Church leaders say The Passion of the Christ has created a historic evangelism opportunity
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ sparked a new commitment to evangelism as ministries mobilized to take advantage of what many were calling one of the best opportunities to reach the lost in recent years.

“I believe The Passion of the Christ may well be one of the most powerful evangelistic tools of the last 100 years because you have never seen the story of Jesus portrayed this vividly before,” said Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Church in Riverside, Calif.

Ministries were staging theatrical plays, launching online campaigns, airing TV commercials, and taking the gospel to the streets with the help of customized tracts. The American Tract Society distributed more than 3 million Passion tracts in 10 different languages. Outreach, a Christian company, offered various Passion-related evangelism materials, from door hangers and posters to booklets and banners.

And Faith Highway created TV commercials produced to help ministries reach out to the unchurched. The first 20 seconds are approved footage from the movie trailer. The last 10 seconds contain customized church information. Company officials said 400 churches had invested about $1 million to air 500,000 commercials.

Ricky Rush, pastor of Inspiring Body of Christ Church in Dallas, said four new families visited the church almost immediately after he began airing the commercials. “We’ve had people come up to the building late at night as we are closing up,” said Rush, who also saw church growth as a result of the effort. “They had just seen the movie and wanted to come inside and pray. So we let them.”

One of the most popular outreach strategies was buying out movie theaters and letting the movie do the talking.

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose-Driven Life, booked 47 theater screens so church members could take their lost friends to see the movie. Warren also planned a two-part sermon series on the movie to bookend both sides of its release and invited more than 1,000 community leaders to a VIP premier showing.

The strategy bore much fruit. Saddleback reported that nearly 900 friends of members accepted Christ, and the average church attendance increased by 3,000 in the first couple of weeks after the film debuted.

New Song Community Church in Oceanside, Calif., rented one theater and followed up the efforts with a four-part apologetic series called “The Passion: True or False?” The ministry mailed out 25,000 Passion-related postcards inviting people to the series. Senior pastor Hal Seed said at least 57 people have come to Christ through the effort.

“This is a one-time event in our generation’s history,” Seed told Charisma. “This movie has the potential to spark revival. I see churches that weren’t interested in evangelism getting interested and others fine-tuning their focus more on outreaches.”

The Rev. David Hale, senior pastor of Christ Life Church in Madison, Miss., made tickets available to first-time visitors and has seen several families accept Christ. But he’s not stopping there.

“When the movie comes out on video and DVD we plan to make it available so our members can offer viewings in their homes,” Hale said. “We know there are still a great number of people who have not seen the movie.”

The Passion sparked conversation and controversy about who Christ was, what Christ claimed, how Christ suffered, and even who is responsible for Christ’s death. The debate continues to rage on with some unexpected reactions.

“Claims that the film is anti-Semitic are ludicrous, and we need to recognize them as such,” said Jeffrey Mann, assistant professor of religion at Susquehanna University in Selinsgove, Pa., and a Lutheran. “Even the argument that it could inflame anti-Semitism is rather weak. Could one see the film and conclude that the Jews are Christ-killers? Of course. However, I suspect even more people will see the film and conclude that the Savior of the world is a Jew.”

Yechiel Eckstein, an Orthodox rabbi who founded and heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, cautions Jews against overreacting to the film. “The near-hysteria that has marked much of the Jewish communities’ reaction to the movie threatens to obscure the absolutely critical need for both Christians and Jews to focus on the true enemy of contemporary western civilization and of Jews in particular–radical Islamists,” he said.

“Because Gibson’s film comes at a time when anti-Semitism is at its highest since World War II, it is that much more important to speak out against any material that raises the specter of Jews as ‘Christ-killers.'”

Messianic Jewish minister Michael Brown, president of the FIRE School of Ministry in Harrisburg, N.C., urged Christians to be sensitive to Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism. “It’s very important that Christian leaders … reach out and say evangelical Christians are the best friends Israel has in the world, and Christians that see this movie don’t blame anyone for Jesus’ death,” Brown said. “They thank God for Jesus’ death and see it as a result of their own sin. As true followers of Jesus we renounce all anti-Semitism.”

