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Cory, the amen dog, retires 

Charlie Piscitello and Cory.

BATAVIA, New York—Some know him as Cory, and many others know him simply as the Amen Dog. Fellow Aussie Ross Jutsum affectionately refers to Cory, an Australian Shepherd, as the Holy Barker.

Cory faithfully served blind Pastor Charlie Piscitello of the Batavia Christian Fellowship of the WCG since 1994, and is now retired from his guiding duties and taking life a little easier on Piscitello’s cousin John’s five-acre property near Lockport, New York.

Morgan the new guide dog.

WCG members across the country have delighted at Cory’s final bark at the end of various worship services and conferences, offering his “amen” in a tongue that requires no interpreter. 

Many people have asked whether Cory was trained to say, “amen.”  The truth of the matter is that Cory began the practice on his own, and was neither encouraged nor discouraged to do so. “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!”

Pastor Charlie now has a new guide dog, Morgan, a Silver Sable German Shepherd. Somehow it seems apropos for a shepherd leader such as Pastor Charlie to have a shepherd guide. 

Cory will be most dearly missed by Pastor Charlie, his wife, Judi, and the Batavia Christian Fellowship, especially at the end of services, recalling Pastor Steve Botha’s words during a worship service in Saratoga Springs, New York: “It ain’t over ’till the dog barks!”

About his plans for retirement, Cory said: “Bark, bark. Woof, woof. Pant, pant, pant” (interpretation: “Eat, drink and find satisfaction in a job well done”—Ecclesiates 3:13).

HOUSTON, Texas-—Community Christian Fellowship (CCF) church services were made extra special June 18 when several young people performed a drama titled: “We’re Off to See the Wizard.”

Margaret Ryan wrote the script.Destiny McClain, 9, Joseph McClain, 8, along with Amber Nielson, 8, portrayed children seeking to find the Wizard (Margaret Ryan). Destiny was seeking patience, and along the yellow brick road she met Joseph, who was seeking love. They were joined by Amber, who sought obedience.

Once they found her, the wise wizard explained to the children that the Bible teaches everyone how to live full of patience and love by obedience to God’s Word.

The theme of this drama served as an introduction to the sermon presented by Pastor Mark Mounts titled “Imitators of God” based on Ephesians 5:1. Jesse Soto.

Carolina teens in service
evangelism in New York

CLEMONS, North Carolina—Eight teens and adult leaders from New Direction Christian Fellowship in Clemons traveled to New York City to be part of an Epic Adventures (www.epicadventures.org) mission trip July 8 to 15. 

Amanda Myers hands out pocket maps. [Photo by Steve Weifenbach]

Everyone learned principles of servant evangelism by participating in a variety of one-on-one service projects to express God’s love to the people of New York. They passed out breakfast granola bars to business people coming from the trains and subways. They handed out bottled water near Macy’s department store and cleaned the streets of Greenwich Village.

Daily chapel services and prayer walks were included in the weeklong events. They also learned about culture in New York City by visiting the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park, and eating at a Vietnamese restaurant.

Frank Ancona

They also made new friends from churches as far away as California that were part of the week’s events.

More than 62,000 people were touched by the groups with the love of Jesus during the week. At our Sunday church service after the trip, they taught the rest of the New Direction members the same principles and took the interested members outside onto the streets to do what they had done.

“I now know I can do something that’s not scary to reach people,” said Naomi Burks, a New Directions member. Frank Ancona.

NASHVILLE—After weeks of planning, the Good News Fellowship of Nashville had a gathering for its surrounding northside neighborhood Saturday, June 4.

Attendees eat lunch. [Photo by Joe Mayfield]

William Douglas prepared 80 chickens for lunch. Josh Welch and Martin Poynor set up a dining tent area, while Bonnie Smith coordinated the meal.

Rita Poynor placed racks for a clothing give-away under a shade tree. Judy Pass, Barbara Hirsch and Pat Brazier set up a table of Christian literature nearby. Nick and Mary Jo Leaver set up equipment for children’s games, including an egg toss, sack race and balloon roll. John Cartwright and Steve Leaver mowed an area for a volleyball court and frisbee golf.

Gianna Richiuso arranged the sound system to provide a musical background for the festivities.  Lynn Jordan designed flyers that members distributed in the adjacent neighborhood the previous week. These began to bear fruit as visitors began arriving about 10 a.m.

Neighborhood children joined in with the church kids as Mary Jo Leaver called out the games.  Youngsters, parents and seniors alike participated in the volleyball games. During breaks the conversations turned to issues such as “What is the purpose of life?” and “What happens when people die?” and “Why do bad things happen to ‘good’ people?” The common theme of the love and grace of Jesus gave hope to neighbors seeking answers to these questions.

About 40 visitors came to the event. Two of the youths and another family in the neighborhood joined in our church service the following Sunday. Carl Baughman.

PASADENA—The church announced the following ministerial ordinations.

Rolando Buagnin, Cotmon, Albay, Philippines.

Catalino Garcia, Davao City, Philippines.

Antonio Gaspar, Cabanatuan City, Philippines.

