Holiday greetings to you from the growing team of administrative volunteers at our new Gospel Ministries International (GMI) headquarters. As we follow God’s leading in our work, the miracles at home and around the world continue to astound us. This has been a very interesting year – a combination of serious challenges and tremendous blessings.

For stories on Adventist Medical Aviation pilots making crash landings and disappearing without a trace, to nightly sightings of an angelic guard at our radio station click here to read more.

GMI was founded on trust in God and sacrifice in His name. Our testimonies of God’s faithfulness have covered the planet. Thousands have responded by placing all on the altar and have launched out in ministry. Others have partnered with us through sacrificial giving. It is this that has allowed GMI to continue and expand its ministry worldwide.

May God bless you and greatly multiply your influence into this next year, for we can all truly sing,
“Joy to the world, He is coming again!”

DEAF MINISTRY – 2008/2009

Caracas, Venezuela

Part of the Deaf Group

Members of the Parai­so SDA Church, after a Concert in one of the churches in Venezuela.

Their desire is: that the seeds planted may bare its fruits in the new souls.

This is the group that conforms the DEAF MINISTRY (supported also by the: Special Ministry Department) of the Main SDA Church in Venezuela. They carry God’s message to several regions of the country, through concerts and representations made in their Spanish Sign Language.

The Deaf Ministry counts with 5 interpreters and 5 assistants, which gives us the opportunity to have an extensive outreach in and outside our church. We are also giving courses of Sign Language to new people who join us and that have the hearing discapacity, and also people who can hear, but want to communicate with the deaf members or friends, and some of them even become new interpreters.

We have a project to include in the future also any type of discapacities, as for example blind or some other difficulties. We are giving some seminars in order to qualify some members and get to know the different means to access people with disabilities.

On Sabbath days, we share our meals at noon time with the visitors, and take the opportunity for sharing God’s love with them. Our resources for doing this are very short, and we are praying for support.

PRAYERS:

Please pray for this Ministry. And please pray specifically for:

1. For Jose Anibal in order to become a lay worker (lay pastor) for the Deaf Community.
2. Resources for the different projects (lay workers, materials, outreach, meals for visitors, etc.)
3. Resources for the construction of a “special church” for the Deaf Members.
4. Conversion of Deaf people that will be approached.
5. Daily wisdom for us to always make decisions that will bring honor and glory to God’s name.

BLESSINGS:

1. There is a possibility to build the church in the second floor of the building beside the church, which is also a part of their properties. (just beside the Main SDA Church).
2. A Corporation in Canada is willing and considering in maybe supporting a lay worker for the Deaf Ministry in Venezuela.
3. Children of Deaf members have been presented to the Lord
4. New people have been added to the Deaf Group at the “Paraiso SDA Church”.

SUPPORT OPPORTUNITIES:
If you are interested in helping with this project, your tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:
Gospel Ministries Intl.
P.O.Box 506, Collegedale,
TN 37315, USA
Contact person: Christina Parsons or Betsy Burgdorff
Tel: (+1-423) 473-1841
Fax: (+1-423) 473-1846
or in Canada to:
Lepta Missions International
99 de la Sarcelle, Varennes,
Quebec J3X-2A4, Canada
Contact person: Jean-Jacques Hermans
W (+1-514) 866-4334
C (+1-514) 299-1807

Web page: www.gospelministry.org

*On a separate piece of paper specify that this is for: DEAF MINISTRY - Michaela Penn

My name is Julie Rose, and I’m contacting you on behalf of my parents, Steve and Carol Rose. They are volunteer missionaries serving in Cameroon, Africa. They are operating an elementary school- Lassin Adventist School. (lassin.blogspot.com) They heard of the opportunity from Gary Roberts, while my dad spent 3 months with Gary in Chad last winter.

My parents would like to request volunteer teachers for their school.

Thank you for you help!

