THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY · after Connie Lundstrom first suggested Lisa view his collection, at last the daughter visited Erickson’s house. Lisa, who is the church finance director,

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THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY DARRIN J. RODGERS

Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), regarded as one of India’s most prominent female social reformers and educators, played a significant role in pioneering the Pentecostal movement in India. Ramabai’s father, an educator and social reformer, taught her to read and write Sanskrit. At a young age, Ramabai devoted her life to helping widows and orphans, who were often despised and mistreated in her society. After attending college in England, she returned to India and established homes for dispossessed widows and children. She also fought for social reform. Ramabai’s social ministries cared for both the body and the soul. They

sheltered, educated, and fed women and children, and they also taught Christian doctrine and nurtured a generation of new Christians. 
 In the summer of 1905, Ramabai sent 30 young women out into the villages to preach the gospel. These young preachers reported an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on June 29, 1905. Alfred G. Garr, the first missionary sent by the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, recounted his interactions with Ramabai. Read the article, “The Work Spreads to India,” on pages 4 and 5 of the April 1, 1916, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel online at S2.ag.org/april11916.

USHER BEQUEATHS COLLECTION OF 30,000 CLASSIC TOY CARS TO CHURCH

TRAILBLAZING CONTINUES FOR CHAPLAINPAGE 3

SOUTH CAROLINA AG CHURCH DESTROYED BY FIRE PAGE 5 • AG RELEASE NAMED TOP CHILDREN’S RESOURCE PAGE 5 • FLORIDA AG PASTOR’S VOICE MIRACULOUSLY RESTORED PAGE 7 • THIS WEEK IN

AG HISTORY PAGE 8

BUS REVAMPED AS FOOD PANTRYPAGE 4

50 BIRTHDAYS, 50 MILES, 50 LIVESPAGE 6

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SUNDAY,APRIL 3,2016

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In Katie Bettner’s years as a speech therapist, she never had seen a worse case of muscle tension dysphonia than that of Alice Burdeshaw, lead pastor of Heritage Assembly of God in Tallahassee, Florida. Burdeshaw, 68, woke up without her voice one Sunday in October 2015, leaving her unable to preach the next nine weeks. After a physician referred Burdeshaw to Bettner, the speech therapist wasn’t optimistic. “She had no voice whatsoever,” Bettner says. “Typically in therapy, you can get patients to cough. She couldn’t even cough.” “I had to be concerned about the church,” says Burdeshaw, in her 25th year pastoring the church. “A pastor can’t go on without a voice.” Heritage AG’s associate pastor, Dewayne Hurst, who is Burdeshaw’s son-in-law, assumed the pulpit. The church body and other congregations in the district repeatedly prayed for the pastor. On Jan. 3, Burdeshaw served as substitute organist. As she played “Jesus Rescued Me,” she says, “The Holy Spirit covered me like a blanket.” She quit playing. “I was just praising God, speaking in tongues, and I realized I could hear myself,” she says. “I stood up and said, ‘I can talk!’” The service erupted in celebration. “I’ve been talking ever since,” Burdeshaw says. Four days later, Burdeshaw visited Bettner, who called the voice restoration miraculous.

Lisa Lundstrom’s mom, Connie, told her that one day, she should go see Dennis Erickson’s car collection. Everybody knew Erickson at Celebration Church, an Assemblies of God congregation of 700 in Lakeville, Minnesota. He was the smiling, engaging lead usher, tasked with greeting and helping people and getting them seated for services. A bachelor and only child, Erickson, a civil engineer who worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lived with his parents, Robert and Florence. He enjoyed a hobby he discovered as a young man: fixing cars with his father. Together, they attended car shows. At age nine, Erickson began collecting toy diecast cars. Lundstrom, daughter of Celebration Church’s founding pastor, Lowell Lundstrom, saw the quiet Erickson occasionally take one of his seven drivable old cars to church, typically his 1959 Edsel and 1966 Rambler. After