Horace Likely, Geneva, Alabama.

Timoteo Sotalbo, San Nicolas, San Pablo, Laguna, Philippines.

Edward Valenzuela, Victorville, California.

Ralf Weixler, Munich, Germany.

Troy White, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bill Winn, Richmond, Virginia.

Church Administration also announced that Matthew Freeman was hired Aug. 1 as a pastoral trainee to serve in Community Life Fellowship in Altadena, California, and Desert Oasis Community Church in Lancaster. Eric Shaw pastors both congregations.

 Ted Ralph, pastor of Miami, Florida, South, church, and his wife, Anlacy, were inadvertently not listed in the March article about the Florida district (now part of the Southeast district).

SANTO, Vanuatu—William Davies reports that at the beginning of June, his weekly radio broadcast, which had previously been heard only on his home island of Santo, began to be transmitted nationwide.

Davies continues to receive many appreciative comments from his listeners.

NewLife group with teammates after the first day of work.

PASADENA—Six teens and two adults from NewLife Fellowship in Pasadena spent a week in Tijuana, Mexico, building a house and sharing the gospel through drama and neighborhood evangelism July 30 to Aug. 6.

The mission trip, organized by Teen Mania Global Expeditions, involved 750 people. Baja Christian Ministries organized the construction details, and 26 houses were built in one week. Nearly 700 residents responded to the gospel message, many of them after a free concert by the Newsboys.

“There is no greater calling than to present the gospel of Jesus,” Ben Dizon said after the trip. “God wants to have a relationship with everyone in this world, and for us to help share eternal life and help people commit their lives to Jesus is more than amazing, it’s inexplicably miraculous.”

Deanna O’Brien said: “It was definitely difficult. It helped me to die to myself and focus more on God’s purpose for life rather than my own wants and desires.”

For this mission trip, everyone met in San Diego, then took busses to a tent city set up on a farm a short distance from Tijuana. The facility included cold showers, outhouses and a large building for meals and meetings. Campers were given rules for conduct, divided into teams, and trained in drama ministry. A sermon each evening invited participants to deepen their spiritual commitment.

On the four workdays, participants were bused to a recently settled neighborhood that had numerous makeshift homes. A local ministry had chosen which residents had the greatest need for a new home. One requirement was that they must already be in the process of paying for their lot. The NewLife members helped build a home for a Christian family with five children who had been living in a house about 10 by 12 feet. The father had worked as a bricklayer but is currently unemployed, and he helped build the house.

The new house is 16 by 20 feet, with two bedrooms and a loft—almost 500 square feet of living space. The building has one door, four windows, plywood exterior and drywall inside. The building is wired for electricity but has no plumbing, since the area does not have piped water yet. 

A youth group from New Life Christian Fellowship, a Foursquare church in Moreno Valley, California, was part of the same team, along with some individuals from other states, and one from Nova Scotia.

When the teams began work, the concrete foundation had already been poured, and the materials had been delivered to the work site. The team put up walls, painted plywood, put up siding and trim, installed drywall, spackled the joints, built and shingled the roof in 31/2 days.

While part of the team worked on the house, the others went through the neighborhood inviting residents to the Newsboys concert on Thursday evening, passing out tracts, and giving discipleship books and Bibles to those who showed the most interest.

The teams also performed the Ragman drama, a wordless skit that depicts Jesus taking on the sorrows and infirmities of people, being crucified and resurrected, and offering salvation to others. The drama helped get the people’s attention and gave the mission teams an opportunity to talk about Jesus with the residents.

The group returned to San Diego on Saturday. The trip was a good mixture of service and evangelism. Michael Morrison.

Asheville church serves communion to shut-ins

Bob & Sharon Vischer

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina—Some of the older people in our small congregation take the elements of bread and wine once a month to shut-ins.

“Thus we have several benefits,” said co-pastor Bob Vischer. “The seniors are taking a direct part in the communion ceremony, and this visiting program means that the shut-ins have at least one visit per month from the church.”

“My wife, Sharon, bought some small containers for the bread, some small baskets, a napkin. Add an attractive bouquet of silk flowers and that day’s church bulletin, and there you have it. We even have one of the baskets standing on the altar to remind the congregation of the service being performed.”

This unites the scattered members by, in effect, bringing them right into the service. Bob and Sharon Vischer.

Robert & Kay Persky

DALLAS, Texas—Robert Persky, new South Central district superintendent, and his wife, Kay, visited Grace Family Church on July 24. Persky succeeds Carn Catherwood, who retired.

Persky gave a moving testimonial and showed a video of a tragic event in their lives that God turned to his glory.

He described how in December 1994, his 18-year-old son, Bradley, then an Ambassador University student, abruptly developed a rare illness that breaks down a person’s capillaries, sometimes killing in as little as two days.

When the Perskys first saw their son, his feet were turning purple, and all his vital organs were expected to fail.

When Bradley and the family were at the hospital, “all I could think of was prayer,” Persky recalled, describing how his wife, daughter Livia and he ran to the hospital chapel.

Bradley was flown from a hospital in Tyler, Texas, to Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, which had begun accepting patients as old as 18.

