Calvary Commission Newsletter March 2020

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Breaking News

Yes, you have heard this before. Was it 1963… “President Kennedy has been shot” or 9-11 “A plane has crashed into the Twin Towers”?

And now, here we are in 2020 with all its promises and plans. Oh yes, our regularly scheduled programming has been interrupted. It is not just the USA but a worldwide interruption of lives. Charlotte and a Hope Team had purchased tickets to go to our beloved Romania for prison crusades and to minister with the pastors and churches we helped to start or partnered with almost 30 years ago.

More interruptions? A Peruvian pastor came to share in ministry and to challenge our missions students.  Peru canceled all incoming flights. His family and the church are there and he is here.

Our Calvary Commission teams in Peru, Belize, Mexico with two orphanages, India with many children, and Cuba are like us here, Walking in Faith and Ministering Hope.

Look at the conversation with a Louisiana prison minister:

Good morning brother. Pray all is well with you and your family. Are your ministry inside the prisons shut down? Outside of allowing the men inside the prison to minister to one another, have you come up with any creative ways to share the gospel with them? 

(I can certainly understand, It was 2 days before the next class to train the next class for jail and prison ministry. I got a call from the Captain that all activities have been cancelled)

I thought about hundreds of inmates locked down in a world of uncertainty and in need of hope

I replied, “It’s the same here. All prisons are closed to outside volunteer ministers and at the County Jail.  I guess by correspondence and literature.  I thought, …. I have my latest book, Caution, Watch Your Step.  I can send you some.”

He replied, “Yeah, I am the Chaplain at the parish jail.  if you have some, I’ll drop them off at the jail.”

We quickly sent 112 copies. They will be passed through many hands…hands that at the present time we cannot shake.

We will send hundreds into Texas Prisons also.

 

 

 

 

 

Letter from the International Director

Joe Fauss writes:

Would you remember the term drag racing?

You sit at the red light side by side with another vehicle crowded in the lane. Your Left foot is on the clutch, (No automatic) right foot on the brake and slipping it over to the gas pedal “reving” it up.

Dragging is type of racing in which vehicles or motor cycles compete with each other usually two at a time to see which will first to cross a selected finish

Noisy? Oh yea. A Cherry bomb glass pack muffler exhaust glass pack kit And the other car?

Trying to be louder.

1. The red light…
2. The caution yellow one and with a glimpse of green And
3. You put the gas Pedal into the carburetor. Now, who can get ahead of the other car? We called it “dragging Broadway”.

Calvary Commission began in 1977 with the goal of making a difference. With a firm belief that no one has fallen too far not to be lifted up to a new life of purpose and direction, we invaded what seemed to be the impossible taking hope and help to the streets, to the street kids, the prisons, the lost, the lonely, the left outs. I told someone about the vision. He looked at me and said, “It won’t work”. I looked at him and firmly said, “it is working” Jesus makes the difference.

We take the word Commission seriously. Real change takes on from a selfish liver to a cheerful giver. We are not saved to sit; we are saved to serve. This decade has begun and we have launched our 2020 vision.

We did not want to be like the dragsters….sitting at the red light making lots of noise but going nowhere. We must put it in the “go gear”. Let’s put the pedal to the metal and go make a difference

GO 2020

The Philippines
Cuba
Mexico
BELIZE
Peru
Mescalero, New Mexico
Jail
Prison Crusades

Plus. Our new Student Academic Center is going up for training our present students and the future of our Calvary Bible Institute

In His Service,

Joe & Charlotte Fauss

 

The Calvary Bible Academic Center building site progress 
Right before Christmas the concrete team was able to complete the slab Followed by the erecting team that has the building up and the exterior metal installed.
Next the concrete flooring will be treated with acid staining to color it and sealed.  This will ready the project to take the next steps in the construction with exterior windows and doors and then the internal walls and bathrooms.  Quickly followed by the electrical, plumbing and HVAC.
We know that God is faithful to supply the needs as the project moves forward towards completion.  Will you pray about helping us with the completion of this much needed academic center?  Without the faithful support of partners just like you, we would not have seen this progress to date.

