Photo: Zack & Jen Sportsman, Burkina Faso

U.P.C.I. Associates in Missions E -News EFebruary/March 2013

A Word From the Director of AIM

2013: The Year of Increase

Jim Poitras
I never imagined the airport hall was so long. She purposely walked toward the security checknever looking back. When I yelled out, I love you MORE! she threw her hand behind her head in acknowledgement but kept moving. My heart leap-frogged into my throat, and I lightly pounded my chest a couple of times to hopefully knock things back in place. So, this is how parents and loved ones feel when letting go of their precious AIMers as they leave for the field! Thirty years ago my own wife made such a journey. A trip of three or four months turned into a lifetime of missions service. Things have come full circle. What will happen to our fledgling AIMer? Time and God will tell! As our own missionary prepared, packed, repacked, and repacked, I pondered what the next five or six months on the field would bring. She had purchased white mugs from the Dollar Tree (expensive shopper!). Special friends and family took colorful Sharpie markers and designed a special keepsake for her. (Im not sure what she is going to do with eight coffee mugs in one hundred plus weather. She doesnt even drink coffee!) To solidify the ink and art I guess you put the mugs in the oven, bake them, and the ink doesnt come off. I thought of her time overseas as an opportunity for increase. I designed her mug with lifes purpose in mind and depicted her AIM tour as 2013, the year of increase. Increase of what, you might ask? Well, I will tell you since I think it also applies to youwhoever you are; wherever you are.

Director of Education & AIM

Jim Poitras

Editor
Miranda Alphin

I pray that 2013 will be a year of increase for you. Im sure this involves many things but here are a few I sketched on the mug: Increased

Vision Purpose Passion

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16: 15 KJV)

Burden Word-view Worldview Friendships Cross-cultural Experience Faith

and lastbut not leastsouls! Her time in all of these will increase. Like John the Baptist reminds me, her time with me will decrease. Im a little bitter about that. Why must I decrease? But, she will be a better person because of AIM, and Ill be a better father and leader in the process. So, I leave her and each of you to a time of increase. I love the picture of her and one of her friends as she was about to step out and walk that long road to the security checkpoint. Her mother and I are in the background, tears in our eyes, smiles swelling in our hearts, backing her up, and cheering her on. So, the Poitras household is quieter this evening, lonelier tonight, but the mission team in Ghana is on the increase.

I May Never Be A Waitress

Melinda Poitras
I still remember the moment that I was reading through a history of apostolic missions and I found it. March 2, 1989. Birth of Melinda Poitras, future Missionary. I thought, at that moment, that such a declaration was horribly unfair. What if I wanted to be a doctor? Or a lawyer? Or a novelist? Or a waitress? To have a life plan inked into a history before one is even old enough to read it seemed unjust indeed. Thats the thing about life it isnt fair. It isnt fair that I was birthed into a family who ate, slept, and breathed souls, saints, writing, teaching, and missions. It isnt fair that I got to begin my missionary career by spending nineteen years involved in various kinds of ministry in Africa. That I have lived in Ghana and Nigeria and spent time in the Ivory Coast, Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Malawi, Liberia, and South Africa. It isnt fair that I had a missionary mother who became one of the first AIMers when Robert Rodenbush launched the pilot program the same program that enables me to become an AIMer myself thirty-two years later. Thats the thing about blessings theyre rarely fair. I have already spent nineteen years in Africa, but it turns out that isnt enough. Because the country I grew up in has a population of roughly 24,965,816 people who need the Lord. I need to tell them. I have to admit, its beginning to look like I may never be a waitress.

Go to Uzbekistan
Rebekah Kline
As most of you know, my main motivation in being a missionary comes from a call that God put on my life 10 years ago, "Go to Uzbekistan". I didn't know the country existed or anything about it at the time, but I knew I had heard the voice of God and didn't question the "How?, Why? or What?". I just said "I Will Go." This past month, the month of December, Bro. Shutes designated me the job of working through prayer for the country of Uzbekistan. Over the past couple of weeks I have been, and I am continuing to, put together an Intercessor Prayer Team

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for the Country of Uzbekistan. Already God's leadership and guidance are amazing me. My team has already been used by God to speak to each other across the nations. Where unity is, the spirit and direction of God can flow. It is awesome that no matter where we are, or how diverse and spread out the team is, God is still able to do great things. To see one person's specific prayer from one country be answered within minutes in another country is just amazing to experience. There is a connection that only God can provide when we only choose to follow Him. We are going to work through prayer to Impact the country of Uzbekistan for Christ like it has never been before!

I Can Still Hear

Melinda Poitras
I can still hear her screaming. It was my eighteenth summer and my youth group and I were on a missions trip to the village of Nkwanta in Ghana. Our activities had included teaching Sunday School, attending night services, painting buildings, evangelism, and, that day, visiting a hospital. We were supposed to walk around singing, praying, just letting people know that they werent alone. One of our first stops was the room of an eight year old boy, horribly emaciated by hunger. I stopped by his bed and whispered a few words of prayer. Empathetic tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt really good about myself. Here I was, a veritable mini Mother Theresa, visiting the sick and crying beautifully. We were just finishing our rounds when I heard it, the piercing, screaming, shriek of grief resounding from the inner corridors. The shrieking continued as the boys mother followed his lifeless corpse out of the hospital. He was dead. And I was right there. I had stood over his bed holding the keys to life eternal in my hands and I had wept tears of compassion and said prayers of comfort but not one time had I ever said words that could have saved his life. And before I so much as left the hospital, he ran out of time. I can go back to Africa a hundred times, and I can tell a thousand children, but I can never tell that one. Why am I telling you this? Because in Africa, over fifty percent of the population is under eighteen. That means that in Ghana alone, there are roughly 12,482,908 children living, and left to reach. Someone has to go. I am more than willing. Because they live in my home. Because they step into my heartbeat. Because I can still hear her screaming.

One of our churches had an amazing block party! There were close to 600 visitors and more than 1500 people in attendance. Many were baptized in chilly water and a host of people at the altar. This was a kick-off event for their forty days of extreme evangelism. I cant wait to see what the results will be. Amber Corey, Guatemala We finished 2012 on a high note. Andrea and I were blessed to be a part of the UPROAR Youth Conference in the Netherlands the last week of December. There we witnessed many miracles of healing and the lives of young people being changed forever. During our first service of the year at our daughter work, two people were instantly healed. The following night at service in Barcelona, four people were instantly healed. The following Sunday, over twenty claimed healings in their bodies. Over forty miracles of healing in the month of January! Not only is Jesus perfoming miracles of healing, but six were filled with the gift of the Holy Ghost. David and Andrea Nutt, Spain

AIM Chat
What can we do to promote AIM and Next Steps at the North American Youth Congress this year? Put on your creative caps and send your best ideas to pmorgan@upci.org.
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