Before the movie released, Brown debated Oxford-educated Rabbi Shmuley Boteach about who is responsible for Jesus’ death. Though Brown said the film did not create any formal dialogue between Messianic and traditional Jews, he said, “People are talking about the film and understanding why Jesus died,” adding that some Jews accepted Christ after seeing the film.

Muslim reaction is perhaps the most unexpected. The Passion was released in late March in Qatar. Muslims flocked to theaters to see the film because of the anti-Semitism claims against Gibson. The film was so popular in Kuwait that theaters cancelled other films to show The Passion on all its screens.

“In two short hours, more Qataris heard the gospel than I have been able to reach in nearly five years of living here,” one church leader told Frank Dietz, minister at large with Operation Mobilization International. “The Muslims sitting around us were being moved–gasping, crying and reacting with disgust to the brutality that Jesus faced.”
Jennifer LeClaire

As tension escalated in Iraq in early April, foreign aid workers were encouraged to leave the nation until hostilities settled.

At press time insurgents in Iraq had kidnapped at least 40 foreign workers from 12 nations, prompting humanitarian organizations to remove their foreign personnel. World Vision removed all of its foreign workers in

April, continuing its efforts to distribute medical supplies, rehabilitate schools and improve water supplies with Iraqi staff. Baltimore-based World Relief did the same, relocating its only American relief worker, Brandon Pustejovsky, to Turkey.

“Iraq is clearly one of the most volatile and dangerous places in the world right now, especially for relief workers,” said World Vision spokesman Dean Owen. “Clearly the tension and the difficulty of working in Iraq for aid workers is increasing.”

Owen said that although World Vision offers extensive training for aid workers that includes mock hostage-taking incidents and executions, at least one missionary has been killed on the field in each of the seven years he has worked for the organization. “Aid workers have become an increasingly large target,” Owen said.

Since the war in Iraq ended last year, Christian groups have been working to assist Iraqi Christians in spreading the gospel within their nation. Campus Crusade for Christ launched an initiative to print and distribute Bibles, while Duluth, Equip, founded by author John C. Maxwell, planned to train Iraqi ministers as part of its effort to equip 1 million church leaders outside the United States by 2008.

As other missionaries were leaving the nation, Heather Mercer announced plans to enter Iraq to scout out land to plant a church, Waco-based KXXV-TV reported April 13. Rescued in 2001 with fellow American Dayna Curry from capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mercer was to help Antioch Community Church in Waco find sites in northern Iraq, where relief workers say the situation had been calm until recently.
Adrienne S. Gaines

The couple will train 10,000 people in healing ministry during a healing crusade to be held Oct. 2 at the Astrodome
Charles and Frances Hunter have never been ones to call it quits, but on Oct. 2 the couple known for their worldwide healing ministry will host their last citywide Healing Explosion, to be held at the Astrodome in Houston.

“I think it will be a historic event because we’re going to train 10,000 people how to minister healing,” said Frances Hunter, 88. “When we anoint the 10,000 people on the healing team, do you have any idea the explosion of power that’s going to go out?”

The training sessions will be held Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and Frances Hunter believes the Oct. 2 Healing Explosion will affect people around the world. They’ve already received reservations from India, Indonesia, Korea, Peru, Ecuador and the Ukraine.

“We believe that these 10,000 people who are going to be on the healing team … [will] go back to their churches, and they’re going to start teaching their people so our churches can really come alive with the power of God.”

The Hunters have been teaching Christians how to minister healing for more than 30 years. Known as the “Happy Hunters,” the couple has hosted healing crusades worldwide since the mid-1980s, written dozens of books on healing, and produced training videos about healing ministry, which they will soon release on DVD. In 1990, they began the World Evangelistic Census, a campaign that mobilizes people to do door-to-door evangelism while taking a census of the world.

Recently, both Hunters have had their own bouts with illness. Charles Hunter, 84, had six major spinal operations between May and December 2003. Frances Hunter had a bout with breast cancer, which eventually led to a mastectomy. “In the hospital [we] still laid hands on the sick, and they’d get healed,” Frances Hunter said, adding that she led her surgeon to Christ.

