Mother Ann Smith’s House of Refuge has given former drug addicts, prostitutes and prisoners a second chance at life
When Tiffany Henderson was released from prison after serving a nine-year sentence, she struggled to find employment and make ends meet. Then she met “Mother Ann,” a Pentecostal missionary who specializes in helping people in transition. Before long, 29-year-old Henderson had landed a job at a restaurant and was an active church member.

Ann Smith–known as Mother Ann Smith within her denomination, the Church of God in Christ–is credited with helping hundreds of people turn their lives around through a string of transitional homes called the House of Refuge.

The faith-based residential facilities in Orlando, Fla., reach drug addicts, prostitutes, ex-prisoners and others. Some residents are HIV-positive. Others struggle with mental illness. “We help anybody who wants our help,” said Smith, stressing that the individual must want help.

Henderson, who lived at The Refuge, as the homes are known, while saving money for an apartment, was 19 when she was convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing and killing a woman in the heat of an argument. After rededicating her life to Christ while completing a reduced sentence at the New Jersey Correctional Facility, Henderson took the advice of a pastor and moved to The Refuge after her release.

“I am sorry for my past actions,” Henderson said, “but I am grateful for another chance.”

Mother Ann, 72, isn’t deterred by her residents’ sordid pasts. That’s because the former jail chaplain spent 30 years as a licensed practical nurse in Orlando-area correctional facilities, providing medical care for murderers, rapists, white-collar criminals and a host of others. “I don’t judge these people,” Smith said. “I just try to help them do better in life.”

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, roughly 40 out of 100 inmates released from prison in 2001 were convicted of a new crime within three years and approximately 26 of 100 returned to jail.

The House of Refuge helps residents avoid re-incarceration by offering a low program fee that includes housing and meals. Participants receive job training or work toward a high school diploma or GED. Some enroll in drug-prevention classes, and others go to work.

But all who live at The Refuge have an opportunity to get to know Jesus Christ through daily prayer and Bible study, which Smith and other local pastors and missionaries lead.

Brenda Straub, 54, knows the benefits of living at The Refuge. Straub was a substance abuser for years before she accepted Christ. With His help, she says, she managed to get off drugs and in 1998 worked as a volunteer on Homer Hartage’s campaign for county commissioner.

When the commissioner learned Straub had no place to live, he sent her to the House of Refuge and gave the ministry a donation to pay for her first month’s fees.

“All churches should collaborate with centers such as The Refuge and support them,” Hartage said. “We all have family members who have drug, alcohol and other problems to contend with.”

Today Straub is a licensed minister and on The Refuge’s board of directors. In 2003 she earned a real estate license from the state of Florida.

“I am extremely thankful for what God has done in my life,” Straub said. “Now I want to help others get their lives together at The Refuge.”

Mother Ann operated six transitional facilities before she sold five of her state-certified homes in 2003 to purchase a 20-bed home for men on three acres of land. A five-bed facility for women is located three miles away.

Mother Ann’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Last year, the local NBC affiliate named Smith “Town Hero.” And Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer declared March 25 Ann Smith Day during a banquet that honored her for outstanding community service.

“Over 30 years ago, God called me to this area of ministry,” Smith said. “And when people ask me how I do it, I tell them, Whom God commissions He also conditions to do the work.”
Valerie G. Lowe in Orlando, Fla.

Released by China Aid Association, the document outlines a plan to promote ‘atheism research, propaganda, and education’
Despite China’s rhetoric concerning religious tolerance, recent arrests and raids reveal an ongoing nationwide crackdown on believers.

In October, Chinese government officials spoke of a willingness to loosen restrictions on religious worship and to reopen dialogue concerning religious freedom and other human rights. However, a secret directive recently released by China Aid Association President Bob Fu directly contradicts such statements and outlines a chilling plan to promote “atheism research, propaganda, and education” in order to combat Christianity.

Fu revealed the secret directive, dated May 27, 2004, during a press conference held in November on Capitol Hill. He was in Washington to testify before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

According to China Aid, the directive is responsible for a slew of recent extra-judicial killings and arrests. Along with the directive, the Midland, Texas-based ministry published a partial list of Christian prisoners that names 42 who have been arrested and five who have been martyred.

