Tag: AIM
2013: The Year of Increase
I never imagined the airport hall was so long. She purposely walked toward the security check; never 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 in to a lifetime of mission’s service. Things have come full circle. What will happen to our fledging 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. (I’m not sure what she is going to do with eight coffee mugs in one hundred plus weather. She doesn’t even drink coffee!) To solidify the ink and art I guess you put the mugs in the oven, bake them, and the ink doesn’t come off. I thought of her time overseas as an opportunity for increase. I designed her mug with life’s 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 you—whoever you are; wherever you are.
I pray that 2013 will be a year of increase for you. I’m sure this involves many things but here are a few I sketched on the mug:
Increased…
- Vision
- Purpose
- Passion
- Burden
- Word-view
- Worldview
- Friendships
- Cross-cultural Experience
- Faith
- …and last—but not least—souls!
Her time in all of these will increase. Like John the Baptist reminds me, her time with me will decrease. I’m a little bitter about that. Why must I increase? But, she will be a better person because of AIM and I’ll 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.
So, dear AIMer and friend, we back you up, and cheer you on, as you proceed down the path of increase in 2013.
I Can Still Hear
I can still hear her screaming.
It was my eighteenth summer and my youth group and I were on a mission’s 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 weren’t 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 boy’s 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.
I’ve been given the opportunity to return to Ghana (where I have already spent twelve years of my life) and work with the incredible Sisco family for six months. During this time I would help write a series of lessons for young adults, work with Children’s ministries, teach at the Bible School, and spend some time with my favorite children (Allanah and Stephen) as I help with their homeschooling.
If you are receiving this version of the letter, it’s because you know me. To some extent you know my hopes and dreams, you’ve seen the burden for my country that I hope is obvious, and you understand, to some level, my penchant for writing random poetry. And that’s where you come in.
The harvest is great
The laborers few
Ghana needs me
And I need you
Getting to and living in Ghana is no inexpensive matter and I desperately need your help and support in order to get there as quickly as possible and work effectively while there. Costs include: airfare, food, lodging, travel papers, insurance, transportation, and so forth. This six month endeavor will cost an all inclusive $350.00 per week. An offering of $25.00 will sponsor me for half a day; $50.00 for a day; $100.00 will fund two days.
To join Melinda financially in ministry please send your offering to Melinda Poitras c/o James Poitras, Global Missions, 8855 Dunn Road, Hazelwood, Missouri, 63042.
Melinda for the Churches
by Melinda Poitras
Where? Ghana, West Africa.
Why? 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. That’s the thing about life – it isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair that I was birthed into a family who ate, slept, and breathed souls, saints, writing, teaching, and missions. It isn’t 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 isn’t 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 one years later. That’s the thing about blessings – they’re rarely “fair.”
I have already spent nineteen years in Africa, but it turns out that isn’t 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, it’s beginning to look like I may never be a waitress.
When? January to June of 2013.
What? Teaching in the Bible School. Developing a series of lessons for Young Adults. Working with the Bible Study Group at the University of Ghana campus. Assisting in the homeschooling of Allanah and Stephen Sisco.
How? With your support.
The harvest is great
The laborers few
Ghana needs me
And I need you
To join Melinda financially in ministry please send your offering to Melinda Poitras c/o James Poitras, Global Missions, 8855 Dunn Road, Hazelwood, Missouri, 63042
Baby Raised From the Dead – Parents Baptized
The following is a testimony from Terry McIntyre, AIMer to the Fiji Islands
The baby pictured below was born on June 12, 2012 and was immediately hooked up to machines, struggling to live. Shortly thereafter, the baby died, was taken off the machines, and was taken by the unsaved parents to the mortuary. However, a lady from one of our UPCI churches by the name of Sis. Rita was there. She asked these parents if she could pray for them and the baby. As she prayed, life came back into the baby. The baby is now six weeks old and doing fine.
The General Secretary of the UPCI of Fiji, Pastor Isireli, from their area (Nausori) started teaching the parents a Bible study. Today (Thursday, August 2 at noon), when they came to the Headquarters and Bible school complex, they wanted to have the baby dedicated. Pastor Isireli asked me if I would do it. I didn’t have my Bible with me or planned to do this, but we are instructed in the Word to “Be instant in season and out of season,” so I conducted this dedication and God moved in a wonderful way. When I was finished, both of these parents began to pray, and to make a long story short, I ended up baptizing both of them in Jesus’ name. PRAISE GOD!
Folks have been getting baptized just about every day of the week here and some late at night. Many have received the Holy Ghost and been refilled. Besides this, there have been other notable miracles to take place. We are excited to be here in the perfect will of God.
James Poitras 