Missions

At Work in the World

Mission Canada THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIGENOUS GAMES

First impressions may not always be accurate. At first glance, Jaira Cross Child looks like any other 16-year-old teenager from the Canadian prairies. She enjoys time with family and friends and can be found texting on her cellphone. Most people would never fathom that under her petite exterior is one of Canada’s up-and-coming middle distance runners. Jaira is currently the top-ranked athlete in her age category in Saskatchewan, and this past summer she represented Team Saskatchewan at the...

ERDO DOING SOMETHING BIGGER

Traditionally my husband and I celebrate our family Christmas at my mom and dad’s place. We enjoy our family, a great big meal with amazing desserts, beautiful decorations, stacks of gifts (and gift cards), and hours of laughter. We talk and catch up, wearing our sparkly Christmas outfits, and tuck yet another year of Christmas cards into our bags ... and bags ... of gifts! We then get into our vehicles and drive back to our wonderful warm homes, most likely to do it all over again with an...

ERDO FOOD FOR ALL

To thrive during a day of physical labour like digging in a garden, cleaning your home or moving a friend (especially those with extensive book collections), you know you need to eat more than a cup of rice to have the proper energy. While you and I have many choices in our access to proper nutrition, hunger and chronic hunger are the norm for children and adults in many parts of the world. To combat this, one of ERDO’s main activities is assisting people with their access to food; not jus...

Mission Canada CANADA … THE NEXT 150

The president of the mosque across the street from our church called me. The reason for his call on that particular day was to extend an invitation for Friday evening, to join them for the breaking of their daily fast during Ramadan. I accepted. After receiving our food, I sat on the floor next to a man a few years my senior. I greeted him. He replied politely. We ate. I allowed him to do so, thinking of what he must be feeling after having not consumed any food or even liquids during the daylig...

International Missions EXPANDING MISSIONS IN BRAZIL

Q: You currently serve as a global worker in the Latin America region. Tell us about your call to go to the mission field, where that took you, and what that journey was like as a family. My call started as a child when I heard many missionaries (global workers) preach in my home church in the city of Belém, in the Amazon region of Brazil. Years later, in 1989, my church sent me as a global worker to Canada to plant churches among the Portuguese-speaking: first with Calvary Temple in Winn...

Mission Canada CRITICAL CONNECTIONS

Do you ever find yourself hearing a statistic and having it shake you to the core of your being? A few years ago, when I was in a pastoral role leading youth and young adults, I heard a speaker at Lakeshore Pentecostal Camp mention a statistic that spoke loudly to me. His statement was this: If a first-year college or university student does not connect with an on-campus Christian group within the first three weeks of their post-secondary education, or connect with a new church if they have move...

International Missions KINGDOM PRAYERS PART 2

The Lord’s Prayer calls for God’s people to pray that the kingdom of God will come on earth in the same way that it exists in heaven. That is an incredible invitation to participate with God and impact history from the human side. As you pray for our global and Mission Canada workers and all our partners around the world, please pray the Word of God over them. Ask the Lord to give us the nations as our inheritance, to have them in our possession to the praise of His glory. In the pre...

ERDO THE KINGDOM'S CAUSE

Earlier this year I had the privilege of leading a short-term medical missions team to Guatemala. We were a team of 11 who are so thankful to have had the opportunity to come alongside global workers Hector and Ruth Aragon to serve some of the neediest areas of Guatemala together. We were so blessed to be hosted by such loving and lively servants of the Lord, who took such good care of us and helped us to navigate the culture we already loved and were so desperate to learn about. From a squatter...

ERDO THE FORT MCMURRAY WILDFIRES

As we gathered with pastors from across our Fellowship at our General Conference in Montreal, we heard the sudden breaking news of the Fort McMurray wildfires. Together, we watched in disbelief as the fire spread across the community. Homes and buildings were ruined; people were displaced. It became one of the biggest disasters in Canadian history. It’s hard to believe that an entire year has passed since the tragedy. I had an opportunity to visit Fort McMurray a few months ago and was str...

