Monthly Archives: March 2017
Slow Forward
Quote a long time back I posted “Fast Forward”. Now things have changed and I am doing “Slow Forward”.
Backing up a bit, Twyla and I moved to Mozambique in 2010. We loved the people, the location and the work that Papa God gave us to do. In May of 2016 .. just a few days after our 6th Anniversary in Mozambique .. Twyla suffered a severe stroke and after a few days passed away.
Her death left me in quite a daze. I mean, we KNEW intellectually that something like this could possibly happen. We had Missionary friends who died on the field. We were not young and the possibility was always there .. except I think I felt we were kind of exempt. Whatever. It was a hard thing to take.
My daughters flew in from the States and helped me close out things as much as we could in a few days, then we returned to the U.S. and began the process of finding life again.
I am living near Georgetown, Texas on my daughter and son-in-law’s place. I have been doing ranch work – fixing fences, cutting grass, fighting fire ants … and learning to live without Twyla. I have been able to set up my reloading bench and bullet casting stuff which has been very therapeutic for me. I don’t have much of a place to shoot yet, but I just joined a local private shooting range and will soon have access to that.
Since Twyla’s death I have been working to get a computer classroom built in Pemba, Mozambique in her honor. She had trained a local Mozambican to run the class and after her death I gave him all the equipment. He has been doing a great job! Soon we will have a building dedicated solely to teaching computer. It is named appropriately, Mama Twyla’s Computer Class. I will be traveling back to Mozambique in May to help dedicate the building.
I am not sure where I will be going from here, or what I will be doing. And I appreciate your prayers in that regard.
The is the building at the present .. almost finished!
Charl van Wyck
Charl van Wyk has been affiliated to Frontline Fellowship in Cape Town, South Africa, since 1991. He has undertaken numerous successful mission trips to Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and provinces within South Africa.
Charl is a full-time missionary and Assistant-Director of Frontline Fellowship, the Director of our Africa Christian Action ministry, the presenter of a weekly radio program “Salt and Light”, and the author of: “Shooting Back – The Right and Duty of Self- Defence”.
Charl is married to Sonja and they have four children, Roberta, Jason, John-Marc and Anya.
Charl is known as the man who returned fire at the terrorists during the St. James Massacre. He received a citation from General Acker of the South African Police, for his courage under fire, which halted the terrorist attack on the St. James Church, on 25 July 1993. His courageous action that night saved many lives. Since the attack Charl has taken the Gospel to the terrorists in jail and has been a guest speaker at their meetings in Townships.
As the Director of Africa Christian Action, Charl has organised numerous delegations and presentations to Parliament, prayer vigils, protests, rallies and Life Chains. By God’s grace, the Operation Clean Sweep, launched by Africa Christian Action in 1991, succeeded in persuading over 9,000 stores in South Africa that used to stock pornography to remove such offensive materials from their shelves. Telkom’s 087-dial-a-porn service was also cancelled in response to ACA’s campaign. Most of the hospitals and medical personnel in South Africa refuse to have any part in abortions. Several abortion clinics have closed down and special crisis Parliamentary hearings have been held over the unwillingness of most medical personnel in South Africa to take part in the, now legal, abortions.
In the Central African country of Zambia, Charl also launched Zambia United Christian Action in 1992. This organisation has had a great impact upon the moral climate of that previously socialist nation. Charl has led three mission teams to Zambia, which not only helped two Bible Colleges and mission stations, but also served at the Samaritan Community Orphanage. He also helped produce the first Biblical Issues Voters’ Guide in Zambia.
Should you want an up-to-date insight and inspiring report on the situation in Southern Africa, Charl would be an inspiration and challenge to your congregation, school, and home fellowship or radio listeners. Charl’s remarkable testimony and insight into the complex conflicts raging in Africa today, will grip listeners.
You can find Charl on Facebook or visit his webiste or his blog. His book, Shooting Back, is of great interests to Christians who are concerned with learning more about their right and responsibility to defend themselves and others.
David Carrick
From my boyhood days in Michigan, I always had a love and appreciation for firearms. My first was a Winchester 22 for my 11th birthday. For the past several years, I have finally taken the time and returned to hunting, and firearms in general. I finally got my CCW permit in the fall of 2007.
I currently own a J.C. Higgins 9-shot 22 revolver, and a Glock 17 9mm. My recent financial challenges necessi-tated the selling of my Remington 7400 in .270, and my Smith & Wesson M&P in 40 S&W.
My greatest passion is the Lord Jesus Christ, His Word, His people, His love for the Lost, and ministering in the midst of that mix. After 6 years in youth minisitry, and 23 in preaching ministry (21 in my first location), I am now in my 5th year working with small groups and pastoral care at First Christian Church in New Philadelphia, OH while seeking to be His hands and feet among the unsaved of our community. I have been happily married to Teresa for 34 years, and am dad to three great sons, two daughters-in-law, and two grand-daughters.