Among them is Jiang Zongxiu, who was arrested in June for distributing Bibles in a marketplace. Officially charged with “spreading a superstitious message,” she was beaten to death while being interrogated at the Public Security Office.

“The truth is, there is a systematic persecution of the house church and their leaders,” said Deborah Fikes, spokeswoman for the Ministerial Alliance of Midland, Texas, which co-sponsored the press conference. The alliance has made religious freedom in China a top priority.

News reports verify the overarching nature of the persecution. Compass Direct, a Christian news service, recently released details on three additional directives that were issued in August. These orders indicate the Communist Party’s intent to combat religious “infiltration” of the government and universities and the spread of religion and religious organizations.

China currently contains an estimated 100 million Christians, with more than 86 million belonging to illegal house churches, China Aid reported. For these Christians, religious persecution is not a recent phenomenon. In the last four years alone, more than 6,000 members of the South China Church have been arrested, harassed or imprisoned.

Observers are concerned that the recent crackdown represents a pre-emptive strike against religious dissidence in light of the upcoming 2008 Olympics. With the event being hosted in Beijing, religious-liberty advocates say Chinese officials may be concerned about a repeat of the South East Asian Games held in December 2003 in Hanoi, where protests by persecuted Vietnamese Christians generated international attention.

“The arrest and imprisonment of Christian leaders is one symptom of an overall aversion to religious belief that includes practitioners of Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhists and the Muslim Uighur community in western China,” said Joseph K. Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, which also co-sponsored the press conference. “We are only asking that China respect religious freedom as stated in their own constitution and the various international agreements to which they are signatories.”

In the meantime, numerous Web sites have been shut down and certain publications banned in the last few months. In one case, pastor Cai Zhuohua was picked up by officers from the Department of National Security in Beijing, China Aid reported. Cai, a well-known house-church leader, was charged with publishing “illegal religious literature,” including Bibles and a Christian magazine. His wife was also arrested, effectively orphaning their 4-year-old son. Both Cai and his wife face possible life sentences.

Of primary concern to Chinese Christians such as Fu is the impact these directives have on potential reform in the communist country. “As a result of these secret policies, free belief means only in your heart or in the bedroom,” Fu said. “We want not only to talk about freedom of religious belief but to make it so that every person can implement their beliefs.”
David Mundy in Washington, D.C.

Opponents of pro-gay moves hope the church’s top leaders will take more decisive action against bishops promoting that agenda
The top leaders in the worldwide Anglican Communion are to meet this month in Ireland, where conservative leaders within the church hope strong disciplinary action will be taken against the Canadian and U.S. churches for their support of homosexuality.

Congregations in North America have been steadily leaving the 70 million-member communion since 2003, when the diocese of New Westminster in Vancouver, B.C., sanctioned the blessing of same-sex unions and the head of the Episcopal Church USA consecrated V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Observers say the trend toward a liberal theology has been ongoing for years. In October, the Episcopal Church’s Web site offered articles on paganism written by two priests who allegedly are also Druids, the Institute on Religion and Democracy reported. The group said one article called for Episcopal women to participate in a ritual for the “queen of heaven.”

In the churches in the West, there “has been over time a stepping back from the central tenets of faith that the church has held to for 2,000 years,” said Jay Greener, spokesman for the Anglican Mission in America, a network for churches that want to leave the Episcopal Church. “This is really not about homosexuality; this is really about the central doctrines of Christianity,” he added, noting that since 2000, the group has helped 72 churches align themselves with the diocese in Rwanda.

Canadian Bishop Donald Harvey said churches in his nation are not leaving at the same pace as U.S. parishes, but he acknowledged that many conservative ministers there are being treated harshly by their bishops. “They’re getting a terrible backlash by the diocese in New Westminster,” said Harvey, moderator of the newly formed Anglican Network in Canada, a fellowship for conservative churches in Canada. “There have been threats to remove licenses, threats to close churches, threats to sell their property, all of these things.”