Luke 10:2b the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

 

 

  • Assembly of the metal structure for the new Calvary Bible Student Academic Center building.
  • It is so exciting to see the visible result of all of our partners generous contributions.
  • This progress is the result of the support and prayers of the gracious partners of Calvary Commission.

 

Assembly of the metal structure of the new Calvary Bible Student Academic Center building.

It is so exciting to see the visible results of all of our partners generous contributions.

This progress is the result of the support and prayers of the gracious partners of this ministry.

Testimony – Andrew Ireton

The Calling

 

My grandfather always told me that your whole life could change in an instant.  I never really knew what that meant until I had ended up in Ellis County Jail for possession of narcotics.

See, growing up with the seed of rejection and shame since the age of seven, I never thought I would amount to anything.  I used drugs, alcohol, and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on to numb the pain of feeling unwanted.  Twelve hours away from skipping out on probation, I got put in Jail.  God had saved me.

Sometimes the difficult circumstances we go through are hard to see as the Mercy of God, but me being put in jail was just that. The Lord did a radical change on not only my heart, but on my outlook on life as well.  Once the fog from all the drug use finally started to clear, I saw things in a different light.

I was loved and personally chosen by my creator to fulfill a plan that He had for my life.  Looking back now it’s obvious to see the work He was doing all along.  But at the time I was blind to what truly was going on.  I was building a testimony.  One that the Lord would use to further His Kingdom here on earth.  After I came to Calvary, I had the honor of going on a mission trip to the Josiah & Bethany Children’s Home in Reynosa, Mexico.

The Lord knew that I wanted kids, but I have never been married and have none of my own.  But when I saw the kids at the orphanage, I knew what my calling was.  The Lord blessed me with kids that come from a past like mine.  Kids that I could care for and love as if they were my own.  Children that I could share my testimony with that would help encourage them.  Which is something that I had always wanted.

I have been six more times since that first trip and every time I go, the Lord reassures me of my calling to the orphanage.  After graduating from my Second year at Calvary International Bible Institute, I will be going into the mission field full time at the Josiah & Bethany Children’s home in Reynosa, Mexico.

I will be serving in any way I can.  The Lord has showed me that this is only the beginning of the New Life I have in Christ Jesus.  I’m looking forward to what the Lord has for me next and pray that He can use me to glorify Himself and Himself alone.

Testimony – Buford Dooley

 

 

Buford Dooley returned to a much different world in 2015 when released from a Texas prison. At the age of 71, he had been incarcerated for nearly 35 years.

“I served it all at one time,” Dooley says. “I didn’t do it on the installment plan.”

Dooley, a ninth grade dropout, went to a penitentiary in 1980 after being convicted of murder. But in 2006 he enrolled in a faith-based program in prison, and the following year he committed his life to Jesus.

Upon being freed four years ago, Dooley went straight to Calvary Commission an aftercare program in Lindale. For two years, he attended classes four days a week covering areas such as biblical counseling and anger resolution. Over 2,000 people have graduated from Calvary Commission since its inception in 1977. Calvary Commission, located on a 186-acre ranch, helps parolees to achieve their quest to stay out of prison. The organization provides an environment where former inmates eat, learn, work, and live.

“They told me who Jesus was,” Dooley explains to AG News. “They taught me the Word of God and what it meant.” Dooley graduated with an associate’s degree in theology. Today he is director of transportation at the ministry.

“If it hadn’t been for Calvary Commission, I wouldn’t have survived,” Dooley says.

FINDING ACCEPTANCE
Of course relatively few of the long-term released inmates in the nation are able to move to aftercare living quarters such as Calvary Commission. Yet former prisoners who have made a faith commitment inside the walls must have Christians on the outside to help them make the transition effectively.

The need is especially acute because the nation with the highest incarceration rate is dealing with an unprecedented aging inmate population. See link for rest of story…. https://news.ag.org/en/News/Plight-of-the-Former-Inmate

Easily Give Now

 

Comments 3

  1. Hi we are very interested in whether or not they will have the Labor Day mission conference this year if you could let me know that information and the dates if so if not just wondering how the other missions are doing and how we could best help and pray and are they going forward with them or not. God bless you.

