Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras

AIM2go in Action
Greetings from the corner office at World Evangelism Center! We are currently in transition with our AIM Newsletter. It will be some time before we select a new editor for the publication. But, Im going to occupy until that takes place. We do want to keep up the communication stream with our faithful and fearless AIM family. Presently, we are shifting to a quarterly publication with a promise to communicate in between as the need arises. I always enjoy reading and responding to your monthly reports and newsletters.

In the AIM News

Recently, travels have taken me into the backyard of several AIMers in a couple of different locations. In Guatemala, I not only had the opportunity to see vision in action with a faculty education seminar of 174 Bible school instructors from about five nations, but was also involved with their Bible school efforts there. They have seventeen programs and over five hundred students. Their goal is to have thirty schools and a thousand students within five years. They are well on their way. They also have a childrens home under construction with fourteen buildings and approaching nearly a million dollar investment in the past eighteen months. What a tremendous opportunity for AIMers to be involved. Pictured below you find Luke and Samantha Campbell, Jackie Bettle, and Heidi Williams. I had an amazing opportunity to spend a weekend in State College, Pennsylvania, the home of Penn State University, with Pastor Mick Cluster. The church is small, yet growing. No wonder with such visionary leadership. One couple are approved AIMers to Georgia. The husband has already served fourteen months there. They met on the field. Another family plan to go to Chad to open the country for the truth. He is visiting Togo in May. He speaks French some already. He would like to get a job at the university over there to support his family. Another young lady has applied for
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Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras

AIM to Turkey. Another is considering returning to Scotland to complete his studies at Harvest Bible College and be an AIMer there. Another young lady wants to go on AIM after completing her Master's degree. Two or three more are taking missions trips. Totally amazing. I love seeing and being part of a church that has a bifocal vision: reaching their community that is near and their world that is far.

In Other News
There has been a division in the AIM department. Yep! Glad to admit it. People have been finding it confusing when visiting our old website. AIM and Next Steps were always combined there and people wondered whats what. So weve split! We have separated the two in our web presence. However, both programs are still under our leadership. AIMer-Extraordinaire Angie Clark has been our web developer. Check out her work with the Next Steps site at: http://www.nextstepsprogram.net/. We are also working ahead and advertising and promoting the Next Steps 2015 and beyond programs. We are very excited with the new AIM website under construction at http://www.aim2go.org/. Its looking good! Unfortunately this means the retirement of http://fmdaim.com/ and http://helpamissionary.com/. They wont pass off the scene totally. We will have visitors there redirected seamlessly and immediately to our new site. We are planning major advertising of our new websites and the Next Steps 2015 in various periodicals and other promotional opportunities that will come our way. We are already making advertising plans for General Conference. Several ads are being place in the conference book. Another exciting development was a meeting I recently had with Brother Matthew Johnson and Brother Josh Carson of the General Youth Division. Our mutual desire is to promote missions. We are now advertising AYC on our sites and they are advertising Next Steps (and perhaps even AIM) on theirs. We want to create a progression for people with a missions burden or vision: AYC, Next Steps, AIM, and full appointment. We have developed several ways of promoting this and you will see those coming into play in the near future. I also have been in communication with the organizers of Live Less Ordinary, a conference for young adults being planned for May 2015. Sounds like an exciting opportunity!

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras Guest Posts and Articles
Central Dump (Melinda Poitras http://wacksghana.wordpress.com)

There is a dump in the middle of the city. When you walk to the outskirts of the graveyard to look out over the edge of it you can see down into all of the refuse. The buzzards fly overhead and the stench assaults your nostrils. The trucks arrive in endless stream and the people tirelessly sort through the garbage. They wont take it home they are already there. Roughly ten thousand people live in this extensive trash heap. More trash of all kinds arrives minute by minute. Recently, a dead body was thrown from the very spot were standing on there are still a few pieces of coffin left as evidence. People are born in this dump and they live there until they die. It is all theyve ever known. It is all they ever will. Later, Im lying down in the back of the van (there is only so much holding up your head soon after youve seen something like that) and A Thousand Little Things by Point of Grace pops up on my iPod. I think about my gift list. How it began making me mad every time I looked at it so I stopped keeping it. The systematic written counting of His blessings I had traded for the perpetual voicing of complaint. Maybe it had gotten so dark because I had stopped looking for the light with intention. He had kept saying I love you in a thousand little ways and I hadnt even heard Him. There are people on this planet who live in garbage waiting for someone to drop dead bodies on top of them. There is a dump in the middle of the city. When you walk to the outskirts of the graveyard to look out over the edge of it you can see down into all of the refuse. The buzzards fly overhead and the stench assaults your nostrils. The trucks arrive in endless stream and the people tirelessly sort through the garbage. Dear. God. If they can sort through the garbage, so can I. So. Can. I.

