Mission lecture series continues at NewPointe Community Church

  • By Shelly Webb
  • December 7, 2010
  • 399
                        
As part of their missions lecture series, NewPointe Community Church will present area missionary to Russia, Pam Amstutz Sunday, Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. in their Kidstuf Theater. NewPointe began the series this past year and will be continuing it into 2011. The series is called Voices of the Kingdom with three to five lectures planned each year with various missionaries from around the world. This year, the church has already hosted missionary Blake Wood from Impact Middle East and Layth lbrahim, an Iraqi church leader. The goal is to help area Christians develop a worldview when it comes to missions. “It is our hope that by hosting this lecture series, the people of NewPointe and the surrounding churches and communities will begin to expand their worldview, see the world as God sees it and understand that God is actively pursuing His people all over the world,” said Scott Bell, director of missions for NewPointe. Amstutz serves with her husband Gary in Chita, Siberia, Russia, where the two minister to orphans and young homeless women through Reflections of Hope, a mission-based organization the couple began a few years ago. People may be wondering how a couple from the Holmes County area ends up as missionaries in Siberia, Russia. It all started in 2005 when the two went on a random mission trip to that region. “We visited a series of orphanages in two regions of Russia,” Pam Amstutz shared. “We began to hear the statistics of the children there, but these weren’t statistics we were reading in a magazine, they were right in front of us; real children with real faces, real pain and real stories to tell.” Looking back, Pam and Gary Amstutz realized that God was working at that time to use the story of a 14-year-old girl named Yana to completely change their lives forever. “Yana was a beautiful blonde-headed girl who had been discarded by her family after her mother died just months earlier in 2005,” Amstutz said. “When Gary and I got back home, her story wouldn’t leave our minds. This became the birthing ground for Reflections of Hope ministry, which is the hope of reflecting the love of Jesus Christ to the abandoned, hurting, and forgotten children of Russia. Less than one year after that first trip to Siberia, Reflections of Hope was founded to make a difference in the lives of the very children we had visited.” Reflections of Hope is now an interdenominational missionary sending organization led by the Amstutz couple with the primary focus of reaching the forgotten orphans of the Russian Federation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The main need these orphans of Russia face is the need for love and hope, which Pam and Gary Amstutz know can only be found in Christ. Unfortunately, it’s not permissible to teach the gospel within the orphanages; however the Amstutz couple consistently visits the children and works to develop a relational bond with them. This is a big step for the orphans there and helps them to finally have someone they can connect to. “These children have no idea that Jesus loves them, cares for them, and has a plan for their lives,” Amstutz added. “In fact, these children have no idea that anyone loves them. They have no love, no hope, and no future, and they will soon become full of anger and mistrust. The heart of our Lord is to reach these precious ones, but very few people are trying. These children have literally no one else to turn to. Someone has to reach them before another generation is lost.” In addition to visiting the orphanages and building these bonds, the couple also operates a home for girls, which currently houses six girls and one infant. It is here, in their own home, where the husband and wife team can teach the gospel and see first hand the life-changing impact that knowing Christ brings to an individual. And if you’re wondering whatever happened to Yana, the little girl that so inspired Gary and Pam Amstutz, pulling at their heartstrings and changing their lives forever, the couple ran into her a few years ago. “We found her again in 2008,” Pam Amstutz said. “She was 17-years-old now and pregnant with her daughter, Marina, who was born early in 2009. Yana had graduated from an orphanage in Chita, Siberia, Russia in 2007. Of the fifteen children that left the orphanage in her graduating class, Yana is literally the one who is not either in prison or involved in prostitution. That is amazing, that she is the only one out of fourteen children that didn’t fall into that trap.” According to statistics, there are 700,000 orphans in the Russian Federation with an estimated four million street children living abroad. Of these, 10 percent commit suicide or disappear, 40 percent turn to crime and 40 percent become drug addicts. Only two percent pursue higher education and only 10 percent become a functional member of society. If you are interested in hearing more about this unique ministry to the orphans and young women of the Russian Federation, please join Pam and Gary Amstutz this Sunday evening at NewPointe Community Church. The event is open to the public and free of charge. No offering will be taken.


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