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  3. Greetings in Christ:

    My name is Dallas Hans and I first met brother Fauss when I was incarcerated at the Coffield unit in I believe it was 1981-1982. I remember some of the bible studies we had in the chapel.
    I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and now reside in North Vancouver, BC. I spent approximately 25 years behind bars. What I came to understand is prison is just one way the Lord “arrests” our attention. Though the thought of prison terrifies most people it is a place where the Lords justice and mercy meet. The freedom that we as believers have in Christ cannot be understood by the unbeliever. Our freedom in Christ is if I may say , on the inside and has nothing to do with physical mobility. It is sin that detains every person born into this world except Jesus or as the Word states, the Second Adam. The Judge took off His Robe and through His death, burial and resurrection paid a debt we were unable to pay and by doing so opened the Way for all who will choose to believe and therefore obey the Lord’s command that all people repent..turn from their sin and by faith call upon the Name of the Lord. This evening I has the opportunity to share the Good News with three people I’d never met.
    When we Soldier Up and finally decide to get serious about our part in fulfilling the Great Commission the can and will use us to reach others. And who are these “others”. They will be the people that we cross paths with on a daily basis either in person or virtual etc..
    The enemy will do all that he is permitted to to do under the watchful eye of our Heavenly Father’s sovereign will. When considering spiritual warfare there is one thing believers should keep in mind when ministering to unbelievers. There is one thing that the devil cannot do nor ever will do. I will answer the question with our Lord’s own words…ready????
    Fasten your seatbelt because this one truth that that devil wants no one to know…..John 8:44…”You, (addressing the religious hierarchy) belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, BECAUSE there is NO TRUTH IN HIM!!!!! When he speaks a lie, he speaks his native language, because HE IS A LIAR and the father of lies.” The devil never tells the truth. He cant tell the truth. Every thought, in the form of a fiery dart, subliminally projected onto the stage of the mind originates from the enemy. One of the reasons the enemy is so hard to catch (identify) is that he works in the third person in other words when he attempts to accuse you he wont whisper “YOU’RE NO GOOD!!!” HE WILL INSTEAD WHISPER….i’M NO GOOD”. THE DECEPTION LIES IN CONVINCING YOU THAT HIS THOUGHTS ARE ACTUALLY YOUR OWN. After all how many people do you know that even question the origin of their own thoughts????
    When I am witnessing to a person it is extremely important to listen carefully to what they are speaking because what a person says is the result of the thoughts they have chosen to believe as true..hence the necessity of the new born Christian to subject thier minds to the Word of God. The Lord, through the prophet Hosea says, “My people are destroyed for lack of Knowledge and that knowledge is none other than the Word of God by which we as the redeemed saints of God are to test every experience in our lives by the Truth Which is the living eternal Word of God by which we have been born again from above. New believers are to crave the pure milk of the Word that they may grow (spiritually). Yes believing in Christ is only the beginning. It is at the new birth stage that the enemy moves swiftly to keep the new believer from the Word of God. If the new believer is not exposed to the Word of God they will not grow. Amen Hence the five fold ministry providing the leadership are Spirit-filled and therefore LED submitting themselves unreservedly to the direction of the Spirit of Christ. The more sensitive one is to the presence of the Lord the easier it is to identify the enemy. Remember the Words of the apostle when states..”we are not IGNORANT of the devils devices. The devils main concern is keeping the Word of God from all people but especially those who have escaped his dark kindom. The gates of hell are wide open and we should be proclaiming Christ victory always. Why do you suppose the Lord leaves us in the world?? To go back to Egypt??? God forbid!! What prisoner would choose to remain in prison if he had the choice to walk out into freedom???? Jesus did not leave us in the world to somehow enjoy ourselves. Do soldiers in the natural go to war risking their lives just to enjoy themselves. How many of Gods children have gone to sleep with the world??? Are we not warned about this????? Will put it on pause for now. Thanks for reading my comment and may the Lord move powerfully in your life and I encourage all to fall in love with the living Word of God. Jesus said and you will KNOW the TRUTH, and the TRUTH will set YOU FREE!!! Glory to God!!!!! “iF THE SON SETS YOU FREE YOU ARE FREE INDEED!!!
    You may not be able to get into the prison (particularily with C19 restrictions) yet you can pray for inmates and support the work of but Calvary Commission.
    In Christ under the fellowship of His Word,
    Blessings!!

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