Champion for Christ
Missouri weight lifter uses sport as evangelism tool

“God has done all this,” says Jim Bourisaw, 65, of Maryland Heights, Mo., “because there’s no reason for me to be as strong as I am.”
Bourisaw is currently the national champion in the Master’s Division (60-65 age group) of bench press competition sponsored by U.S.A. Powerlifting, a drug-free athletic fellowship. At 220 pounds, Bourisaw can press 385 pounds. He competed internationally in Luxembourg last year and took third place in the world. He hopes to capture the world title in the Czech Republic next year.

For Bourisaw, his strength is a special testimony of God’s providence because he was near death when he accepted Christ 26 years ago.
“I was an alcoholic,” he says. “At 39, doctors told me my liver was diseased and my stomach was full of ulcers and that I had about six months to live. They told me I should either go to Alcoholics Anonymous or find a church.”

Bourisaw found Northwest Assembly of God (now Westport Assembly) and accepted Christ as his Savior. He also met his wife, Marie, and they have enjoyed 24 years of marriage. For the past 23 years they have faithfully attended Trinity Tabernacle A/G in nearby Bridgeton (Ronnie L. Carnett, senior pastor).

With five national bench-pressing championships to his credit, Bourisaw was recognized as a hometown hero by Maryland Heights this year. Marie also entered him in a contest for “The Hunkiest Husband” on the Regis and Kelly Show. Bourisaw was a finalist and appeared on the show.

“I was twice as old as the next oldest husband,” he says with a laugh. “I didn’t win the contest, but Marie told me I’m a hunk now, not a drunk.”

Bourisaw hopes to use his name recognition in powerlifting to connect with young people and warn them of the dangers of alcohol.
“I started drinking at 14 and wasted 25 years of my life,” he says. “But Jesus has given me new life.”
— S.H.

Better late than never
Prison chaplain focuses on second half-century

Jim Reed spends his Sunday mornings in county jails and state prisons throughout Milwaukee teaching and preaching to inmates. He also spends Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at various county jails and work-release programs throughout Wisconsin teaching seminars, classes and, most importantly, building relationships. And he plans on continuing his prison ministry until he is 100 years old. He is currently 68.

“The love God gave me for prison ministry … I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” says Reed from his home in Brookfield, Wis.

As an auditor for a brewing company from 1963-1985, Reed lived a lifestyle of parties, alcohol and drugs. But shortly after a car accident that nearly took his life, Reed began attending Parklawn Assembly of God (Walter F. Harvey, senior pastor) in Milwaukee in 1985 and accepted Christ as Savior at age 50. From then on, he says, his desire to be involved grew, so he volunteered as a parking attendant for the church for the next three years. One year into his volunteer job, Reed began volunteering at the Milwaukee County Jail.

“After three years I got the desire to do more, so I started going into prisons,” says Reed, who is now chaplain of the Milwaukee County Jail. “That’s when I became involved with Prison Fellowship and began teaching seminars for prison ministry.”

As an instructor, a chaplain and volunteer for the past 17 years, Reed, realizes he got a late start. But he also realizes it is far greater to accept Christ at age 50 than to never accept Him at all.

“I asked God to use me the way He wanted for the rest of my life,” says Reed, who has been qualified to teach seminars in state prisons across Wisconsin since 1991. “And He opened the doors.”
— I.O.

On the Last Frontier
Woman reaches remote Eskimo villages

At 86, Harriet Brown has moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and is focusing on her next project — to actively raise funds for a larger building for the Assemblies of God church she most recently pastored in Kotlik, Alaska. A community of 570 people, mainly Eskimos, Kotlik is nestled in the frozen tundra of Northwest Alaska.

Brown, born in Minnesota and reared in London, Ontario, Canada, where she became a nurse, braved the odds and responded to God’s call to minister in the remote reaches of Alaska in 1946 at age 30.
After a year in the town of Seward, Brown, who never married, spent the next 20 years in Nome, a western Alaska town of 1,400 on the Bering Sea coast. “Alvin Carpenter had just finished building an Assemblies of God church there,” she recalls. “It was the only church in town.”