Conservative ministers such as those in Harvey’s group, who chose to stay within the Anglican Communion, hoped the Windsor Report, released in October in response to the pro-gay moves by U.S. and Canadian dioceses, would offer them an alternative to submitting to leaders who they believe are deviating from Scripture. But most observers say the report fell flat, extending only an invitation for the offending churches to “express regret,” but not to repent and make changes.

Both the bishops of New Westminster and the Episcopal Church refused to stop blessing same-sex unions or ordaining gay clergy, as the report encouraged.

John Guernsey, dean of the mid-Atlantic conference of the Anglican Communion Network, a fellowship of conservative churches that have stayed in the Episcopal Church, said he hopes the primates, as the top leaders are known, will draw a clear line in the sand during their meeting Feb. 20-26.

“If strong and decisive action were to take place, it might open the door for biblically faithful Episcopalians to be acknowledged and given some structural way to remain,” Guernsey said. “While we earnestly hope and pray for that we also realize the actions of the primates may fall far short of that, even to the point of the communion coming apart.”

Last summer, three prominent Episcopal congregations in Los Angeles left the U.S. church to join the Anglican diocese in Uganda, and two in the Washington, D.C., area connected with the diocese in Recife, Brazil. Other congregations are gaining oversight from the bishop of Nigeria.

Observers say the trend is part of a global shift in leadership. They cite Penn State University religion professor Philip Jenkins’ 2002 book, The Next Christendom, which predicted that the center of gravity within the church would shift from the West to the “global south”: Africa, Latin America and Asia, where churches are growing at a much more rapid pace.

As they await the primates’ meeting this month, Anglicans in the United States and Canada are unsure whether church unity can be salvaged. “I don’t see the liberal revisionists backing off on their agenda of promoting the gay lifestyle,” said the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council. “And hundreds of thousands of solid, orthodox Christians in the Episcopal Church cannot stomach that, so they’re going to be looking for places to go.”
Adrienne S. Gaines

Critics say Stan Telchin’s recent book is unbiblical and may cause unfounded distrust of Messianic congregations
An author’s claim that Messianic Judaism is unbiblical and causing division in the body of Christ has sparked controversy in the Messianic community and led some of its leaders to protest his book.

Stan Telchin, a Messianic Jew and author of Messianic Judaism Is Not Christianity (Chosen Books), says those within the movement think Messianic Judaism is superior to Christianity, which he says impedes the Bible’s call to unity.

The 80-year-old Jews for Jesus missionary adds that Messianic congregations appeal largely to Gentile Christians who enjoy traditional Jewish customs such as wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls. Telchin says this offends and angers the Jewish community, which holds such practices in high regard and reserves them only for observant Jews. He says the Messianic movement may, in effect, alienate the very people it is trying to win to Christ.

“The Bible calls us to provoke Israel to jealousy,” Telchin told Charisma. “What Messianic Judaism is doing is provoking the Jewish community to outrage.” Telchin said this is because Messianic congregations make “a caricature, a charade” of what happens in synagogues.

Author of the best-selling book Betrayed, in which he shares his testimony, Telchin says his intent is to “reveal and to help heal the division that is occurring among brothers and sisters in the Messiah–a division being fostered by those who insist that Messianic Judaism is not Christianity.”

Barry Rubin, president of Messianic Jewish Publications and rabbi of a Messianic congregation in Columbia, Md., says the book, subtitled A Loving Call to Unity, does anything but promote unity. “In his interest toward unity, he has actually done the antithesis,” Rubin told Charisma. “He has not really come to Messianic Jews with his concerns. Instead he published a book that, for the most part, is going to Christians.”

The book has been surrounded by controversy since it released in August. The confusing title drew a negative reaction, prompting its publisher–Chosen Books, a division of Baker Book House–to issue a press release explaining that people needed to read the book’s lead-in line, title and subtitle: Some Messianic Jews Say, “Messianic Judaism Is Not Christianity”: A Loving Call to Unity.

Rubin says Telchin’s book focuses on minute issues that are in no way normative in Messianic Judaism. “Stan Telchin is not a theologian, he is not a leader of any Messianic congregation, and he is [in] no way a spokesman for Messianic Judaism, and yet he has chosen to act as if he were,” Rubin said.