Blessings,
Julie Rose

October 15, 2009

Dear GMI prayer partners and supporters,

Due to the initiative of our Spanish members, a worldwide day of fasting and prayer is being held on Sabbath October 17 in favor of GMI and its twelve television and three radio networks on six satellites covering every continent in ten languages and in the homes of 220 million people.

The finances needed to cover the satellite payments has been a subject of daily prayer among all our teams for several months. But now that our Spanish brethren have declared this day of fasting and prayer, it is appropriate that we join them as well.

The special reason for prayer is to plead with God for resources to cover these urgent broadcast needs. Our deadline was Monday, October 11. Last Friday night, October 9, as we were kneeling beside the bed for prayer, the phone rang with a donor offering an amount which pushed the deadline back another 10 days to October 21.

Not paying by the deadline means ten of our networks are to go off the air in South America, Europe, and Africa.

There is no doubt that God will intervene as He has in the past. But we are told in Philippians 4:19 that we must ask with thanksgiving.

During this time of crisis, we must cast our trust on God and move forward, NOT backward. GMI doesn’t have the funds to even cover 1% of its bill. But then, we have never made our decisions based on having money but rather on God’s promises. Just two days ago we went on the air across Africa with our Caribbean English network (the first 30 days for free). Within weeks we will also add our Portuguese and French networks. Two new networks will soon join them, Africans/Zulu in the South and Swahili for the East.

We feel God’s approval and special blessing upon us. We have been given opportunities worldwide to spread God’s word through the air waves and carry his love with medical aviation. In McDonald, TN GMI recently acquired a beautiful property with a large media center and three houses for volunteers with no money down because the non-Adventist owners insisted that they wanted to help us. The blessings have come mixed with severe sacrifices, but isn’t that as it should be?

I am inviting you to join us in a special day of prayer and fasting this Sabbath, October 17. God knows the amount we need. However if you wish to know yourself, you may write to me at davico@gospelministry.org as I am overseas right now. Thank you and God bless.

From the front lines of the battlefield in Africa,

Uncle David

Dear Uncle David,

Hi. My name is Youngmin Martin Kim from Paderborn church last weekend. We talked shortly and I was very happy to meet you. I wanted to share few stories of my own with you with gratitude that it may be an encouragement to others.

I was born in Germany, raised in South Korea and in US. Now, I moved back to Germany for graduate school. I was raised up as an evangelical as the 5th generation. Both my parents are elders in an evangelical church in Korea, and I have several pastors among my relatives who are also evangelical.

When you visited PUC in 2006 I believe, I was going through a spiritual crisis. At that time, I just discovered an unpleasant truth that after 22 years of Christian experience in the church, I had no real faith. The discovery hit me very hard and I desperately sought a solution. I had two possible explanations at that time. Either I had been doing something completely wrong for the past 22years of my Christian life or this whole thing was a lie. I didn’t want to waste anymore time pursuing an illusion but I wanted to make sure that I checked the first possibility before I would quit. Just around that time, you came to PUC and held one vesper I think. I was not an Adventist at that time and I’ve never heard of your name before so I didn’t bother to go. Somehow later, I found your audio recording on that vesper night and I listened to it. During listening, I was weeping so deeply and a very strong conviction came upon me. I found out that I have never risked or invested anything to believe God thus I had no real substance of faith. I knew I was supposed to give my whole heart to Jesus somehow, so I needed to know where my heart was. Quickly a Bible verse came to my mind, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I discovered that my treasure at that time was going to a graduate school. I was studying physics and mathematics in PUC and without graduate schooling my degree would mean useless. However, it was not easy for an international student let it alone with PUC credentials to get a summer internship position which was almost required for any applicant for graduate school. It was constantly hovering over my interest at that time. After hearing such experiment you have done, I decided to put my faith into test. It was going to be the final one, for there was no greater asset that I could give up. Either God helps me or I sink knowing at least He doesn’t care. I came up with the best way to put all that to test. During the first semester of a senior year, that’s when one needs to take all the exams, writing all the applications, doing all the interviews for graduate school. It was that time which I valued so much. I decided not to enroll that semester at all, doing absolutely nothing academically to prepare myself for graduate school but to spend that time in the mission field.