The first Sunday they were able to return to their church, Lakewood Church in Houston, “a lady comes up from behind me, throws her arms around me and says: ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Five years ago I was in stage-four breast cancer. You laid hands on me, and I was totally healed.’ And there I sat with a bandage still on me.

“That’s the amazing thing. … Jesus didn’t say you had to be healthy to heal the sick. He just said you had to believe.”

That’s the crux of the Hunters’ message, teaching that Jesus gave all believers authority to minister healing. Frances Hunter hopes their ministry will reach a new generation, and they plan to teach participants at the Healing Explosion some of the new things they have learned.

“A chiropractor showed us how to get carpal tunnel syndrome healed,” Frances Hunter said. “We put our fingers on their wrists, the thumb on one side and the index finger on the other, and we command the ligament and tendons to relax. We command the carpal tunnel to open up, and we command any blockage to dissolve in the name of Jesus.”

The Hunters also encourage people to take care of their bodies, but they say there’s no substitute for God’s power. A former neurosurgeon agrees. He’s been praying for the sick since the 1980s when he was first exposed to the Hunters’ teaching.

“There are thousands of people who have learned to heal through their videos,” said Dr. Phil Goldfedder, who retired three years ago. “I remember laying hands on a man with a back problem, and he was healed. I was as surprised as he was.”

Eventually Goldfedder began to ask patients if they wanted him to pray with them, and many were healed. “The problem was learning how to write it on the chart,” he said.

Jim and Sue Daniels have been praying for the sick since they met the Hunters in 1983 at a church in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. They said when they applied the principles they learned from the Hunters, their grandson was healed from injuries he suffered after a fall. Years later, a friend of his was healed of scoliosis.

Both in their 70s, the Daniels are two of the many healing ministers who have been invited to attend the Healing Explosion, including Marilyn Hickey, Mike Francine and Rodney Howard-Browne.

“For [the Hunters] to do something like this is mind-blowing,” Howard-Browne said. “To do it when you’re in your 40s is a big deal, but to do it when you’re in your 80s is mind-blowing. I feel that if the Lord has said this is the last Healing Explosion, we as the body of Christ need to get behind them.”
Adrienne S. Gaines

Former leader Paul Risser resigned i nMarch after the denomination lost money in two alleged Ponzi schemes
Delegates from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel were expected to elect a new president during the denomination’s annual convention June 1-4 in San Francisco. Former President Paul Risser resigned in March after the denomination lost $14 million in two allegedly fraudulent investment companies.

Federal investigators claim International Product Investment Corporation (IPIC), headed by California-based Gregory Setser, bilked Christians of $160 million over roughly three years, while Orange County, Financial Advisory Consultants (FAC), headed by James P. Lewis Jr., swindled hundreds of people out of $814 million over 20 years.

Setser, who says he is innocent of all charges, was released on bail in February and awaits trial. Lewis was denied bail in March.

In a statement, Foursquare officials said neither Risser nor the corporate treasurer, Brent Morgan, who also resigned March 10 as a result of the loss, were seeking personal gain through the investments. “There was no criminal intent or conflict of interest found on the part of the President or the Treasurer,” the statement said. “Both men were acting only in a desire to further the interests and investments of Foursquare.”

Risser said he hoped the investments–roughly 6 percent of the proceeds from the $250 million sale of a Los Angeles radio station–would “advance God’s kingdom both in the U.S. and around the world,” officials said. But the denomination’s board of directors questioned whether Risser had the authority to make the investments.

Foursquare spokesman Ron Williams said Risser is still held in high regard by the denomination, which was founded by Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. Today Foursquare has 5 million members in 138 countries. Williams said Risser will continue to serve the denomination, possibly by speaking at churches and conferences and assisting the missions department.

Though both IPIC and FAC allegedly defrauded Christians in what Securities and Exchange Commission investigators say were Ponzi schemes that paid earlier investors with money from new investors, interest in FAC spread among several Foursquare leaders by word-of-mouth.