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras

Breaking my Silence (Kendra Shock at http://kendrashock.wordpress.com/)

We are closing in on the middle of 2014. Its been a year and a half since I returned from the Philippinesand I havent been able to utter a word about it in written form. I told my friend Melinda Poitras, Its like theres nothing I can adequately say about it. Its all in the crock pot of my mind and every time I go to lift the lid, I just know Im going to ruin it. Ive started so many articles about it. This one doesnt even do it justice. But it will have to do. It started stirring for some reason yesterday afternoon, when one of my sweet girls in our youth group surprised me with a beautiful case for my phone; a wooden, hand-carved world map on the back of the casing. The whole gospel to the whole world, something inside of me whispered. I thanked her profusely, went to my car, put the case on, and sat in silence. I traced Asia on the map with my index finger, and before I knew it, I heard the noise of Manila traffic. I remembered speaking to children in their native language and emptying my pockets of any loose change I could find. I remembered hot tea in the evenings and making pancakes for the guards. I remembered being so physically ill that I thought I was going to die and the Great Physician paying me a few supernatural visits always leaving me stronger than He found me. I remembered the terrorist threats, and I remembered the tangible brush of the wings of the invisible army that was greater. I remembered the boys teaching me to shoot the perfect free throw and acting like secret agents in the streets as they escorted me to the market, and I in return, teaching them English adjectives, and how to impress a girl. I remembered how the kids would touch my arm, hoping the white would rub off onto their skin. I remembered kneeling beside my students on the floor of chapel, and feeling puddles of water accumulate in front of us from the tears of our awe of Jehovah Jireh; the God who ALWAYS provides. I remembered looking back to that horrible Saturday I left one last time at the boys who woke up early to see me off and I watched with tears as they ran out into the street and waved, crying, until our car was out of sight. Japhet, my friend of trouble and adventure, leaned his head on my shoulder the night before crying, Why maam? Why you go? You do not like it here? You do not like us in the Phils?

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras Japhet no, I teared up, I have to go back because I promised my pastor and my family I would. I love the Philippines. I never want to leave you and the students. Its just something I have to do. Maam I do not understand maam. I want to go with you. I know Japhet, but you have to stay and graduate. Promise me that youll graduate and start a church in the Philippines. Be a part of the 1 million soul revival Japhet. Promise me. I promise maam. I promise. God say to me that we live together again in heaven one day. Make Heaven a happier place. We will all live together again one day. This conversation was open heart surgery to the max. Never have I more quickly gained an understanding of heaven in their eyes; truly no more sorrow, sickness, pain, or death. Ive been back in America for a year and a half. The first year back was an extreme case of whiplash and a nightmare that I felt would never end. Why are you taking your shoes off before you go into that house? Why do you pray in Tagalogyoure in America now. Why arent you wearing a jacket? Why do you still have those pesos in your wallet? Isnt it time to clean those out? Questions I had no sufficient answer for. Was I supposed to forget everything that happened and revert back to normal? Ok finebut if sohow was that even possible? I shut up and shut it out of my mind. I kept my shoes on when I entered houses. I avoided the rice aisle in the grocery store. I took the pictures of the students off my phone background. There are still days where the coffee isnt strong enough. But as I sit in a diner with Philosophy assignments hanging over my head and a to-do list a mile long, I break my silence on the issue to tell all of you that Japhet graduated this weekend. Japhet graduated this weekend. Ive attached his picture. I also Instagrammed it. I texted it out to my friends who heard me talk about Japhet. I stared at it for the longest. The faces have changed. They are no longer students at ACTS. They are POAKids and more recently junior high JCrew students that God has blessed me with the privilege of investing in.

