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

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