OCTOBER 2021 Updates
A week on the Russian Border
Narva is located on the edge of Estonia at the Russian border, about 100 miles from St. Petersburg. The only thing that separates the two nations is a river and a bridge. Narva has a population of around 55,000 and it’s estimated that 93% of its population is Russian. Let me put it this way, it’s easier to find an English speaker than a person who speaks Estonian.
It’s basically a Russian city in Estonia. Therefore, all the churches we were invited to minister to were Russian speaking churches. This was my first time immersed in a Russian community.
Dave & Klarika Miller have been living in Estonia since around Easter 2020. The church they pioneered in Poland is now being pastored by Andrew and Lena Holub, a couple that was raised up in the church. One week before Marty and I went to Estonia, Samantha was with them.
Samantha is from Praise Chapel Pittsburg. She came to spend three months with us to help pioneer the work in Barcelona, Spain. Pastor Dave is like an uncle to her, so she went to spend time with him and his family.
Upon our arrival there, we got together with Pastor Vahur Metsla & Aleksander and had a great time of fellowship. Wednesday, I spoke to pastors and leaders from 3 or 4 churches. I felt led to speak to them about vision and structure. I used Praise Chapel’s vision of, “WIN, BUILD, SEND,” as an example of how we help see that vision come to pass in people’s lives.
Thursday, we went to a recovery farm, loosely translated as Fresh Start. Here, men spend one year drawing near to the Lord and finding freedom in Christ. We shared the Word, testimonies, and laid hands on people, praying for healings and deliverance. God showed up powerfully!
Thursday night we went to the home of Pastor Arthur Postolenko for dinner, and we had BBQ! (I haven’t had BBQ since I moved to Spain! They don’t allow it where we live! Sorry little side note LOL!) We had a great time of fellowship, and I was able to bless him with some of the material I’ve written.
Pastor Andrew in Poland has translated a couple of my books into Russian. Also currently, our 2-year ETS Bible School is being translated into Russian by another person Pastor Dave has connected with! So, this was a tremendous blessing for their ministry!
Friday, we had a Holy Ghost/revival type service at Christian Faith Center where people from the different churches also attended. We had an amazing service where many were stirred up and challenged. It was a tremendous week, to say the least.
Pastor Dave and Klarika have made great connections with all these churches. Currently, Pastor Dave rotates preaching at each of these churches on Sundays. He’s also planning to start a men’s Bible study. The week we went there, Klarikia started a women’s Bible study that had women from the different church communities. At her first Bible study, they had ten women!
The Miller family has done a great job connecting with these churches and helping them build the Kingdom of God in the city of Narva. Please continue to pray for them and the churches there. They want to continue to connect with us in the future!
WIN. BUILD. SEND.
Ralph Gonzales
An Interview with Pastor James Kelton
Praise Chapel, Pheonix, AZ
I was recently with James Kelton who, with his wife Della, leads Praise Chapel West Valley in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the country and people are coming there from all over.
James and Della pioneered Praise Chapel West Valley in their home in 2011 and God has helped them every step of the way. When they wanted to move into their own building and didn’t have time to search and find a location, the first customer he had that day asked him if their church needed a building and he did all the legwork!
2020 brought the church online and connected them with people they never would have met otherwise. There’s a family in Washington who has been part of their services online, every week for over a year now and is still committed.
They’ve also been able to reconnect with family members whom they hadn’t seen in years. The family members came back to the Lord, because of the pandemic and being able to attend online. In a time where people are more isolated and disconnected, they’ve made connections to pastors and ministries that weren’t there before 2020.
This is a new time, a new season, and when many people left the church during the pandemic, James and Della made a commitment to God. “God this is your people, your church, and we aren’t going to cut back on our commitments to missions and giving even if people are gone. These bills and rent payments are your bills.”
Now they are seeing a breakthrough! Since they’ve been having in-person services, new people have been coming each week! A couple weeks ago they baptized 5 people! People are stepping up in new roles of service, and leadership.
James said, “I‘ve learned there are different callings on everybody. I’ve been hard on myself… that I should have a different ministry than I do, compared myself to other people and other ministries, but I have seen God do amazing signs, wonders, and miracles. I need to celebrate what God has done! And see a breakthrough again for today!”
A lifelong friend brought James to Praise Chapel in Maywood, and when the van driver complained that it was too far to pick him up anymore, Mike Neville said, “I’ll pick the kid up.” He gave James his first bass guitar lesson, put him to work, and discipled him. That started James on the journey that has lead him and Della to celebrating their 30th year as pastors this month.
Pray for Praise Chapel in West Valley, Phoenix, AZ and it’s pastors, James and Della Kelton.
Thank you, Della and James Kelton for faithfully serving the Lord! You are a blessing to so many.
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El Salvador
Three years ago the Lord spoke to my heart to build a church in the country of El Salvador. I have church members in Houston from a village called "Tihuilotal" in La Union, El Salvador. I was invited to go visit this village with them.
As I was there, the Lord put a burden in me to build a church. For over 30 years people in this community had been praying for a church to be built. I know I was there in God's perfect timing for not only did I meet a pastor who had been praying for a fellowship to partner with him, but I also met an elderly lady, a relative of one of the church members whom I was visiting with, who offered to donate us land if we built the church.
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As I came back to Houston and prayed over this new challenge, the Lord spoke to my heart to not only build a church there but also a center for the community. I challenged the church in Houston to obey the lord's plans for us. Immediately we started raising funds to build this project. Thus far, we have built a large multi-purpose room, a kitchen, restrooms, and a septic tank, with the main sanctuary yet to be built. I'm happy to share that for the past two years the church has moved from the house where it started into its new location.
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There are great spiritual and humanitarian needs in this community. Children who live there can only go to school up to the 5th grade. If they want to further their studies, they must travel over an hour to the closest town that has schools of higher education. Most families cannot afford school supplies much less transportation services to send their children off to school far away. Many children grow up to join gangs and crime due to the lack of opportunities to better their lives. There is also a high rate of teen pregnancies for most girls have no hopes of a better future.
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Another enormous need there is the lack of medical services. Not only are people unable to afford medical services but there are no hospitals or clinics available. Aside from preaching the Gospel and training men and women to do the work of the Lord, our goal is to facilitate the use of our building to provide educational opportunities as well as for medical teams to come and donate their services. Most recently we had a group of representatives from a nearby pharmacy come and give away common cold medicines and general pharmaceuticals.
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As you might imagine this project has been an enormous challenge for our church in Houston. For months now I have been in prayer with other Praise Chapel pastors for the Lord to supply all of the necessary funds needed for the completion of this church building.
If you are reading this report, I humbly ask that the Lord speaks into your heart and that you partner with me financially to finish building this church. I ask the Lord that anyone who reads this report take a leap of faith and help us in the completion of this sanctuary.
You can donate through Praise Chapel Missions, marked "El Salvador"
-Nelson Perez: Templo de Alabanza Houston
In most of these countries Covid is worse than ever. The Philippines, Hong Kong, Germany and other nations are in a restricted lockdown again. Let’s keep them in our prayers.
There is much more we are involved in but now space to write it here. Thank you so much for your faithful support of PC Global Missions.