International Missions KINGDOM PRAYERS

Mission Canada YOUR LIFE MATTERS

In 2016, our nation experienced the devastation of teen suicides in the northern Prairie provinces. There were six teens between the ages of 10 and 15 who took their lives in a matter of two months, and many more who were rescued from attempted suicides. It was so devastating for parents, families and friends from Lac La Ronge, Stanley Mission and Loon Lake in Saskatchewan, and from Thompson, Manitoba. This became more personal when my cousin Darlene’s little girl, Eileen, took her own lif...

International Missions CHANGING DESTINIES

Indifference is unacceptable. “We must never be bystanders to injustice or indifferent to suffering.”[1] Look closely at the faces of children from around the world. Too often there is crying, sorrow and pain. Every year, nearly 5.9 million children—about 16,000 a day—die before they are five years old,[2] mostly from famine, war and disease. That’s over 20 children not yet of school age who die every single minute of every single day. Think about that! And for...

ERDO CHILDCARE PLUS CELEBRATES 25 YEARS

We know God loves children, and we call it our mission to show His love to each child in our care. Each of them starts in the womb with God-given potential, yet many enter this world challenged by malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, crises and chronic poverty. There are also many who don’t have the opportunity to attend even primary school because their parents face a daily choice between providing food and educating their children. Through no fault of their own, children’s options are limited b...

Mission Canada REACHING OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Twenty years ago I walked into my first ministry position in East Vancouver. Fresh out of Bible college, I was full of evangelistic fire to reach students for Jesus. I was learning hip-hop dance at the time and decided to offer my new skill to the school across the street from the church. Before long I was teaching dance to the entire student body as part of their physical education classes. In addition to that, I wrote and directed a musical dance production which featured their students. I&rsq...

International Missions MIDDLE EAST SCHOLARS PROGRAM

When I reflect on the significance of the start of the Middle East Scholars Program (MESP) in Tbilisi, Georgia, the first thing that comes to mind is what a privilege it is to be part of a program that seeks to help a significantly marginalized population to dream again, to hope again, and to somehow become significant members of a community. The political climate of the world is changing so fast we can hardly keep up. The program was intended to assist war-affected Syrian youth to get on a path...

ERDO REBUILDING HAITI

Ruins, rubble and chaos—this was the reality of Haiti after a massive earthquake struck the country on January 12, 2010. More than 200,000 people were killed, much of the capital city was destroyed, and 2.3 million individuals were left homeless. Through the faithful support of the PAOC Fellowship, ERDO was able to respond strategically and promptly to the disaster. What originally began as crisis response soon transformed into long-term community development to help Haitians rebuild their...

ERDO BE LIKE A GPS THIS CHRISTMAS

I was recently rereading the Christmas story in Matthew 2 about the Wise Men visiting the newborn Jesus. Verse 9 resonated with me in a fresh way: “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.” I found it fascinating that the star not only guided them through the desert to Bethlehem, but right to the house where the Christ child was. When they located Him, they w...

International Missions ACHING BLISS

Each morning the alarm beeps at 5:35, and I silently beg for five more minutes. Yet time marches on. The birds continue their chatter, and my four children insist on attention to their morning needs of nourishment that come both from food and my reassuring presence. We scramble through that early morning rush all too often—changing diapers, answering questions, putting clean clothes on two little children, and getting school uniforms ready “just so” for two more who head out th...

Mission Canada TRANSCENDING PERSECUTION

Persecution is more than uncomfortable or inconvenient: it hurts. Emotionally and socially, it’s demoralizing. Physically, it’s painful; damaging, even to the point of death. My friends, “Thomas and Wendy” (yes, those are pseudonyms for their continued protection), experienced great persecution in their homeland. Ultimately, moving from house to house, from apartment to apartment, and even from one city to another wasn’t enough. They had to flee the country. They c...

Mission Canada TRUE WEALTH

Fortune, in our secular world, is rated by the amount of money in one’s bank account and the value of any accumulated worldly possessions. However, Jesus teaches another definition when it comes to wealth. Through His lessons, I have personally come to a new conclusion of how to be truly rich as I follow Jesus: The most valuable things I have are stored in my heart. That is the only treasure that will remain when I die. Humble self-assessments lead me to the realizati...