Erickson’s parents died and he retired, his church family was his life. Erickson, 69, who died in his sleep on Dec. 3, 2015, willed almost his entire estate to the church. About 12 years after Connie Lundstrom first suggested Lisa view his collection, at last the daughter visited Erickson’s house. Lisa, who is the church finance director, saw the Edsel and the Rambler she had seen in the church parking lot. Also there were a full-sized Model T Ford, a 1977 Pontiac Bonneville, and three other full-sized cars, all in pristine condition with filing cabinets full of owner’s manuals and Erickson’s meticulous maintenance records on each. Throughout the rest of the house were 30,000 toy cars: larger diecasts and small Hot Wheels. There were model bicycles, vans, tractors, and ambulances, and toddler-sized police vehicles. The collectibles were crammed into every room, including

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FLORIDA AG PASTOR’S VOICE MIRACULOUSLY RESTOREDBY DEANN ALFORD

USHER BEQUEATHS COLLECTION OF 30,000 CLASSIC TOY CARS TO CHURCHBY DEANN ALFORD

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Talk Now and Later, the new Assemblies of God parenting resource written by AG minister Brian Dollar, has recently been named Outreach Magazine’s Children’s Outreach 2016 Resource of the Year winner. Steve Adams, children’s pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, was the evaluator of children’s outreach resources. In his review, he states, “Brian Dollar gives us some much-needed guidance in one of the hardest areas of parenting — talking!” In addition to Outreach Magazine’s recognition, Amazon.com also recognized Talk Now and Later as a No. 1 new release in its Christian Families category. Mark Entzminger, senior director of AG Children’s Ministries, states, “Talk Now and Later . . . fills a void with practical, ready-to-use advice that can help parents guide their children through questions and experiences that otherwise may seriously damage their view of and relationship with Christ.” In Talk Now and Later, Dollar equips parents to biblically guide their children through a variety of challenging topics, such as God, self-image, friendships, bullying, sex, divorce, and other subjects that parents may struggle to help their children understand.

Buster Lackey holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and seemed an unlikely candidate to retrofit a school bus into a mobile food pantry. However, inspired by a sermon from North Little Rock First Assembly Senior Pastor Rod Loy about hunger, Lackey helped spearhead a church partnership with Arkansas Children’s Hospital and a charity, Helping Hand, to retrofit a bus as a mobile food pantry. Lackey’s résumé includes serving as a senior hospital chaplain, school administrator, and Arkansas USDA director. But all the while his heart has been drawn to the plight of the hungry, especially those without transportation, and thus without access to food. “Buster told us that one of the needs was a mobile food bank for Arkansas Children’s Hospital,” Loy says. “A significant percentage of patients who come to their clinics are food insecure or simply hungry.” To that end, the hospital provides meals to those in need. But it needed a way to connect to Helping Hand,

a charity that provides 40 sacks of groceries per month to hospital patients and their families. When the church offered the hospital a 1991 Blue Bird 71-passenger school bus it had retired from its fleet, the hospital suggested the church donate the bus to Helping Hand of Greater Little Rock. “We’re small, we needed a bus,” says Helping Hand Director Gayle Priddy. “We didn’t have the funds for that. But the Lord knows what we need. First Assembly said they’d retrofit it.” The church raised around $30,000 and tasked Lackey to renovate the bus inside and out. The bus was equipped with new flooring, heating and air conditioning, refrigeration, food bins made from recycled wooden pallets and bushel baskets, and a desk. The concept of a mobile food pantry is biblical, Lackey believes. “Nowhere in the Scriptures did Jesus say, ‘You come to me.’ He went to them,” says Lackey. “He met them where they were.”

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BUS REVAMPED AS FOOD PANTRYBY DEANN ALFORD

New Life Assembly of God in Florence, South Carolina, was gutted by fire early Palm Sunday morning. Pastor Burton (Andrew) Ross Jr. says by the time he was notified and arrived at the church, the entire building was engulfed in flames. At this point, no official reason for the fire has been determined, but the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) and SLED (State Law Enforcement Division) have been called in to investigate the cause and origin of the fire, including the potential of arson. The timing of the fire is particularly painful. Ross’ father, Burton A. Ross Sr., was the beloved former minister at New Life and the former assistant general superintendent of the Guyana Assemblies of God. Referred to simply as “Bishop,” he unexpectedly died on Good Friday 2013. With fire destroying the church on Palm Sunday, the proximity of the dates has brought back a flood of emotions. Although the church was insured, it appears that it may have been underinsured. “We will definitely be looking for friends and neighbors and partners in the faith to get us back to where we need to be,” Ross says. Currently, the church is looking to temporarily rent facilities.

