[ag-news] AG NEWS #1787: March 8, 2010

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AG-NEWS: Monday, March 08, 2010 
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**Former district superintendent Armon Newburn passes

Armon Newburn (77), former Oklahoma district superintendent
(1983-2000), passed away Sunday morning. Services for Newburn
will be Thursday, March 11, at 1 p.m. at the Assembly in Broken
Arrow, Oklahoma (corner of 101st and 129th E. Ave). It will be
under the direction of Hay Hurst Funeral Home
(http://www.HayHurstFH.com).


**AG Ministry preparing for next disaster

Denny Nissley, AG chaplain, and his wife Sandy founded Christ
in Action in 1982 as an evangelism ministry, but years later,
shifted focus to disaster response. Most recently, they began
an initiative to help build homes for earthquake victims in
Haiti and are now training volunteers to help people impacted
by the next disaster.


**This week in AG history -- March 9, 1958

Featured in this week's March 9, 1958, issue of "Pentecostal
Evangel" are articles by Roy Wead, President Theodore
Roosevelt, A. Sims, Violet Schoonmaker, Zelma Argue, Christine
Kerr Peirce and others!


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AG Marriage Encounter opens brand new locale

Greg and D'awn (Elder) Ledgerwood, Sidney, Montana, are hosting
an AG Marriage Encounter weekend in Dickinson, North Dakota,
March 19-21. Mark and Becky Rhoades, national admin couple for
AGME, confirm that space is limited. "Initial plans for the new
locale were made when Greg and D'awn drove the 1,187 miles from
Sidney to Springfield, Missouri, to experience a fall weekend.
The final details were just now worked out," says Mark Rhoades.

To register go to http://www.agme.org or call 800.366.2104
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**FORMER DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT ARMON NEWBURN PASSES

Armon Newburn, the former Oklahoma District Superintendent
(1983-2000), passed away Sunday morning. He was 77.

Newburn, who was ordained by the Assemblies of God in 1955, pastored
four churches ? Wister (Oklahoma) AG, Muldrow (Oklahoma) First AG,
Duncan (Oklahoma) First AG and Woodlake AG in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
during his years of ministry. In addition, he served as the District
C.A. president for four years in the mid-1960s and as an Executive
Presbyter for eight years during the 1990s.

"Armon was such a great encouragement to me," states George O. Wood,
general superintendent of the Assemblies of God. "He was a fountain
of wisdom and sound counsel. He dearly loved this church. His
interests always were Kingdom first and he had a heart for extending
the work of Jesus at home and abroad.

"In his pastoral, district and national leadership positions, he led
by example ? inspiring others to serve Christ with excellence," Wood
says. ". . . [Armon] always served Jesus and others with his whole
heart."

Newburn is survived by his wife JoAnn; their two children, Greg and
Lisa; and four grandchildren.

Services for Newburn will be Thursday, March 11, at 1 p.m. at the
Assembly in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (corner of 101st and 129th E.
Ave). It will be under the direction of Hay Hurst Funeral Home
(http://www.HayHurstFH.com).

--AG News


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**AG MINISTRY PREPARING FOR NEXT DISASTER

Responding to disasters since 1998, Christ in Action (CIA) of
Manassas, Virginia, is training a national coalition of volunteers
to help people impacted by the next flood, hurricane or wildfire.

"Christians should be the first ones to respond in a disaster
location," says CIA Executive Director Denny Nissley, a nationally
appointed Assemblies of God chaplain.

Nissley founded CIA with his wife, Sandy, in 1982, originally as a
street evangelism ministry.

"I carried a cross some days, was beaten, shot at and cursed by
gangs and hostile bystanders," Nissley says. "But people got saved."

Converting a semitrailer truck into a stage with a 14,000-watt sound
system for inner-city preaching and concerts, the Nissleys gave out
hot dogs and hamburgers. Prompted by a board member, they began
shifting into disaster relief.