Fast Forward
Hmm… seems I last published something on here in 2002!!! Oh well .. let’s fast forward to the present. In 2008 I led a Short-Term Mission Team to the African nation of Mozambique. The trip lasted 3 weeks and burned an indelible impression upon all of us. Twyla and I determined that we would return.
Over the course of the next year we were in touch with Iris Ministries about various projects and the end of it all was that they agreed they would like us to come in 2010. We went to work and sold basically everything we owned. I sold almost all my firearms, keeping only family heirlooms and a few special ones. Twyla sold all that was dear to her. We felt we wanted nothing holding us back. In April we sold our property in Missouri and May 5th we stepped onto Mozambican soil in Pemba!
The first month I helped prepare for the incoming Harvest Missions School (which is run twice a year). We attended the Missions School for 3 months and after graduation began working at our jobs in earnest. What we are doing is developing a herd of milk goats to produce milk and milk products for the children in the Center.
This is no easy task as it seems to have not been done here before. And in Africa, everything is one step forward, two steps back at times. Yet the Lord has been good to us and we are making wonderful progress.
We have initiated classes teaching Goat Care and Management to the older boys and girls. Loving animals is not a normal part of the culture in this part of the country … especially with the village children. So we are teaching them how to be kind to the animals, to make friends with them, to love them, pet them and handle them gently. It has been neat to see the response.
We have a milking barn under construction and it is nearly finished. We have run a water line into the goat pens and built a trough so the goats have a constant supply of water. And we are having new fences built all the way around plus a separate pen for the male goats. Separating the males and females has not been done here and so we are introducing new ways of doing things. Introducing new things takes a long time! Just like Church!
I have not fired a gun in year but truthfully, I cannot say I miss it. The work here is challenging enough and we are so into learning a new culture and language that I haven’t had much time for it anyway. I did wish I had my shotgun when a spider about the size of my baseball cap showed up on the back porch! That sucker could run fast than me! The stuff of nightmares.
Anyone interested can follow along on our website http://www.sarayuinternational.org … we have more up to date photos on the blog there.
Blessings
Jim
Jim Taylor
The Ministry
I have been “in the ministry” since 1970, getting started first of all in street ministry during the “Jesus People” days. I preached and witnessed on street corners in Phoenix, AZ and hung out at the various Christian Coffee Houses then flourishing all over the city. The main two that I frequented were The Searcher’s End and The Open Door. By God’s design I ended up running the Open Door (along with a friend who was older in the Lord than I). We saw many people come to Jesus, delivered from drugs, alcohol, crime etc. in those days.
Eventually I started attending Bible School at nights and was ordained in 1973. I have not pastored very many Churches, having never moved around much. I helped start a Missionary work in Cave Creek, AZ in 1972-73. In 1978 I moved to Oracle, AZ and took over a new work there, working with the Lord as He built the Church. It is a thriving work today. In Jan. of 1990 we moved to Mt. Vernon, MO and took up the work here where we are today.
In between all this we did Mission Outreaches into the Baja Peninsula, some itinerant preaching ( I hate to call the work I did “evangelist”), worked as a Correctional Services Officer for the State of Arizona at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, AZ, and in the middle “80’s” began writing for Gun Week as a contributor and later as a Contributing Editor. Firearms have been a part of my life from the time I was a small child. On the ranch I was raised on they were just part of the tools you used every day and were taken for granted. That is, you never went anywhere without one.
We raise a few cows still and, in addition to the Church, I do website development and design. My wife and I have a small home-based business called Just Write Word Processing.
My wife Twyla and I have been married 28 years and have 2 daughters and 4 grand-daughters. The daughters are OK 🙂 the grand-daughters are WONDERFUL!!
My vision for the Church is a people through whom Jesus is seen, no matter what job they have or where it is. If Christ is real in us, He will be real whether we are Prison Guards, writers, lawyers, farmers, ranchers, and whether we are working or hunting or playing, He is still real in us. No matter what life throws at us we should be able to face it and get through it with His help. That is one of the main thrusts of my teaching.
The Church I shepherd is called “Christ Chapel” and is located on Highway 39 just north of the town of Mt. Vernon, Missouri. I have been here a little over 10 years now. The Church family here is a close-knit group who care for one another in practical ways. If you are in the area please feel free to drop in and visit us.
Charles Graff
I grew up in Texas and when forced to make my own way in the world, followed the family profession of Law. I was admitted to the Texas Bar Association in 1967. I followed that trade until one day in 1970 when I made my first real stick to the ribs commitment to Jesus Christ. The vehicle for this conversion was J.R.W. Stott’s wonderful little book Basic Christianity. There was a strong call into the ministry and I spent the next three years back in school at Seminary.