Rubin joined Joel Chernoff, president of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America; Jamie Cowen, president of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, and other leaders in writing an open “letter to the editor” to trade publications that advertised Telchin’s book, including Charisma’s sister publication Christian Retailing.

“Telchin presents a skewed picture of the Messianic Jewish movement,” the letter stated. “By not presenting a balanced picture of today’s Messianic congregations, in effect Telchin portrays exceptions as the rule, characterizing them as standard fare.”

The letter went on to say the book might cause Christians to “shy away from standing with Messianic Jews in Israel at a time of their greatest need, and avoid connecting with us here in the States.”

Telchin, who was pastor of a nondenominational charismatic church in the Washington, D.C., area for 14 years, says he knew the book would draw criticism. “I want Jewish people to get saved,” he said, “but you’re not going to reach the Jewish people through Messianic Judaism–it’s not working.”

Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews for Jesus, writes in the book’s foreword that through the years Telchin has grown uneasy and troubled “by such terms as ‘Gentile Church’ when he knew that the Messiah established only one Church.” Rosen added that “questions should arise [from the book] and much discussion should be the result.”

Rubin estimates there are about 300 Messianic congregations in the United States. Telchin said the claims in his book do not apply to all Messianic congregations. Originally intended to be a vehicle to attract Jewish people, Messianic congregations appeal mostly to Gentiles, Telchin said. “About 80 percent, of those who attend Messianic synagogues are not Jewish,” he said.

In his ministry’s November newsletter, Rubin admitted that most Messianic congregations “consist of at least 50 percent non-Jews,” but added that most of these ministries have an excellent relationship with local Christian churches. He said the problems Telchin refers to in his book “barely exist, if at all” and that “by being so visible to the Jewish community, Messianic congregations are a strong witness of the faith.”
Nancy Justice

Through his stage shows and book, Rob Lacey presents the Scriptures in the language of popular culture
Rob Lacey didn’t receive a sudden revelation to rewrite the Bible. But in his personal study of Scripture, the 42-year-old Welshman discovered that rephrasing passages to fit modern language connected with believers and nonbelievers alike.

So the 16-year theater veteran set out to take the Word to the street–literally–by paraphrasing the Bible in a way today’s postmodern culture would understand. The project started off as a book, releasing as The Street Bible in Britain in 2003 and capturing the 2004 Book of the Year award at the United Kingdom Christian Booksellers Convention. In September, it released as The Word on the Street in the United States.

“It’s an overview of the Bible that’s perfect for non-Christians, and Christians love it because it gives a fresh angle to something they know very well,” Lacey told Charisma. “But I’m very passionate that everyone realizes it’s not the Bible. It’s an intro and advertisement for the Bible.”

In sometimes gritty and oftentimes witty language, Lacey presents Old Testament law as an instructional manual, the wisdom books as rock opera, the Gospels as one story with four narrators, the epistles as e-mails, and Revelation as virtual images. With a vocabulary and structure designed primarily for 18- to 34-year-olds, the passages reflect God’s eternal truth and wisdom.

The book also is performed as one-hour and 20-minute stage shows.

Accompanied by Bill and Rachel Beales on guitar, keyboard and vocals, Lacey opens the show by reviewing the entire Bible in two minutes. “The show is the Bible as performance art,” Lacey said. “It’s comedy, it’s theater, it’s performance poetry.”

Lacey gave dozens of performances last summer alone, but the ministry concept almost never got off the ground. Two weeks after inking the book contract in March 2000, Lacey was diagnosed with cancer in his bladder.

He underwent painful chemical treatments, but the disease continued to spread, and eventually Lacey had to undergo surgery to remove his bladder.

“I was a hermit in my own house, and the only positive thing in my life at that stage was writing,” he said. “It was my lifeline creatively, emotionally and certainly spiritually to be soaked in the Bible. It was the only thing that kept me sane.”

During the operation, doctors discovered a tumor and found cancer cells in Lacey’s bones. Lacey said if his physicians had known how much the cancer had spread, they would not have performed the surgery. Afterward, Lacey’s medical team told him he had less than a year to live.

