World Article

At Work in the World

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

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. Here are s...

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...

International Missions LESSONS IN MISSIONS

In the fall of 2004, while my wife, Sandra, and I had been serving as pastors at Kennedy Road Tabernacle in Brampton, Ontario, I began to sense that the Lord was calling us to the mission field. We answered the call, arriving in Thailand in August 2005. Over more than 10 years of serving in missions, we learned innumerable things about ourselves and others. Here’s our top 10 list. 10. Jesus is enough, and now we know what that means. It was so hard at that stage of life to leave a gr...

ERDO THE RIPPLE EFFECT

Being a parent involves tough choices. Sometimes the correct answer isn’t obvious or you’re faced with a daunting and unpopular decision. But what if you had to choose between medicine for your sick child or feeding the rest of your family? What if sending your child to school, their only chance for a better life, meant that the whole family went hungry? What parent could face those kinds of choices? In the area of Kenya where Akililu Hunqe grew up, his family and many in his communi...

International Missions A WONDERFUL WORLD?

In childhood I truly feared … Frankenstein coming up the stairs A werewolf under my bed A tornado flinging our house into the air A house fire in the night War, atomic bombs and nowhere to hide The Rapture, being left behind Armageddon My parents getting divorced, or worse, being killed in an accident Getting head lice In adulthood I truly fear … Getting into a horrible car accident Losing a child Kidnappers Losing my husband Losing my parents or siblings Getting fat...

Mission Canada TRANSITIONS

A testimony interview with Dr. Robb Powell, national co-ordinator for Campus Mission Canada t: You’ve mentioned that it’s important to prepare students in high school for their transition into post-secondary education. Could you elaborate? RP: I often think about transitions. And this one is huge. This is the point where the youth becomes an adult. They head out on their own and learn to negotiate a new, fascinating and powerful world. It’s a drifting cosmos in which there is ...

ERDO HOPE FOR BANGLADESH

“No matter where you are in the world, you want the best for your child.” These are the words of David Adcock, chief executive officer of ERDO, and they carry the ring of truth. Whether you live in Barrie, Ontario, or in Bangkok, or in Bangladesh, wanting the best for our children is universal. But imagine if caring for your children was so difficult, there were days it seemed impossible. What if your only water were tainted with naturally occurring arsenic, which made your child sic...

Mission Canada CONSIDERING FRENCH MINISTRY

Over the last year, our Bible college chapel time has focused on the theme “At the school of Moses (À l’école de Moïse).” The greatest principle that stuck with me from the chapel messages was Moses’ tenacity: in all that he experienced and in everything he did, in spite of the obstacles, he never quit. Moses pursued his calling. Hans Finzel writes, “In my mind, calling is about following a higher purpose in life. It is listening to and obeying Go...

ERDO LEGACIES

One of the joys I have in my work with ERDO is connecting people’s desire to love and serve God with opportunities for sharing their resources. When people really bond with a cause and find a ministry like ERDO’s that aligns with their desire to help meet human need in developing countries, the energy and enthusiasm are tangible. I am thrilled when people get excited about making a ministry gift and helping fulfil ERDO’s biblical call: “Do good. Seek justice. Help the opp...

International Missions IT BEGINS WITH “ONE”

One of the most often quoted yet least obeyed passages in Scripture is found in Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV), where our Lord commanded His followers to “… go [into all the world] and make disciples of all nations.” We are commanded to leave our own place of comfort and move out to reveal Christ in places where He is not known and worshipped—not a single region is exempted. “Nations” refers to peoples and language groups that live anywhere and everywhere. To see a n...