January 18, 2023
The Impact of Presence
A selection of stories from the 2022 Alliance Impact Report
These stories are a selection from the 2022 Alliance Impact Report, describing what God is doing through The Alliance—breakthroughs enabled by your financial giving. May these stories encourage and remind you of the vital role you play in our Acts 1:8 family. Together we are making an eternal difference in lives within our own communities and in the farthest corners of the world as we bring Christ’s love and presence to the unreached and overlooked. Thank you!
Africa
Overcoming Resistance
Alliance workers have been present nearly 100 years among peoples in West Africa who are resistant to the gospel—so resistant, in fact, that they often refuse care from an Alliance medical facility. But God is at work, answering the prayers of Alliance workers for suffering people like Josiah, who lived with a nonhealing wound on his leg for over four years. He resisted treatment, claiming that every attempt to heal the wound only made it worse. Finally, he allowed an Alliance worker named Miriam* to examine him. Her course of treatment provided long awaited healing and compelled others to seek care. As these patients shared stories about the remarkable healer God had sent them, Miriam seized the opportunity to explain that God alone is their healer and that workers like her are only conduits of His unfailing love.
Escalating violence in this region has since forced Alliance workers to evacuate, but their presence has made a lasting impact, allowing the seeds of God’s truth and love to sprout and bear fruit through the testimonies of those who have received healing, comfort, and hope.
*Name changed
Asia Pacific
Seizing Every Opportunity
The Alliance is committed to remaining present even in regions that, if not for God’s intervention, would be impossible for Christians to access. In one Asian country, Alliance international workers credit the faithful prayers of their Alliance family for enabling them to become embedded in the community despite bureaucratic obstacles.
As these workers build relationships with neighbors, colleagues, and others without gospel access, their hands-on involvement is making an indelible impression on the community.
God has opened opportunities for one Alliance worker to engage with marginalized youth offenders who are seeking to reenter society from detention centers. In partnership with CAMA, The Alliance also assisted with relief and development work following an earthquake, laboring with locals to clear rubble from homes and streets and even procuring funds for an excavator and other vital equipment.
Recently, another Alliance worker began to mentor and offer lactation consultation to young women at a boarding school operated by a local man who came to faith in Jesus following the tragic loss of his son. The man’s improbable journey to salvation is a promising reminder of the gospel’s power to transform lives, even in the hardest-to-reach places.
Europe
Caring for Orphans and the Vulnerable
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alliance workers in the region confronted challenges they had never known or anticipated. Many wondered whether the right response was to remain in Ukraine amid the fighting or to evacuate the country and follow God into new ministry opportunities within and beyond Europe.
Those who remained in Ukraine served with abandon and courage, demonstrating the healing presence of Jesus to loved ones, neighbors, and strangers displaced and devastated by war. Many of those who evacuated Ukraine remained engaged with the embroiled country through relief work, evangelism, and church-planting initiatives among refugees.
Because of God’s faithfulness, all these efforts have allowed the church to advance in Europe despite the hardships Ukraine has endured over the last year. God has shown that He has not given His people “a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline” (2 Tim. 1:7).
Alliance workers are present to plant churches and bring the love and care of Jesus to suffering and desperate people.
Latin America
A New Launch Point
Since The Alliance entered Colombia 99 years ago, God has transformed the country into a launch point for men and women who take the gospel to the remaining unreached people groups around the world. Over the years, the mission to make disciples of all nations has led the Colombian Alliance to send international workers to Central Asia, North Africa, and neighboring countries in Latin America.
This year, The Alliance deployed three international workers from Colombia to West Africa. Alongside a team already stationed in the region, the new workers are assisting with church-planting and discipleship efforts among a group that is less than 1 percent evangelical Christian. As The Alliance prepares to celebrate 100 years of ministry in Colombia, God is showing that His love overcomes all cultural, social, and language barriers!
Middle East & Central Asia
Faith in Word and Deed
God is at work in the Middle East, using the faithful presence of The Alliance to expand His Kingdom through evangelism, relief work, and leadership development.
This year, The Alliance’s commitment to training and equipping Spirit-filled leaders resulted in several key academic achievements. In one Middle Eastern country, an Alliance Bible school celebrated the graduation of 18 students, who are now serving the Lord throughout the Arab world. Also, Alliance workers translated and published A.B. Simpson’s two-volume work on the Holy Spirit, Power from on High.
In the same country, a food distribution ministry regularly provides food for 50 families. Serving refugees and others who have been devastated by the ongoing financial crisis in the region, the ministry also offers spiritual care through prayer and Bible study. The Alliance’s outreach efforts have led several of these marginalized and vulnerable families to attend weekly worship services alongside Alliance workers.
Light in the Darkness
For the last nine years, John* and Nancy,* two of the Alliance workers in central Asia, have been interceding for the unreached, lost, and seeking in their country. Through their faithful prayers and gospel presence, the light of Christ is breaking through the darkness of this region.
God has burdened John and Nancy for the remote villages of an unreached people group in a nearby mountain valley. These people are practitioners of a shamanistic, folk version of the majority religion. The trek to get there is dangerous, and the spiritual atmosphere is oppressive—so oppressive that they had found it difficult to be there longer than a few days. This past April, after seven years of trips to the valley, John and Nancy were able to share the gospel for the first time without objection or interruption. Something is changing; the prayerful presence of God’s people is pushing back the darkness.
*Name changed
Alliance workers are present to care for unreached peoples and take the gospel where it has never gone before.
United States
Extending God’s Love through Partnership
For the last four years, Envision Twin Cities has partnered with Crown College and a local resettlement agency to provide tutoring and homework help for a community of East African immigrants in the Twin Cities. These families follow the majority religion of their home country, and the homework help program has opened the door for gospel conversations to take place. Beautiful, trusting relationships have been built this year between the ten Crown students and the families they serve as they learn to love others in new ways.
Alongside the homework help program, Envision Twin Cities is also involved in English and citizenship classes, sports outreaches, sewing lessons, and community gardens—all in partnership with local churches and organizations. The Twin Cities is home to many displaced people groups, and the Envision team is effectively extending the presence of Christ to them through their loving service.
The Alliance is present to multiply church networks, develop people, and serve communities in the United States and throughout the world.
Because of the workers you generously send and support, like the Yangs, those in the hardest-to-reach places have an opportunity to receive the good news of Jesus. Thank you!