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras This is not to be set up as an argument of Well America needs revival too. Im aware and active in that department. Lets skip that. This is for all the displaced missionaries that I have talked to in the last year and a half. Some of you may be on deputation, some of you may be returning AIMers with no idea of when you can go back, and some of you may not even be appointed yet but you have a country that is constantly tugging at your heart. Some of you may never have plans to leave the USA or your home country for any reason, but you support humanitarian efforts and the UPCI with PIMs and prayer. In whatever state this finds you, please dont ever shut up about what youve seen. Please dont stop taking your shoes off before you enter someones house. Please dont stop praying in another language over your food. Please dont pour water over the fire of revival you feel consuming your heart and mind. Because there are Japhets graduating todayspreading the whole gospel to the whole world. Japhet you will never read this. But Im sending your picture everywhere today with my hands over the Philippines on the back of my phone. I put you back on my lock screen as a reminder of the revival that were going to see. And when I see you in heaven when all of the classmates can live together again one day, I wont be silent buddy. I promise. The whole gospel to the whole world. As you see I have featured two blog posts here from returned AIMers. Send us your blog information. I would love to check out your blog as well and perhaps use one of your posts in our newsletter. The information can be sent to me at jpoitras@upci.org or to Sister Pat at pmorgan@upci.org.

Help! Help! Help! We could really use your help. I know you major in helping. Thats what AIM is all about. We want to keep our communication, promotions, and websites as current as possible. We live in real time. So, we need you to (or continue to) send us any and all of the following:

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras 1. Monthly reports and newsletters: We post them on our AIM2go site. 2. AIMers in Action: We need high resolution pictures of you in action on the field. These are useful in our conference displays and also on our websites. 3. Blogs: As mentioned above, if you have a blog, send us the info on that. We want to check it out. 4. Follow us on AIM2go or NextStepsProgram on Twitter and friend us on Facebook. 5. We are currently writing the AIM Manual. Let us know anything you think should be included. 6. Articles: We are always looking for good articles for our websites. We love the freshness AIMers and their outlook can bring to cross-cultural ministries and missions. 7. AIM grows by word of mouth; yours! Tell your friends about AIM and Next Steps. Also direct them to our social media accounts. AIM Manual
As mentioned I am working away at the new AIM Manual. Occasionally, we get questions about tithing while on the field. Heres my take on that: AIM and Associate Missionary tithes should be paid to the missionary field fellowship or as stipulated by your supervising missionary (in the absence of a missionary field fellowship), whether the money was raised and sent through global missions or not. (Our preference is that all AIM funds should be sent to Global Missions. The exception may be where the Aimer is contributing personal funds to the AIM tour. It is required that all funds for associate missionaries be sent through Global Missions). Tithes are (minimally) paid on personal support. Housing, air fare, car/travel are sometimes excluded as work related and work-necessitated items. With funds sent through GM there is a ten percent administrative deduction on all funds except love offerings. This is not tithes. Missionary accounts also pay the same. This is how GM pays for its administrative operation. If an AIMer is traveling to churches raising support it is advisable to pay the tithe on the personal offering received to the GM District Director. Additionally, it is required of associate missionaries to tithe to the Global Missions District Director when traveling in a district.

Closing Thoughts on Ministry

Ministry; Its What We Do to Advance His Kingdom What is ministry anyway? Several definitions emerge from random, rapid research: Ministry means service. It involves preparing Gods people for works of service (diakonia). A minister is one that serves. We often think of Acts 6 as where deacons were selected. Thats true. But, it was also the place where the disciples chose to redefine and realign their own ministries in the midst of the stuff. Both groups of people were serving, separately, yet specifically.
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Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras

Faithful service of Gods people rendered unto God and others on His behalf to bring Him glory, build up His church, and reach out to His world (www.Bible.org). Ministry is meeting people where they are and taking them to where God wants them to be (www.jrbriggs.com). Ministry is alignment, agreement, and accomplishment of His purpose. (Seek and to save the lost; (Luke 19:10) give life and life more abundantly (John 10:10); destroy the works of Satan (1 John 3:8); and so forth).

All the above are grand definitions but I prefer mine (I know; Im biased). Ministry is anything we do to advance His kingdom. Focus and faithfulness are imperative in getting the job done. Keeping the big picture front and center encourages me (us) to take responsibility over choices and decisions. Focus begs for the questions: Is this advancing His kingdom? Am I doing this in a way that advances His kingdom?

AIM2go Action Photo of the Quarter

Sister Amber Davenport, AIM-Togo, West Africa Resource of the Quarter

Second Quarter 2014 From the Director of Education/AIM, Jim Poitras