Believing the company had a 20-year track record, Jeff Miller, pastor of Mission Community Foursquare Gospel Church in Riverside, Calif., invested nearly $70,000 of his personal money in FAC after being referred to the company by other denominational leaders.

“I believe there were many Foursquare leaders involved in this fund,” Miller said. “My boss had been given a recommendation by other district supervisors.”

He questioned the fact that FAC did not have an advisory board. “But when you see such high returns, and when you see other pastors and denominational leaders investing, you think there is stability,” Miller, 52, told Charisma.

Within two years, he believed his retirement fund had grown to $100,000. A later statement put his investment at more than $140,000. But in November, FAC denied his request to withdraw money, claiming the Department of Homeland Security had frozen the company’s bank accounts. Miller received a payment in December, but he later found out the company was allegedly fraudulent.

The SEC charged Lewis with securities fraud in December. Lewis allegedly promised investors up to 40 percent returns, claiming FAC bought distressed businesses and resold them at large profits. But federal investigators say no specific information about FAC’s business ventures was ever supplied to investors.

Brick Kane, CEO of Los Angeles-based Robb Evans and Associates, the court-appointed receiver in the FAC case, said it is still unclear whether investors will recoup any of their money. He said Lewis’ assets would cover about 6 percent of what he owes investors.

Hindsight is 20/20, but Kane said there are warning signs for potential scams, such as high rates of returns, a lack of external audits and few details in annual reports. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Kane said.

Miller said he and his wife are determined not to become bitter. “We were going to be able to retire at 57,” Miller said. “I would have loved to be able to do ministry without being concerned about income. But the Lord is our resource.”

Williams said Foursquare’s board of directors has established a bylaw committee and financial committee to cooperatively clarify who is authorized to engage in investments. He said there was no loss of money from tithes or missions giving.
Adrienne S. Gaines

Campus Crusade for Christ’s The King’s College is focused on training leaders in the heart of New York City
It’s the tallest building in one of the world’s best-known cities–and that makes the Empire State Building a fitting place to house a small liberal arts Christian school, says one college administrator.

“We are a leadership school,” said J. Stanley Oakes Jr., president of The King’s College in New York City. “We want to produce Supreme Court justices and leaders in business and education. … If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”

Fulfilling a dream of the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International (CCCI), The King’s College is a Christian liberal arts college that Oakes believes will one day compete with prestigious secular schools. “Dr. Bright told me that God wanted him to develop a university on the level of an Oxford,” he said.

Bright tapped Oakes, a senior CCCI staffer, to explore his idea of launching a new school. Through a friend Oakes learned that The King’s College, founded by radio evangelist Percy Crawford in 1938, had closed in 1994. Realizing the value of the school’s charter and 11,000 alumni, Oakes persuaded Bright to leverage the defunct college as a basis for building his dream. “We just started out as a faith venture,” Oakes said.

Stepping out on a limb in 1996, Oakes and his wife personally borrowed $100,000 for the initial legal work. Next came the mammoth task of raising $1 million, which took a year to accomplish. Yet much more money was needed.

Then heavy-duty praying yielded a miracle when a Christian businessman offered $5 million. The only hitch was that Oakes had to raise the same amount in matching funds within four months. Miraculously, $7.7 million poured in.

Occupying two floors and 35,000 square feet in the Empire State Building, The King’s College reopened in 1999 with 17 students. Enrollment has reached 228 full- and part-time students, with 400 students expected in the fall semester. “Applications are up about 300 percent from last year,” Oakes said. He forecasts 2,000 students by 2014 and university status soon after that.

Although The King’s College owns land for a suburban campus, officials opted for a Manhattan beachhead because of its strategic location and proximity to the halls of power–the media, United Nations headquarters and the New York Stock Exchange.

At King’s the curriculum covers three majors: business, education and the Oxford program (politics, philosophy and economics). Prospective students are evaluated for leadership potential and not just SAT scores. “This year we will turn down 50 percent of the applicants,” Oakes said.