“I had just finished the first draft of The Word on the Street, but it was nowhere near ready,” he said. “If that had been the end, the book would not have been completed.”

Rather than accept the doctors’ report, Lacey underwent alternative treatment in Mexico. A member of Glenwood Church, a Free Evangelical congregation in Cardiff, Wales, he also visited Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship to receive prayer for healing. But his condition worsened, and in December 2001, friends and family began visiting Lacey to pay their last respects.

Still determined to finish the project, Lacey began editing his book. The work proved both therapeutic and fruitful. “Because I had seen a lot more, I had a lot more authority and courage and a right to talk about the big issues,” he said. “I had looked death in the face, but because of what Christ had done, death blinked first.

“I had two very good options. I could either die and go to heaven and be pain-free, or God would heal me, and I could see my little boy grow up. It was totally dark at times, and at other times, it was glimpses of real intimacy with God, a very beautiful time.”

During the summer of 2002, Lacey began to improve. In August, no cancer could be detected in his lymph nodes, and by October he not only could walk without assistance, he also began swimming to regain his strength.

Today he is in good health, and tours the country with his stage show. Lacey said he has revised the format some to allow the audience to draw their own biblical insights from the presentation.

“I was preaching through drama and wasn’t just telling the stories,” he told Charisma. “I realized that was rather arrogant to an unchurched person, especially in this postmodern society. I began using Jesus’ model of parables and leaving it to the Holy Spirit and the listener to work things out.”

Last fall, Lacey opened the Gates Arts and Training Center with his wife, Sandra, in Cardiff. The center holds acting and dancing classes and produces plays for the community.
John Hillman

Colombian Student Alleges False Arrest

First-year theology student Luis Alberto Vera, 24, was arrested Nov. 26 on charges of firearms trafficking and aggravated theft. Though he said the charge is bogus, he faces a lengthy and likely expensive legal battle to clear his name, Compass Direct reported. A student at the Biblical Seminary of Colombia in Medellín, Vera is not an isolated case, observers say. Special anti-terrorism laws and a growing network of anonymous informants have increased the risk of regular citizens being wrongly accused of terrorism, Compass said. Ricardo Esquivi of the Evangelical Council of Colombia said at least 30 pastors and church leaders across the nation are currently imprisoned because of anonymous tips from informants.

Pentecostal Churches Double in Egypt

The president of the Pentecostal Churches in Egypt reported in December that the number of Pentecostal churches in Egypt has doubled in the last three years, Assist News Service (ANS) said. “When God called me [to] the ministry of being responsible for the Pentecostals in Egypt February of 2001, the number of the churches was only 35,” Bishop Azez Morgan told ANS. “However, in this last three years, the Lord has blessed us with the strategy for church growth and it now has doubled to 75. There are churches all over the country, but there are still places we still do not have our churches, but we have plans for this.”

House Church Leader Arrested In China

One of China’s most prominent house-church leaders was recently arrested for his religious activities. Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) reported that pastor Zhang Rongliang, 53, was detained Dec. 1 in Xuzhai village in Zhengzhou, located in Henan Province. At press time, no one had heard from him. Zhang, whose wife and children are now in hiding, leads the Fangcheng Mother Church and the China for Christ Church, which is one of the largest house-church networks in the country, with more than 10 million members.

Some 1.3 million people are believed to be addicted to the drug, which causes brain damage similar to the effects of a stroke
As use of a man-made drug spreads nationwide at a pace the National Institute on Drug Abuse says is unrivaled by any other in recent history, ministries are reaching into the lives of addicts, families and entire communities with a message of hope and healing through Jesus Christ.

Dubbed the “devil’s drug,” methamphetamine is a powerfully addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system, creating an intense high that can last as long as 24 hours. The drug causes brain damage similar to that caused by Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and epilepsy; use can also produce psychotic behavior, resulting in extreme violence.

Also known as “speed,” “meth” or “chalk,” methamphetamine is made in clandestine laboratories from everyday household products and is the most prevalent synthetic drug manufactured in the United States. According to a 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an estimated 1.3 million people used the drug during the previous year.