Feeding emergency crews at the Pentagon and Ground Zero after the
2001 attacks catapulted CIA onto a new level. The ministry now owns
$1 million worth of trucks, tents, chainsaws, and cooking,
refrigeration and washing equipment capable of serving 15,000 hot
meals daily. It has served victims and emergency workers at 12 major
disasters, including providing millions of dollars in goods and
services for Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi, and New
Orleans.

People are grateful and open to the gospel. For example, during the
2008 wildfires in Ramona, California, a Buddhist woman came to
salvation in Christ through CIA's feeding program and three months
later her husband converted.

The White House asked Nissley in 2006 to organize a coalition of
faith-based groups and individuals to respond in the national
Capitol region as well as a nationwide rapid response network for
future disasters. To accomplish this, Nissley has launched a Faith
Based First Responders (FBFR) course that has trained more than
1,000 laypeople in Critical Incident Stress Management. In August
2009, a team of FBFR graduates ministered to high school students in
Culpepper, Virginia, when a 17-year-old student was killed in an
auto accident.

"The team was very well trained and did an awesome job," says AG
chaplain Liz Danielsen. "I felt privileged to partner with them in
ministry."

The U.S. military tapped CIA in 2006 to respond to a nuclear,
chemical or biological terrorist attack in the Capitol region.
However, CIA does not receive any government funding.

When the earthquake struck Haiti in January, the Christ in Action
team was ready to help. "Although the earthquake in Haiti devastated
millions of people, Christ in Action is working with fervency to
help these survivors," Denny Nissley said.

Nissley gathered equipment and traveled to Haiti to perform a
housing assessment to determine how desperate the need was for new
homes.

Nissley knew of the need for homes concentrated on protecting the
people and not appearance ? with this knowledge, he was inspired
with a dream to build affordable housing for the Haitian victims
that would withstand a significant amount of structural damage.

As part of an initiative called "Homes for Haiti," Christ In Action
is taking steps to build these homes inside a 50,000-square-foot
warehouse in northern Virginia. Other warehouses across the nation
are also constructing the kits.

CIA is partnering with an organization called Friend Ships, an
organization that has several ships available, to send food and
water to Haiti as well as the custom-designed homes. The homes,
costing only $600 to construct, will sleep 8-10 people and will last
up to 10 years.

"We are intending to build a few thousand of these homes," Nissley
said. "We expect the first shipment of homes to arrive in late
March."

According to Nissley, once the homes are constructed in the
warehouse, they will be stacked, banded, trucked to the Port of
Miami and shipped on the Friend Ships fleet. Upon arrival in Haiti,
volunteers will clear areas of debris and work on assembling the
houses, which take about two hours to construct.

The homes aren't the only thing CIA plans to build in Haiti. "We are
beginning to work with the Haitian government to provide large
tracts of land where we intend to also plant a church or work with
an existing church," Nissley said. "We are also exploring the idea
of building a school and a medical clinic with the church so we can
rebuild the entire community with these resources."

Nissley says he's always looking for volunteers
(http://www.christinaction.com) so when the next disaster strikes,
CIA will be ready to serve.

"Denny has a compassionate heart for people," says Scott Leib, a
participant in CIA events and senior pastor of Manassas AG church in
Bristow, Virginia. "He will go anywhere, anytime and is one of the
AG's best-kept secrets."

--Peter K. Johnson, Pentecostal Evangel with contributions by AG
News 


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**THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY -- MARCH 9, 1958

Roy Wead identifies in Scripture "the secret to success and
prosperity," in his article "A Prosperous Future," in the March 9,
1958, issue of the "Pentecostal Evangel." The secret, he suggests,
is seeking the Lord.

Also featured in this issue:

* "Nine Reasons for Going to Church," by President Theodore
Roosevelt

* "The Story of Dorothea Trudell," by A. Sims

* "The Spirit's Jealousy," by Violet Schoonmaker

* "Show Me Thy Glory," by Zelma Argue

* "Forgiven and Forgiving," by Christine Kerr Peirce

And much more! Click here to read this issue now:
http://s2.ag.org/mar91958

"Pentecostal Evangel" archived editions courtesy of Flower
Pentecostal Heritage Center (http://iFPHC.org). For current editions
of the "Evangel", click here: http://pe.ag.org.



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