Doctors there told the Perskys that Bradley’s was the worst case of the ailment they had ever seen and gave him a 10 percent chance to live.

Despite that prognosis, Bradley seemed to make progress for a time, but then had a massive stroke. His feet turned black, and at one point he was considered brain dead.

But the family persisted in prayer. Some color began to come back into Bradley’s chest. Persky and another of his sons, Neal, anointed Bradley, asking God to complete the healing.

Bradley continued to recover, and after several days was well enough to go home in a wheelchair. The hospital staff called him “The Miracle Boy,” and at least one doctor was convinced that it could only have been a healing from God.

Persky said that at times his wife and he had felt like actors in a script that God had written. He said he shared that testimony with Grace Family to tell of God’s power and love. He urged each of the members to develop their own testimony of how God has worked in their lives, asking them to share their testimonies with others. Frank Lewandowski.

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan—A year after deciding to move back into downtown Grand Rapids in 2004 for the purpose of ministry, New Life in Christ (NLIC) began to connect with community leaders, schools and ministry organizations.

Through these contacts, the congregation began a personal care pantry. The pantry works in cooperation with ACCESS (All County Churches Emergency Support System), an organization that supports a food pantry in Grand Rapids and sends people with needs to NLIC.

Other organizations in the city supply most of the items needed for the pantry at a greatly reduced price. The pantry is open only one night a month, but church members provide a meal and fellowship when the families come in the door. On the opening night of the pantry in July, church members served 23 families. On the second night, friends of members who could speak Spanish came to translate, and 30 families were served. 

In conjunction with the personal care pantry, the Grand Rapids congregation, with an average of 40 members, has completed three walks through the neighborhood around the church. The goal of these walks is to get to know our neighbors, offer to help them in practical and appropriate ways, and to pray for them.

Denise Butler

On July 23, the church had a barbecue in the church parking lot with about 100 people coming from the neighborhood. Church members played inspirational and jazz music, organized children’s games and presented a magic show. On Oct. 31 the congregation plans to conduct activities for children inside the building as an alternative to the trick or treat tradition. Denise Butler.

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar—Earlier this year, the Triomphe Center orphanage that our Madagascan church supports faced a crisis. They had insufficient money to help feed and clothe many of the children.

Orphanage children with rice purchased from the funds received.

The Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, congregation and our churches in South Africa stepped in to assist, immediately sending enough funds to address the problem. Food and warm clothing were purchased in addition to chairs, mattresses and tables.

Some of the money was used to plant cassava and fruit trees and to build a safe play area for the children, most of whom have been orphaned, abandoned or are unable to be supported by their families.

Rigobert Rafiringason, chairman of our ecclesiastical council in Madagascar, and Madame Eliezera, organizer of the orphanage, send their heartfelt gratitude to their Canadian and South African brothers and sisters, and glorify God for the generosity shown to the children in their time of need. James R. Henderson.

JACKSON, Tennessee—Nathan Bedford Forest was the setting for the fourth annual Vacation Bible School of Living Way Christian Fellowship in Jackson, July 24 to 27.

This annual event has grown from 25 in 2002 to 45 campers and 18 staff this year.  

The adventure started with a kickball game, pizza and a movie night. Pastor Wayne Wendt began the event, and the excitement grew throughout the three days.

This year we participated in the Serengeti Trek, which consisted of five lessons with daily challenges: Day 1—I Know God, Day 2—Talk to God, Day 3—Tell About God, Day 4—Love God, and Day 5—Work for God.

The Bible Expedition included games, watering hole snacks and crafts. Rickie Barnes led classes for the preschool children, and Mary Myers was in charge of the Bible Expedition lessons. Each lesson included interesting characters portrayed by members of the staff. The kids were given breaks for free time, which consisted of pillow fights and hunting for tadpoles. 

On Monday, July 25, a ranger brought snakes to the lodge and educated us on venomous and non-venomous snakes. 

Tuesday’s activities began with a hike and continued with more lessons, crafts, games, snacks and activities, including a visit to a museum at Pilot Knob. 

The Trek ended with songs and the opportunity for the kids to symbolize giving their hearts to Jesus by putting a heart sticker on a cross.

The final night included fun with water balloons, singing and making cross and bead necklaces. A blessed highlight of VBS was the baptism of Jessica Brannon, 10, on Aug. 7. Buni Wendt.

Kwan Borden

MOOROOLBARK, Victoria, Aus-tralia—It was a wintry weekend, May 14 and 15, as 30 teenagers packed into the Red Earth room at the Mooroolbark Community Center for a “No Apologies” weekend.

Australian teens at ‘No Apologies’ weekend. [Photo by Kwan Borden]

“No Apologies” is a six-session series prepared by Focus on the Family. The program was presented by Kwan Borden, Australian national youth director, his assistants, Emma Williams and Jacquie Gold, Tim Chivers and David Eastwood.

The event taught teens the facts about “free” love. It showed what God has to say about the matter to equip them to make informed decisions about present and future relationships.

Copyright © Grace Communion International, 2005