Part 2 of 22 – Acts Chapter 2:11 through Chapter 3:17
The Holy Spirit is poured out at Pentecost
People from many different languages hear believers who are filled with the Holy Spirit speaking of the wonderful things God has done in their own languages
Peter testifies that the prophesy from Joel 2:28-32 has been fulfilled in their presence
Peter speaks boldly to the crowds about the prophesies about Jesus and how He fulfilled them all
Peter tells them to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus, their Messiah, to find forgiveness and to receive the Holy Spirit
A deep sense of awe came over them all and the Apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders
The Lord added to the group of believers, the first Church, those who were being saved
Peter and John went to the Temple to pray and healed the lame man who begged at the Beautiful Gate
Peter then preaches the Gospel message to all who were in awe and wonder over this miraculous healing
Peter gives glory to God for all God does through him to heal and deliver the people in the name of Jesus
Video #1 – short-term missions trip to Reynosa, Mexico on Labor Day weekend cut short due to Hurricane Gustav.
Video #2 – a short-term missions trip of believers from Calvary Bible Church to Vizcaino and their efforts to help the people and share the love of Christ.
Video #3 – Back to Reynosa, Mexico in the Spring this year to continue efforts to help the people and encourage them in their faith.
1st Video – made this year by Pastor Sam Scotti who interviewed several Calvary Chapel pastors who team together each year to reach out to the locals in Baja Sur, Mexico by providing a 3-day annual Leadership Conference in Vizcaino, completely free to the nationals who live there. Teams of people of all ages from several different churches with the same vision to encourage serve together to build up the pastors and leadership by teaching them through the Bible and giving them study materials and resources to take back to their own fellowships.
Relationships are being built and people are being strengthened in their faith and love for God and with each other across different denominational lines.
A missions base is currently under construction in Vizcaino – a step of faith by Cornerstone Ministries Napa Valley, CA’s pastor Bill Walden for the vision of God to reach out to these people and those in surrounding areas with the love of Jesus. He remembers a conversation with a local who said they felt like ‘the forgotten people’ –
Keri and Gary Goo, a couple from Cornerstone Ministries in Napa have moved to Mexico to serve as full-time missionaries and live on the property in Vizcaino where the missions base is currently being built.
A church has been planted and Tacho Montellano serves the people as pastor of Calvary Chapel, Vizcaino. They have already out-grown the Montellano family home which is currently being used as their meeting place. The church will be able to use the missions base when it’s completed.
Laura Vitale, a Napa photographer and member of Cornerstone Ministries Fellowship, visits the poor families in the work camps to support them by bringing disposable cameras for the children. They take photos of their own families and homes, give them back to her, she gets them developed back to Napa, puts the images onto greeting cards to sell. She then buys the basics of rice and beans for the poor families in the work camps. She also brings copies of the children’s photos back to them. In this way the children are helping their families through their photos and are learning about the art of photography as well.
Several times a year short-termed missions trips with teams of people of all ages come from different churches all over the United States to help work on the missions base and to put on outreaches to share the love of Jesus and help build relationships with the people in Vizcaino and the surrounding areas.
If you’d like to serve and support this ministry in any way you’re welcome to contact Pastor Bill @ PastorBillWalden@Gmail.com
2nd video – “Thank you for Giving to the Lord” by Ray Boltz,
“Live to the hilt of every situation you believe to be the will of God”
“He is no fool, to lose what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”
“BEYOND THE GATES OF SPLENDOR” True story behind the movie
In the Ecuadorian jungles of the Amazon, the Waodani people, one of the most violent societies on the planet, live totally cut off from civilization. Their homicide rate has brought them to the brink of extinction. One of their tribal leaders is Mincayani. Somewhere not far away along the Amazon, five young North American missionaries and their families have set out to find the Waodani. Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian eventually locate the Waodani village and find a sandbar on which to land their small plane. When one of the tribesmen lies that the foreigners on the sandbar have abducted and killed a tribeswoman, Mincayani and his fellow warriors find their site and spear the five Americans. The missing missionaries make headlines in the world’s media and a search ensues. When the Waodani see the helicopter and the size of the search party they think the foreigners will take their revenge, so they burn their huts and flee deeper into the jungle. Within months of the killings, a Waodani woman who had fled the tribe, helps gain entry into the tribe for the wife of one missionary and the sister of another, as well as Nate’s son, Steve. In time, they come to live with the Waodani and through a series of events the spearing that was destroying the tribe comes to an end. Steve wants to learn which warrior killed his father. He leaves the tribe as a boy with this question unanswered. Steve returns as an adult when his aunt, Rachel Saint, who had spent the rest of her life with the Waodani, dies from cancer. The Waodani want Steve to live with them the way Rachel did, but Steve’s unanswered questions keep him from agreeing. Mincayani takes Steve to the river where his father was killed and confesses to spearing him. At that moment, Steve and Mincayani are forced to confront the true meaning of the life and death of Steve’s father and the other men who were killed.
Mincayani confessed to Steve Saint that he had speared his father. He tossed a spear to him while contorting his face, spreading his arms out, and bearing his chest, he cried.“I killed your father, now you kill me.”Steve caught the spear, grasped it tightly in his shaking hands and held it to Mincayani’s chest. With tears in his eyes he cried, “You didn’t take my father’s life, he gave it.”
Beyond the Gates of Splendor, a true story of the ultimate sacrifice.
Set in the Basin of Ecuador, the docu-drama tells the story of the Waodani, one of the most violent tribes the world has ever known. The primitive customs of this isolated tribe demanded that the Waodani kill not only their enemies and outsiders, but also their fellow tribes-people. Fueled by fearful superstition, they sometimes even buried their own children alive. The Waodani were the most violent society ever documented. Six of every ten deaths of Waodani adults were homicides. In 1956, following a promising initial exchange, five young missionaries further attempted to make peaceful contact with the notorious tribe, but were brutally speared to death. However, the violent end of the missionaries’ lives was only the beginning of the Waodani story. Shortly after the killings, the wife of one of the fallen men and the sister of another went into the jungle to live with the Waodani. Two years later their message of peace and forgiveness had transformed the tribe. The homicide rate fell by 90%. Nearly forty years after the death of his father, Steve Saint returned to the jungle to live with the killers of his father. His new life with the tribesmen answered many childhood questions about his father’s death. The irony of the story is revealed as the very same Waodani, who killed the five missionaries in 1956, now share in their incredible story of how their lives–and those of their people–have been changed forever.
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