S.C. AG CHURCH DESTROYED BY FIREBY DAN VAN VEEN

AG RELEASE NAMED TOP CHILDREN’S RESOURCEBY DAN VAN VEEN

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Assemblies of God Chaplaincy Ministries Senior Director Manuel A. Cordero knew he had found the right person for a newly configured leadership position in Gloria Orengo Taylor. Taylor retired in 2014 after 35 years as a chaplain, equally split between the military and hospital chaplaincy, making her the perfect candidate for the reshaped post of AG Chaplaincy Ministries Veterans Affairs/health care representative. Cordero notes that Taylor, who took over the part-time role on March 21, will better be able to engage Assemblies of God VA chaplains who have been underserved in the past.

“She’s a good fit because she has both military and hospital experience,” Cordero says. “Health care chaplains need someone who has been in their field and understands what they go through. Being a veteran herself, she understands the needs of veterans.” Taylor is the first woman to have a leadership role in the 43-year history of AG Chaplaincy Ministries. However, trailblazing is nothing new for Taylor, who in 1976 became the first woman military chaplain endorsed by the AG. “I usually was the first female chaplain whatever base I went to,” Taylor says. “There still weren’t that many women chaplains in the military when I served.”

the bathrooms and kitchen, in floor-to-ceiling cabinets. As Lundstrom researched, she discovered that Erickson’s was among the largest toy car collections in the world. And all of it went to the church. While no dollar value has been placed on the estate, Erickson’s house alone is worth six figures, she says. Proceeds from the sale of the home and car collection will finance the church’s kids’ ministry facilities. As Lundstrom read through Erickson’s papers, she found something he had written upon retirement: “Some might think it’s sad that I never had children or a family,

but I have my church family and the mission to help others and reach people for Jesus.” “Dennis gave his collection to the church so a name would be mentioned other than his own: Jesus,” says Derrick Ross, Celebration Church’s senior pastor. “He wanted to do everything he could to see people saved.” The church will sell the collection; Lundstrom’s days are filled with phone calls from interested buyers. “We’re praying it sells in a way that honors Dennis, that it isn’t just cars being sold but Dennis’ story and legacy go on with the collection,” Lundstrom says.

TRAILBLAZING CONTINUES FOR CHAPLAIN BY JOHN W. KENNEDY

Paul Jenkins is lead pastor of The Gathering, a church he and his wife planted four years ago in the rural community of Albemarle, North Carolina. With a population of 16,000, the community sees few signs of human trafficking. Three years ago, God planted the seed of compassion into their lives for current and future victims of human trafficking. As they explored the issue, they learned how it hit closer to home than they knew. “We were shocked to learn that every 30 seconds, someone is the victim of human trafficking in the world,” Paul says. “And then we learned that the Charlotte metro region is the sixth largest area in the United States for human trafficking violations!” Albemarle is located D40 miles from Charlotte. “I learned that it takes about $1,000 to fully restore victims — not just rescue them, but help them safely re-establish their lives,” Paul says. “I decided to run 50 miles on my 50th birthday and work to raise $50,000 to see 50 girls brought out of human trafficking.”

As word spread about his plan, the Charlotte media took note. Suddenly, the message was not only impacting a single church or a small community — it was reaching throughout theCharlotte metro region with a population nearing 2.4 million people! But running 50 miles wasn’t the only event planned for the weekend. “The run was part of the ‘Weekend of Freedom’ in our church,” Paul explains. “On Friday night, we invited the community to come watch the Nefarious documentary at the church to help raise awareness. The run was on Saturday, and on Sunday, we had Sandhill Teen Challenge come to the church to talk about how people, many who would likely otherwise be dead, found hope and life in Jesus Christ.” Paul started his 50-mile attempt at 5 a.m. Saturday, March 19. People from the church and community joined in with him as he ran a variety of loop courses until he reached 50 miles, exhausted but excited. So far, more than $30,000 has come in towards the run.

50 BIRTHDAYS, 50 MILES, 50 LIVESBY DAN VAN VEEN