The 2009 North American Convention will be like none other. This year we will celebrate in a spectacular way the one hundred years of the Church of God’s sending missionaries out to reach the world for Christ. Together, we will remember and honor the work of the Church of God around the globe. You won’t want to miss it.

But it is not history alone that we will celebrate at the North American Convention. This year’s convention will also serve as the launch for a new era of intercultural ministry (missions). New strategies and visions will be unveiled at the convention. This is a moment in time when pastors, leaders and congregations can see the vision and talk with those from around the globe about our collective ministry through missions.

By Mike and Heather Webb

Tanzania—This was our sentiment as we returned from the Kondoa area earlier in September. We drove two and a half hours over pothole-studded roads and sand as fine as talcum powder to encourage our sixteen theological education by extension (TEE) students in their studies. Our visit marked the halfway mark for their first book Following Jesus, and we were eager to see their progress. We hadn’t been face to face with them since leaving them with books and training five weeks earlier, so we were thrilled to see students’ books filled out, witness a lively discussion among them about what they had learned, and see the leaders keeping great records.

Emergency funds have been sent to church leaders in Orissa, India, to help those affected by the recent violence and persecution against Christians. Church of God Ministries (CGM) staff have been in frequent contact with church leader and Christians Broadcasting Hope (CBH) director Asim Das, and sent the money following his recent report on the situation there.

Das reported that recent attacks against Christians forced families to flee into the jungle for protection after their homes were burned and lives threatened. Seven families have been located and are receiving temporary care while the search for others continues. Das also informed CGM staff that three of our church facilities have been destroyed.

By Bob Edwards

Let me tell you a wonderful story of a visit that I made to a house church just outside of Lalmanirhat, Bangladesh. For me, it was a significant visit in that the young evangelist is working in the village with the leaders of the predominant religious group of this area.

As the group I was traveling with entered a young man’s house just after the noon meal, we found the small mud hut full of elders from the community. To the right was a large raised wooden bed covered with a locally woven mat on which about ten elders sat cross-legged in two rows.

Praise God! Eight years after the first Church of God presence in South Vietnam, the fast-growing church has now reached out to the north, to Hanoi. The phrase “God works in mysterious ways” holds true. God has not just brought two people together through an arranged marriage but also North and South Vietnam.

K.T. Tan, one of the early members of our Singapore congregation, was introduced to a northern Vietnamese lady named Thi Loan through an online marriage agency. They were married early this year and in April went with Singapore’s founding pastor and missionary Neville Tan and his wife Anne to Saigon to the wedding of a South Vietnamese pastor’s son. K. T. had also invited his wife’s parents to come to Saigon to meet the South Vietnamese pastors. Within six days of their meeting, Thi Loan and her parents had received the Lord and were immediately discipled and baptized at the end of the week.

By Diane Davenport

I had a conversation the other day with a Maori woman who attends the local university where Dan Blanton and I are doing chaplaincy work. Not long after we met, she said, “I wonder if you’d pray for me. I’m trying to stop doing drugs.” In further conversation, it became evident that the drugs were interfering with her studies, her family, and especially her relationship with God. She said, “I’m just too ashamed. I want to fix things, but I don’t think God will accept me.”

Church of God Ministries accepted the resignation of Cayla Dyer as career missionary to Brazil, effective July 16, 2008.

Cayla has turned in her ministerial credentials to Indiana Ministries.

Please pray for the Lord's leading in Cayla’s life as she makes her career transition.

By Dave and Kathy Simpson

“You must understand,” Nedko insisted, “Bulgarian people are not very religious. But they are very superstitious!” We hardly needed this reminder when we had the following three conversations in the span of five days. We told an inquisitive taxi driver that we were working with the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God. He excitedly responded, “My woman attends an evangelical congregation. But I am Orthodox. See, I have my icons hanging here. And I always wear this bracelet with thirty-three beads [representing the years Jesus was on earth]. These give me protection; they keep me safe.