe by trade;To write the love of God aboveWould drain the ocean dry;Nor could the scroll contain the whole,Though stretched from sky to sky.” Grasp the extremity of His love. It is deep. I learned a wonderful hymn in seminary by Samuel Trevor Francis. One cold winter night, at a point in life when his faith wavered, Francis found himself walking across London’s Hungerford Bridge. Mulling over his loneliness, he heard a whisper tempting him to end his misery and

jump into the churning waters below.Francis did not heed the dark voice. Instead, he heard God’s reassuring words speaking to him in the night. On that bridge, he reaffirmed his faith in Jesus Christ and then wrote: “O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!” May the Spirit help us grasp the width, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ that brought Him out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe, to Bethlehem’s manger, Nazareth’s small village, Calvary’s cruel cross, and Easter’s empty tomb.

PASTOR PUSHES PASSIONATE PRAYER

BY IAN RICHARDSON

Assemblies of God U.S. Missions chaplain Bob C. Holyfield has led seminars in 200 prisons in 21 states and four foreign countries designed to help inmates deal with issues such as family strife, bitterness, immorality, and addictions. After a five-day concentrated course, qualifying prisoners desiring further discipleship move to special living quarters, where they learn more thorough instruction every day for 12 months. This includes character development, financial responsibility, and Scripture memorization. “In prison, there needs to be a discipleship program to teach them how to live for God,” says Holyfield, who is a life principles prison ministry director based in Little Rock, Arkansas. “The whole thrust is seeing guys who have come to know Christ be discipled over a year, and they in turn help other inmates to mature.” The good-natured and mellow Holyfield is equally adept at talking to wardens and convicted murderers. Prison officials consider him a friend; many inmates see him as a father

figure they never had. “Christ is the only answer for them to change their lives,” Holyfield says. “When you show them the power of Christ’s salvation, they’re going to make it.” Upon release from penitentiaries, some men who have accepted Jesus as Savior don’t feel welcome in traditional churches. Fifteen years ago, Holyfield became concerned that these men would fall away from their newfound faith. So he started an AG church in his rural Arkansas hometown of Hattieville. In recent years, Holyfield has assisted 40 penitentiaries in setting up around-the-clock faith-based living units. Ruthie Westfahl, who coordinates the Florida Department of Corrections reception unit for women in Ocala, received training from Holyfield. “Chaplain Holyfield has lots of experience in his field and he uses it to teach and disciple others,” Westfahl says. “He sees us as individuals and listens carefully to what we say. He is skilled in pulling everyone into meaningful conversation.”

CHAPLAIN HELPS INMATES TRANSFORM BY JOHN W. KENNEDY