Travel by dogsled or snowshoe was common, and Brown made the rounds regularly. She became a favorite among the Eskimo people who welcomed her as a spiritual leader. “They had no prejudice against a woman pastor.” When Brown left Nome, attendance was more than 100.

Brown continued to fill pastoral positions as needed throughout the Alaskan wilderness from several months to several years at a time. She used Eskimo interpreters when needed, though most spoke English.

Bitter cold, harsh winds and drifting snow didn’t discourage the hearty Eskimos or their woman pastor from attending church.
When Brown left Kotlik, the seating for 55 was inadequate, and three town lots were purchased for a new building. “It wasn’t easy breaking into a new culture,” she says of Kotlik. “I started with a group of children. After a while, when the adults saw me use my medical skills to help their sick children, the families started coming around.”
— J.C.

Going strong at 100
Minister is older than his home state

Willie R. Davis was born in Oklahoma Territory in 1902, five years before it became a state.

In 1931, at age 29, Davis was a farmer north of Boswell, Okla. “A Pentecostal revival came to town,” he recalls. “There was no church there.”

Davis was playing baseball on a community team when he says God called him. “God said, ‘Son, it’s now or never.’ That night I laid it all on the altar.”

Davis accepted Christ as his Savior and the next night received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

A few months later, Davis was praying behind his old barn when God again spoke, calling him to preach. “I didn’t even own a Bible,” Davis says. “I swapped a dollar and a half with an Indian for one.”
For the next several months, Davis put himself through a concentrated effort to read and study the Bible. “A coal oil lamp, a Holman Bible, and a cane-bottom chair were my Bible school,” he remembers.

In 1932, he went into full-time ministry, holding his first revival. Thirty-two accepted Christ and 21 received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Davis drove 60 miles one-way to pastor a new church at Yarnaby, Okla., every other week until he moved there in 1933 when he was licensed with the Assemblies of God. After four years, Davis was ordained and went to Antlers, Okla., where 36 were attending Sunday school. Attendance was more than 200 when he left in 1948.
Davis pastored other churches until 1967, when he became an evangelist until his eyesight worsened in the 1970s.
Now living in Denison, Texas, Davis walks two miles a day and still fills in the pulpit regularly at Denison First Assembly of God (Gary A. Elrod, senior pastor). In more than 70 years, his message hasn’t changed. “My message is on the baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire,” he says. “We need to stay true to our Pentecostal foundation.”
— J.C.

Teaching for half a century
Nonagenarian still impacts young lives

Gladys Diebel wakes up shortly after 5 a.m. every day to read her Bible. After eating breakfast and preparing for the day, Diebel heads for work at the Pasadena Independent School District in Houston, where she is a substitute teacher. She is 90 years old.

Diebel was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on April 15, 1912 — only two months after New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and 48th states. Shortly after turning 12, she discovered her passion: teaching.
And she has been teaching ever since. Diebel began instructing first- through third-graders at Kamerer School in Hempfield, Pa., when she was 20.

“I took care of the children like they were my own,” Diebel says, “because snowfalls in Pennsylvania sometimes stranded us in the school for days at a time.”

After moving to Texas in 1937 and getting married in 1943, Diebel continued teaching wherever she lived — including a year at the Air Force base in Biloxi, Miss., teaching technical orders and aircraft parts to future B-17 pilots. She and her husband, Kenneth, settled in Galena Park, Texas, in 1946, where she taught for 26 years until she retired in 1972.

Today, Diebel has more than 50 years of teaching experience, and has attended church for 70 years. She continues teaching, she says, because she loves people, especially children.

“I want the Spirit of God to flow out of my life to others to help meet their needs,” says Diebel, noting her advice for people would be to get in a good church and pray and believe God can meet their needs. “I feel I have something to give, and I need to give it.”
— I.O.

Answering God’s call
Pastoring has been a 50-year surprise for Texas senior

In San Antonio, Joe Cantu remembers preaching to his mother, Luz, at age 6. Though he admits he didn’t know what he was saying, he used a New Testament booklet to help him deliver his sermons.
Today, at age 72 and senior pastor of El Tabernaculo Asamblea de Dios in Houston, he is still preaching.