In 1971, I was ordained Deacon in the Northwest Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. That part of the world became home and I served a three churches there and was ordained Elder in 1974. I have remained a United Methodist Pastor every since serving churches of all sizes in Texas and New Mexico.
I did spend a term of service as a church planting missionary in Ecuador South America with a one year stop in Costa Rica to study the Spanish language.
There was not a time I can remember when I was not fascinated by guns. I have engaged in various types of shooting sports over the years and have been an avid handloader since 1958. My principal areas of interest are revolvers and cast bullet rifle shooting. I am also a fair to middling gun mechanic.
Retirement will be upon me in a few years and I am looking forward to having more time to smell powder smoke and punch little round holes in paper targets way out there. We never retire fully from the Lord’s service and He will always have some small ministry for me to perform. I hope I never get so old or stove up that I am of no use to Him.
May God bless you all and keep em in the X-ring.
My favorite hang outs on the Web
Accurate Reloading Cast Bullet Board
Frontier SixShooter Community Campfire
Bill Gilson
El Cazador
Bill (El Cazador) and Patti Gilson served in Mexico as church planters in the southren State of Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border, in the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas. It was here that the Zapatista Revolution transpired shortly after they left Mexico. They claim no responsibility. After returning to their home State of Oregon in 1988, they co-founded a mission organization known as OLE (Oregon Latin-American Evangelism), now known as Outreach to Latin-Americans.
Bill and Patti have studied in various areas, and Graduated from Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada, and Rio Grande Bible Institute/Language School, in Edinburg, Tex. Bill also has studied ESL at William Carey Univ. and has taught both ESL and Spanish classes, as well as serving as interpreter/translator for hospitals, school districts, and on behalf of many Hispanic friends and brothers. He currently serves as director of OLE and is presently working as an interim pastor in one of the churches planted by OLE. There have been eight Spanish church plants started since 1988. Bill grew up in a “hunting family” and cut his hunting-teeth on the wily blacktail deer.
These days, a handgun most always is found close at hand, especially during hunting season. Leverguns are another passion, as time and finances allow. Patti and Bill met in kindergarten, were married in 1972, and have four children, ages 12 to 24. All but the youngest are bi-lingual. They currently reside near Oregon’s Capitol City, near the Cascade Mountains where spare moments are often spent.
Blessings to all.
Gabriel Possenti
The Savior of Isola
In 1860, a band of soldiers from the army of Garibaldi entered the mountain village of Isola, Italy. They began to burn and pillage the town, terrorizing its inhabitants.
Possenti, with his seminary rector’s permission, walked into the center of town, unarmed, to face the terrorists. One of the soldiers was dragging off a young woman he intended to rape when he saw Possenti and made a snickering remark about such a young monk being all alone.
Possenti quickly grabbed the soldier’s revolver from his belt and ordered the marauder to release the woman. The startled soldier complied, as Possenti grabbed the revolver of another soldier who came by. Hearing the commotion, the rest of the soldiers came running in Possenti’s direction, determined to overcome the rebellious monk.
At that moment a small lizard ran across the road between Possenti and the soldiers. When the lizard briefly paused, Possenti took careful aim and struck the lizard with one shot. Turning his two handguns on the approaching soldiers, Possenti commanded them to drop their weapons. Having seen his handiwork with a pistol, the soldiers complied. Possenti ordered them to put out the fires they had set, and upon finishing, marched the whole lot out of town, ordering them never to return. The grateful townspeople escorted Possenti in triumphant procession back to the seminary, thereafter referring to him as “the Savior of Isola”.
The information above is from the Saint Gabirel Possenti Society’s website.
For more information, visit the Saint Gabriel Possenti Society
Paul Moreland
Paul is a third generation preacher and a second generation missionary. He is currently serving as a missionary in the country of Colombia in the heart of “Coffee Country”. He has owned firearms since he was 14, although his father introduced him to hunting and shooting long before he owned his own gun. The first firearm he purchased was a Rossi double barrel .22 derringer in a side by side configuration with exposed hammers. As Mark Twain said in his book “Roughing It” “I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little…” handgun. But Paul, too, thought it was grand.
He is devoted to teaching people to return to the old paths, to the way Christ established for His church. Paul understands the simplicity of the Christian faith as taught by the apostles of Jesus Christ. He also understands the simplicity of government as established by the founders of the United States of America. His love for the Constitution as originally written, interpreted and enforced is second only to his love for the Bible and the Church established by Jesus the Christ.
For more information on Paul’s ministry, visit the South American Christian Mission web page.
There’s another site he’s been involved in as well. It’s the Christian Sixgunners web site.
You can visit Paul’s personal blog or view his Facebook page as well.