The student body represents many denominations. About 75 percent receive scholarships. Many are Pentecostal such as Daniel Sanabria, 22, who attends Bay Ridge Christian Center in Brooklyn. For the last three summers he has led missions trips to Turkey, Ethiopia and Peru.

One of 160 students living in nearby dormitory apartments, Sanabria is majoring in business/marketing. “I believe that if I am a business owner and I make money I’m going to take myself around the world and do evangelism,” he told Charisma.

Amy Weaver, a 21-year-old from Lancaster, Pa., discovered King’s on the Internet () after a stint with Youth With A Mission. “It was not on my radar at all,” she said.

But she said she loves the school and looks forward to a career in international journalism. “I’m learning to depend on Christ more and more every day,” she said, “and realizing how intrinsically He weaves the story of my life, and how he ties everything together.”

Instead of traditional chapel services, students are mentored in small groups and join evangelism outreaches aimed at New York City high school students. In August, 40 teenagers made decisions for Christ in one day, Oakes reported.

Faculty members stay close to King’s College students through prayer times, social activities and discipleship groups. “I’ve taken students camping in the Adirondack Mountains,” said Robert Carle, professor of theology. “I have found the faculty to be deeply caring.”

Critics have condemned King’s costly urban home and elitist mind-set, which Oakes denies. He sees graduates modeling the apostle Paul.

“You take Paul, an educated man under the power of the Holy Spirit, and you can change the world,” he said. “We want to train leaders, but we want them to serve and to give.
Peter K. Johnson in New York City

Participants in the Christian Hospitality Network offer hotel and retreat discounts to pastors and missionaries
When pastors need a break from the stresses of ministry and missionaries return from their fields of labor, there is a network of inns and retreats dedicated to serving these ministers at a portion of the cost to traditional patrons.

The burden that goes along with full-time Christian ministry has inspired innkeepers around the world to offer their hotels and getaways to Christian workers as a place of refreshing and renewal. They have joined the Christian Hospitality Network (CHN), which within a year has attracted 880 lodging properties that offer a minimum 25 percent midweek discount to ministers.

These innkeepers subscribe to the practice of hospitality as a Christian virtue, pointing to the Bible’s instruction in Hebrews 13:2 to “eagerly show hospitality to strangers because in so doing some have entertained angels without knowing it.” This belief has fueled the early success of the CHN, along with the dedication of its founder, Paul Cowell.

“Over 1,800 full-time Christian workers leave the field every month due to the stresses of the ministry,” Cowell said. “We [Christian innkeepers] have the opportunity to help pastors, ministers and missionaries find a place to get the rest they need to continue the battle God has called them to.”

First inspired to minister through hospitality in 1963 while visiting a camp in the Adirondacks Mountains, Cowell spent decades traveling with his wife, Jean, to hundreds of inns and retreats around the world. Thirty-four years of notes later, he built Whitestone Country Inn, a luxurious AAA Four-Diamond estate in Kingston, Tenn.

Touted as “A Sanctuary for the Soul,” the bed and breakfast is set on 360 acres on Watts Bar Lake and includes 21bedrooms, three conference rooms, three dining rooms, 12 miles of walking trails and a wedding chapel meticulously built to replicate a historic Anglican church.

The realization of Cowell’s dream came after he spent 25 years as pastor of Christ Chapel in Knoxville, Tenn. Cowell made a series of profitable investments, including the eventual purchase of more than 100 outlets of Book Warehouse.

He also recognized early on the potential for growth in television home shopping. He bought 51 percent of Shop-At-Home, the precursor to the wildly popular Home Shopping Network. Cowell eventually sold his shares and business ventures, which provided the capital to build Whitestone.

“I am sovereignly blessed,” Cowell said. “A return on my investment is not my top priority.”

Cowell launched CHN in hopes that weary Christian workers could find relief at inns worldwide. “In the first five years of being an innkeeper, hundreds of pastors came, and I thought, why not expand this to other innkeepers who are perfectly willing to give pastors and missionaries the same opportunities I do,” Cowell told Charisma.

“In the first six months, we had 700 innkeepers join CHN,” said Steve Tackett, executive director of the organization. “We’re excited about what God is doing among those who are joining together to proclaim hospitality as a Christian virtue.”