“It is the devil’s greatest tool in the world of drugs,” warns Paula Wood, reformed methamphetamine addict and founder of Break Free Ministry, an organization that reaches out to methamphetamine addicts and their families.

Founded in 2003, Break Free is run by Paula and husband Andy Wood from their home in Savanna, area that has been ravaged by the drug. The ministry consists of 10 team members, eight of whom are former meth addicts.

Wood says her team will go anywhere to spread the message that saved her life. “We tell them that there is hope,” she told Charisma. “The only hope is through Jesus Christ.”

The team travels to the streets equipped with a custom-built cooker that feeds hundreds. “We pray with them, we clothe them, we cook for them and we love them,” Wood added.

Since August 2003, Break Free has hosted four rallies. In just one weekend, approximately 90 people dedicated their lives to Christ, Wood reported. Now Break Free is working to establish a discipleship home for addicts because of the increasing need for in-house rehabilitation facilities specifically for meth addicts.

“It may take anywhere from three to four months to get into a facility,” Wood said. “By the time a bed is open, the person is back on the street. We get calls every day, asking if there’s a place to put them.”

One of those calls came from 26-year-old Cory Weidner, who was a drug addict by the age of 14. Weidner was facing a 20-year prison sentence when he met Wood in a county jail, where she works as a licensed practical nurse. “They loved me after everyone else gave up on me,” Weidner said. After his release, Break Free ministered to Weidner until his placement in Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug rehabilitation facility.

“It is an epidemic, a mushroom cloud that is exploding over this country,” said Dr. Mary Holley, founder of Mothers Against Methamphetamine, a ministry that distributes methamphetamine-related literature nationwide. “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet.”

An obstetrician in Alabama, Holley estimates that 10 percent of her pregnant patients are meth addicts. She says a faith-based approach is key to rehabilitation. “Faith-based programs tend to be far more successful because they go deeper into the heart of people,” she said.

John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and President Bush’s “drug czar,” warns that methamphetamine is a threat to entire communities. “With meth, you have all the harms of other drugs, but there is also a safety hazard” because meth labs exude potentially explosive toxic fumes.

In October, Walters released the nation’s first comprehensive strategy for reducing the production, trafficking and use of synthetic drugs. The Bush administration’s National Synthetic Drugs Action Plan provides an overview of recent trends in the consumption and trafficking of synthetic drugs and outlines a plan for addressing the problem based on four core areas: prevention, treatment, regulation of chemicals and drugs, and law enforcement.
Suzy Richardson

Organizer Bishop John Gimenez says the call to champion righteousness did not end with the presidential election
Thousands gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., days before the November election to fast and pray that righteousness would prevail in the United States. But in the wake of President Bush’s re-election, Bishop John Gimenez said the task is still far from over.

Quoting an old Spanish proverb–“Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are”–Gimenez, organizer of the Oct. 22 America for Jesus (AFJ) rally in Washington, D.C., said he hopes Christians will continue to walk together as “watchmen” in prayer, and then work together to reclaim American culture.

He says in order for the nation to be healthy, prayer needs to be returned to schools, a marriage amendment must be passed and Christians must gain more influence in such secular strongholds as the media. At the AFJ rally, Gimenez gathered evangelical and charismatic leaders from across the country, as well as nationally known musicians, including pastor Donnie McClurkin, entertainer Pat Boone and the worship band Starfield.

AFJ leaders reported some 25,000 attendees, but said thousands more in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia joined in prayer while watching satellite broadcasts.

“We were few, but we were committed,” Gimenez told Charisma. “We prayed in dozens of languages and we prayed: ‘Lord, save our nation. Bring righteousness back to the forefront.'”

Gimenez said the focus of the event was not on promoting a particular candidate but on encouraging Christians to seek righteousness and to pray that God would “exalt [His] name and the one [He] wants to rule.” He’s already looking toward the 2008 presidential election, when he may organize another rally urging Christians to cross denominational and racial lines to support the candidate who promotes righteousness.

“We have a problem in the church, and that is division, but little by little we are coming together,” said Gimenez, who founded The Rock Church in Virginia Beach, Va., with his wife, Anne, and organized three previous prayer rallies. The couple’s 1988 Washington for Jesus rally is said to have drawn more than 1 million participants.