Cutting long story short, after that school year, I left to Germany with a previous internship opportunity at a company, having decided not to return for the next school semester. When I got to Germany, I was told that my internship at a company was quietly cancelled. But the Lord directed me to Paderborn University by His providence where I was asked to join master program next school year. The project they had was cooperation with Stanford and Tokyo University, a very descent frontline project in physics yet I knew nothing that it existed in Paderborn. During that autumn, without going back to school, I was in a missionary base camp somewhere in Bavaria, Germany. During that time, I met God in such a personal way that I would never ever forget. Week after week, God showed me and conversed with me how much He did care for me. Many things happened afterwards which I can’t all write here, but there I was by the end of 2007, exactly one year later, I met God, and He gave me a call, and I was admitted to a prestige graduate project without filling out a single application or an examination.

In 2008, I was still not keeping the Sabbath and I was fighting against that truth. In the beginning of that year, I was sitting in a prayer meeting on New-year’s eve in a Methodist church. God distinctively gave me this passage in Gen.12:1 “Get out of your country from your family…” Beginning a little bit before and continuing that year, God revealed to me the Sabbath truth right from the Scripture. As soon as I discovered the Sabbath, at that time I was in a German language course which was compulsory for international students to begin their study in Germany, but I was told that it was not necessary for physics students but I was caught by German bureaucracy.  It was a horrible time personally. My visa and money was running out, yet I couldn’t even begin my studies as the Lord previously directed. I have military duty which I postponed due to my studies which if I couldn’t prove that I was studying then I had to quit everything and to join the army for few years. Many months of waiting and pondering went by and right after I discovered the Sabbath truth, the language office changed the testing day on the Sabbath for some reason. I had no past experience to rely on or any strength regarding keeping the Sabbath in the midst of such pressure before. I had many things on my shoulder and I knew I could never sell that to my parents regarding my action if I were to skip the test for Sabbath. Not only that, I was all the sudden placed in a situation where my evangelical brothers and pastors found out about it and I had to defend not only the Sabbath but also all the other doctrines of SDA which I didn’t even know much, including EGW. Because my conviction was strong, I had to read and study so much during that short time to try to defend, but I recognized later that the Lord cared less that I would defend it well, but that I would really learn in a very short time. Because after that, I realized that I knew about the present truth better than many other Adventists. The test date kept coming and I was struggling. I finally made up my mind not to take it on Sabbath. The Lord provided an alternative date to take but it was going to be a different test based on different materials and I still needed to pass it. I took up the opportunity and it was far easier than the real one and during that weekend I had my first sweet Sabbath while others were cramming for an exam. It also was my last language test ever. Afterwards, my professor asked me first if I were interested in doing ph.d instead of master since I was having so much paper problems. I gladly accept it, my visa, status, finance and everything was solved.

Since that time many other things happened and the Lord led me and guided me through storms. I had to give up and lay down different things including career and calling, friends, security, and etc along the ride.
I wanted to be as brief as possible and I hope this finds you well. I am finishing up one of my thesis and then I will really start the Ph.D. project for the next 3 years in Paderborn. This last summer, I joined the mission trip to Philippines with Europe 4 Jesus, mentored by pastor Luis Torres and Dr. Jan Cabungcal where I experienced great things, the power of God and His increase. If you come across any opportunity on your side where a person like me could serve for a short-term rather, due to my current circumstances, I would love to hear that. I know you are working under great pressures and at times criticisms, but we really love you and support for what you are doing for God’s people. Thank you again uncle David for your sweat and blood.

God Bless,

Youngmin Martin Kim

Checkout David’s latest sermons from Paderborn, Germany, in both English and German.

Check out the latest videos from our newest DVD “Having Nothing, Having It All.”

Also check out David’s latest video podCast of the “Historic landing of our Adventist Medical Aviation plane on Lake Titicaca.”