Today the network makes more than 1 million room nights available and hosts a getaway for missionaries each year. “This is a four-day retreat for missionaries on the field in which they are working,” Cowell said. “We come to them and give rest and relaxation in a way that they have been unaccustomed to, at least since becoming missionaries.”

The first such retreat took place in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in November 2002. Through proceeds from fund-raisers and donations, CHN treated more than 100 missionaries to four luxurious days at the Chiang Mai Westin Hotel. The amenities even included foot massages.

Interviews with the families indicated that they not only had a refreshing weekend, but also were rejuvenated for the ministry, as some participants had been on the brink of resignation. CHN officials held a similar event in November in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and have plans for a third in Ghana in November.

“Missionaries and pastors are front-line soldiers and they need a place of refuge,” Cowell said. “They have experienced acts of violence and prejudice, and others are just worn out–or worse yet, burned out.”
Cameron Fisher in Kingston, Tenn.

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For more information about the Christian Hospitality Network, log on to their Web site at .

Natives of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Paul Kyle and his family are spreading the gospel worldwide through song

When Paul Kyle and his wife, Hilary, packed up their furniture and moved from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Minneapolis in 1994 with their seven children, they had no idea what was in store.

“We asked ‘why Lord?’ many times–especially when temperatures in winter dipped into the minus 70s,” said Paul Kyle, a noted worship leader whose songs “Lord Jesus We Enthrone You” and “The Flame” have been popularized worldwide.

In Belfast, Paul Kyle had given up a career as a medical doctor a short time after his graduation in the 1970s to launch a unique endeavor. In a city infamous for religious hate, he established Community of the King, a fellowship that brought together Protestants and Catholics in both life and worship.

Moving West in 1994, the Kyles–whose children range in age from 27 to 12–felt inspired by the Irish saint St. Brendan, who set sail in a leather boat some 1,500 years ago to preach the gospel to nonbelievers “over the ocean.” They soon discovered that the Lord still needed the Irish to reach unchurched America.

Soon after settling in the United States, the Kyles were asked to set up “something spiritual” on Sundays by the owner of a well-known Irish pub in downtown Minneapolis. “Something low-key and casual, that people could enjoy a good influence without having things shoved down their throats,” as Paul Kyle recalls the job description.

Like a modern-day version of the Partridge family, the Kyles spent five years as a regular musical feature at the pub. But instead of using their music simply to entertain, the Kyles used their songs, Irish folkdance and storytelling to share the gospel during the Sunday Spiritual Luncheon.

Thousands passed through the pub’s new “St. Brendan’s Lounge,” as local newspapers and television reported on the outreach with some amazement. Many visitors found their way back to God. After five years Paul and Hilary were ready to start a new fellowship with people they had reached at the pub.

“In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” Paul Kyle sings on his latest CD The Ascent of the Bright Hostage. Similarly, the Kyles’ new house, known as the Father’s House, also has plenty of room for some of their new friends, who have moved in to the 6,500-square-foot home to share their lives and be discipled on a day-by-day basis. Some 50 believers gather each Friday night in the “Upper Room” for worship and teaching.

The Kyles have continued their reconciliation ministry from the States, and they eventually began to do similar work internationally, traveling to such nations as Korea and Australia. Paul Kyle has also recorded several CDs, including The Flame, whose title cut became the unofficial Olympic theme song in Australia when he recorded it in 2000.

Kyle said the song, which is still sung across Australia, is about Christians receiving a torch of faith from their ancestors, and it issues a challenge for listeners to be faithful to pass the torch on to the next generation.

The Kyles have taken their music and Irish spirituality to all kinds of settings in places from Australia to Sweden, and as Irish Protestants they intentionally reach out to Catholics. Not long ago they performed and shared the gospel in a home for the elderly run by Catholic nuns in Nice, France.

During the ministry time, Paul and Hilary were able to lead all those present in prayers of repentance. Paul said that afterward the director told him, “You should hold such a meeting in every old people’s home in France.”