“If we can be one, we can bring healing to the nation, we can turn things around, we can have a bright future for our children,” he added.

It is a point that was echoed by nearly everyone in attendance. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a speaker at the AFJ rally, said the church is more united than it has been in several years.

“Evangelicals are more united than ever before,” he said. “We fragmented with the Protestant Reformation and continue to fragment … which gives us different flavors in the body. Now there is a high degree of relational camaraderie between the leaders of evangelicalism, and so you look at the platform here at America for Jesus you see every ethnic group imaginable here praying together, and that’s a wonderful thing.”

Emphasizing the importance of unity, McClurkin gave a stirring rendition of songwriter Rich Mullins’ classic “Awesome God,” singing its popular chorus in German and Russian.

“Our nation was built on godly principles, godly intention–that’s how our founders structured the framework of this country,” McClurkin said.

“My prayer for this nation is that [we] would go back to God, the true and living God, and that we would come to grips with the fact that you cannot extract God from the very fabric of the society that He built. Stop running from the very one that calls us into being as a nation. Turn back to God and allow Him to bring about change.”
Chris Pettit in Washington, D.C.

Pastor Wesley Campbell says personal revival should motivate believers to reach out to the world’s poor and needy
A Canadian pastor is calling for Christians touched by renewal to translate their passion into activism for children worldwide who are plagued by poverty, exploitation and war.

Wesley Campbell, who co-founded New Life Church in Kelowna, British Columbia, with his wife, Stacey, has focused his international renewal ministry on teaching Christians how to pray for and rescue children at risk, particularly the fatherless and the poor.

“After experiencing the Toronto renewal, while people were being touched and blessed and bearing fruit, I saw little being harvested for the poorest of the poor–specifically the children,” Campbell told Charisma.

In Be a Hero: The Battle for Mercy and Social Justice, Campbell and co-author Stephen Court, a captain in The Salvation Army who lives and ministers with his family in the poorest neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, reveal simple strategies to transform personal revival into public action.

Campbell says heroes don’t need a superhuman gift or a flashy uniform. They simply must take action by praying for the poor, investing in the life of a child through child sponsorship, starting or supporting a project working with children, advocating for the “invisible” people so that they become visible to others, or participating in short-term missions trips.

“The whole thrust for mercy and justice for children rose out of the prophetic renewal my church experienced in 1988 when the Holy Spirit came on the leadership in great power, and people started prophesying specific themes about where God would take us in ministry,” Campbell told Charisma. “That experience resulted in a burst of salvations in Kelowna and pushed us into the prayer movement.”

That prayer movement led Campbell to delve deep into Scripture to discover the power of praying biblical prayers aloud daily. With his wife, Campbell compiled what he learned into a book titled Praying the Bible: The Book of Prayers. The manual guides readers into praying some 88 prayers, including the prayers of Jesus, the psalms, prayers of the apostles and prophets, and others.

“David’s psalms talk about the mercy of God for the refugee, widow and orphan, about God’s heart for the poor,” Campbell said. “He became passionate about what God loves as a result of meditating on Scripture and ended up writing many psalms expressing the heart of God for the poor. As we continued to pray the Bible, stare at God, look at attributes of God, those attributes came into our spirit and moved us out into ministry.”

Campbell says the natural outgrowth of revival is faith that changes societies. Past Christian heroes established hospitals and universities, provided literacy and education for the masses, spearheaded the abolition of slavery, fought for the dignity of women and children, and built organizations focusing on charity and the sanctity of life.

After being dramatically touched by the Holy Spirit, Campbell and several other leaders in New Life Church launched ministries that take the power of the Holy Spirit into the streets. New Life founded the Society of Hope, which has built 350 subsidized housing units, assisted single-parent families and offered progressive employment opportunities.

Church leader Ralph Bromley later launched Hope for the Nations and built more than 50 homes in 20 countries to care for orphans. Worship leader David Ruis, once a leader at New Life, uses his music and Los Angeles-based ministry to share his own expression of prophetic mercy and justice.