“I didn’t plan on being a pastor,” Cantu admits. “I went to Bible school to learn the Bible so I could go back to my church (Sion Asamblea de Dios in San Antonio) and teach.” But during his second year at Latin American Bible Institute in El Paso, Texas, in 1950, God called him into full-time ministry. Following graduation from LABI, he began preaching in 1951 at the only Spanish-speaking church in Fort Worth. Two years later, Cantu says, he began a three-year stint as senior pastor at the only Spanish-speaking church in Lubbock after his marriage to his wife, Magdalena, in 1953.

By 1956, the Cantus moved to Houston to pastor El Tabernaculo, and have been there ever since.

“The best thing to do is love the work you’re doing,” says Cantu, noting the church has outgrown three building projects. Attendance at the church is 550. “By serving the people, we’re serving God.”
Besides being a full-time senior pastor, Cantu has worked for 16 years with International Broadcasting Network in Houston, which provides Christian broadcasting through eight local stations.

“Start at the bottom in a humble way and work your way up,” Cantu says of following the Lord’s will. “Above all, keep in touch with God with prayer.”
— I.O.

New country, new faith
Vietnamese father builds ministry with sons

First Vietnamese Assembly of God in Westminster, Calif., holds simultaneous services in Vietnamese and English.

“There are approximately 300,000 Vietnamese in Orange County, Calif.,” says Pastor Tuan Ma, 66, who escaped from his native Vietnam five days before the Communist takeover in April 1975. “We have a continual ministry opportunity.”

Ma conducts Vietnamese services for the older generation, while his son-in-law, Thanh Tran, and son, Phillip Ma, lead English services for the college-age crowd.

“Most people coming here from Vietnam have a traditional Buddhist background,” Ma says. “They come to church at the invitation of a family member or friend, and soon realize the gospel is a relationship with Jesus.”

More than 100 attend Vietnamese services, and 35 to 40 attend English services.

When Ma began his pastorate in Westminster in 1983, the church had only seven people who met in a small room of another church. In 1999, the church moved into its own building.

“My dad is one of the most humble people I know,” Phillip, 25, says. “He keeps his opinions to himself and lets me make my own decisions. But he also taught me respect for elders. The Bible says to submit to God-given authorities. I hope to pass some of my family traditions on to the new generation I am trying to reach.”
— J.C.

Veterans Day hero
A/G man helps start island’s first Protestant church during World War II

Sardinia, more than 100 miles west of Italy, is the second largest island in the Mediterranean. During World War II, U.S. Army Air Force Cpl. Lloyd Ball was stationed there in 1943 at age 19.

A lifetime member of San Antonio First Assembly of God (R. Wayne Clark, senior pastor), Ball found 17 others in his outfit who were also Pentecostal. However, the base chaplain refused to allow Pentecostal worship services until Ball approached the commanding officer, who agreed to let the men worship however they chose.

The 18 men soon found a group of nearly 25 Pentecostals living on the island and helped them raise money for their first building. “It was the first Protestant church in the history of the island,” Ball says.
Though most of the congregation was much older than the U.S. soldiers and only one spoke English, Ball and his comrades supported the church in giving and attendance while they were stationed there.
The experience was among numerous rewards Ball had as a Christian in military service. “Military discipline is strict,” he says. “The same is true of the Christian life. Rewards come when you are true to your convictions.”

Remaining loyal to God and country, Ball never gave in to sexual immorality, alcohol or tobacco use, as so many did in the military.
“We were given beer and cigarette rations, but I used mine for candy and gum to give to the local kids.”

After World War II, Ball remained in the reserves, returning to active duty during the Korean War, where he interacted with battle wounded being transported from hospitals in Tokyo to San Antonio.
Ball says his military service brought opportunities to share his faith, while the unique challenges of military life strengthened his faith.
“For me, there was no greater honor than to serve my country as a Christian.”
— J.C.

Reprinted by permission of the Pentecostal Evangel.