Currently Paul is putting the finishing touch on a Father’s Love musical. In August, the cast and crew–who are from various countries–will gather in Minneapolis for its debut in an area church, aptly named Our Father’s House.
Herti Dixon in Minneapolis

Danita Estrella, who runs an orphanage in Haiti, was one of many missionaries caught in sudden danger in early 2004

Like most missionaries working in Third World countries, Danita Estrella knew there was a high potential for danger when she moved to Haiti five years ago to found an orphanage in one of the world’s poorest regions. But that potential became reality in February when armed rebels took to the streets to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Estrella is “mom” to 38 orphans at her Hope for Haiti home. She also runs a school that educates and feeds another 400 children in the town of Ouanaminthe. She was contacted by the U.S Embassy in Port-au-Prince and urged to leave immediately, but she declined their offer of a chartered flight back to the safety of the United States.

“Haiti is my home,” she told Charisma in an interview via a cell phone. “These are my children–my sons and daughters. I can’t leave them.”

When rebels invaded her town–local police already had left–Estrella and the children sequestered themselves inside the orphanage. From her kitchen window the 39-year-old from Tampa, Fla., saw rebels running through the streets, shooting guns and setting fire to the police station and homes of local Aristide supporters.

Rebels then surrounded her next-door neighbor’s home with guns drawn, demanding his weapons. One of the rebels spotted Estrella in the window and started shouting: “American! American!”

“I was so scared,” Estrella said. Her neighbors yelled at the rebels to leave her alone, explaining that she takes care of orphans and feeds people. “They left and went to another neighbor’s home,” Estrella said, “but they never touched us.”

She credits supernatural intervention for protecting her and the children. Rebel leaders later came to the orphanage to offer assistance in getting food or water.

At press time, Aristide had been removed from office and, according to Estrella, the situation in Ouanaminthe had calmed a bit. “But no one knows who’s really in charge now,” she said. “We’re waiting to see what happens next.”

The harrowing situation Estrella and other U.S. missionaries faced in Haiti is one more example of the dangerous climate brewing on today’s mission field. While Haiti is not typically overrun with gun-wielding rebels, missionaries in other parts of the world face daily threats of kidnapping and attack.

As a result, Christian terrorism experts are now offering “personal protection training” to missionaries and the organizations and churches who send them. Two such experts–Bob Klamser of Crisis Consulting International in Ventura, Calif., and Randy Spivey of R.S. Consulting in Spokane, agree that everyone from the head of mission agencies to church youth groups going on summer missions trips needs some degree of training.

“If you’re an American going into any high-risk area, you’ve got a bull’s-eye on your back. You could be targeted by a terrorist simply because you’re an American,” said Spivey, who managed hostage survival training for the U.S. Department of Defense in Spokane and now shares that training in seminars for government workers, congressional leaders and their staff, and missionaries.

Klamser, who spent 24 years in law enforcement in Southern California and specialized in hostage negotiation, calls this “the first modern-day season where missionaries are being targeted by terrorists because they’re missionaries, because they’re Christians and because they’re evangelizing,” he told Charisma. “Before 9/11, terrorism [targeting] missionaries was usually because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Klamser’s organization, launched in 1983, recently held a training seminar at the Wycliffe Bible Translators headquarters in Orlando, Fla. The group of about 50 learned about such issues as risk assessment, evacuation planning and hostage-event management.

Spivey said groups sending missionaries overseas are in dire need of such training, adding that missionaries in Muslim nations are at particular risk. “If you’re spreading the gospel in a Muslim country, your risk factor is even higher because there’s going to be people not real happy with what you’re doing.”

Still, despite today’s heightened threat of terror, Klamser and Spivey have seen a galvanizing force among U.S. Christians headed for dangerous mission fields. “The current situation with terror threats has actually prompted more people to go to the mission field,” Klamser said.

“If you feel called to go to places like Colombia or Iraq, I’m not going to tell you not to go,” Spivey added. “But I will tell you to take appropriate precautions and to be prepared for the potential risks.”
Nancy Justice

For more information about R.S. Consulting, visit . For more information about Crisis Consulting International, visit . To contact Danita Estrella, visit .