Daniel Germain, who was discipled by Campbell during that time, started a ministry called Quebec Kid’s Breakfast Club, which feeds thousands of children and is currently expanding internationally.

Today, Campbell’s ministry is focused on raising up heroes who will pray and minister to the world’s poor and needy children. In their book, Campbell and Court explain the “seven deadly sins” facing children in the most need–extreme poverty, slave labor, orphanage, sexual trafficking, war, religious persecution, and AIDS and other diseases. It also lists groups reaching out to them in hopes that readers will support their work.
Julia C. Loren

Dr. Alton A. Williams says children with ADHD are being ‘healed’ through treatment known as vision therapy
Dr. Alton A. Williams made history in 1974 when he became the first African American optometrist in Delaware. Last year he was recognized as one of the state’s 100 most influential African Americans. But these days, Williams doesn’t boast about those things.

Instead, the 55-year-old talks about the 4,000 patients who he says have come to Christ in the 12 years since he prayed the sinner’s prayer himself, and about the children who he claims have been “healed” of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) after receiving vision therapy at his Newark clinic.

Vision therapy, an eye-focusing technique that Williams first learned about 30 years ago at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, is designed to improve the brain’s ability to control eye alignment, movement, teamwork and focusing ability. Williams said the therapy remained dormant in his practice until 2003, when he says the Holy Spirit impressed him to use it as a tool to reverse the effects of ADHD in youngsters.

“Many children who have the signs and symptoms of [attention deficit disorder] actually have undiagnosed vision problems,” said Dr. Stephen Miller, executive director of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, which offers board certification in vision therapy. “If the vision problem is … treated, many of these symptoms [go away].”

Williams views the therapy as an alternative to drugs and their harmful side effects. He said he felt the Lord telling him, “Bring the children to Me, and I will use what is in your hand.”

Williams claims the therapy works on other conditions, from learning disabilities to bipolarity. “From my perspective, these conditions all have spiritual roots to them,” he said. Before he begins treatment he asks parents, “What traumatic event has this child experienced that has caused their life and eyes and every aspect of their being to go out of focus?” He said some children were born addicted to crack, others witnessed their parents’ divorce, others experienced abuse.

An ordained minister and pastor of All Nations Christian Center (ANCC) in Wilmington, Del., Williams said a traumatic experience in his own life brought him to Christ in 1992. After 20 years of marriage, his wife, Bonita, suddenly announced that she was leaving him and taking their two sons with her. Williams faced his cozy family, affluent lifestyle and social prestige being blown apart. “All I could see was me sliding into a deep, dark hole,” he said.

He said God intervened through his sister’s testimony and her badgering him to read Romans 10:9-10. Sitting at his desk, he prayed Romans 10:9. “In the twinkling of an eye I was saved,” he said. “I never had that level of peace.”

His wife, an attorney, still moved to Virginia and divorced him. But two years later she yielded her life to Jesus. They remarried in February 1995 and have been serving the Lord together ever since.

Williams said the vision-therapy program is based on test results following a rigorous eye examination and an assessment of the patient’s needs. He said most suffer from convergence insufficiency, which is the inability to focus on a target at close range.

A typical treatment regimen consists of visual exercises lasting from several weeks to several months. With parental permission, Bible verses are integrated into the exercises. Williams said this is where spiritual healing begins. Many patients receive scholarships to make the therapy affordable.

Mildred Muñoz has four children in the program. “It’s helping my boys tremendously,” she said, adding that it also helps her stay focused spiritually.

Julianne Lin, an ophthalmologist and associate of Williams’, was initially skeptical of the treatment. But she has witnessed the results firsthand and supports him. “The spiritual aspects incorporated into the treatment help the whole family,” she said.

Officials from the Christiana school district in New Castle, Del., have expressed interest in vision therapy for the special-education program. “The Lord is going to use this technique to bring His Word back into the schools,” Williams said.

Williams is working to increase awareness of the effectiveness of vision therapy in treating learning and reading disorders. He also is raising funds to establish five regional vision-therapy centers through the Vision Plus Foundation ( ), a subsidiary of ANCC.
Peter K. Johnson in Newark, Del.