Adventist Muslim Fellowship & Centro Misionero de Salud (edit, back)
01/01/2011
Adventist Muslim Fellowship Association (AMFA) Atlanta recently thanked ASI for its generous support in its 2009–2010 mid-project funding report. AMFA Atlanta has ongoing facets not connected to a building or a particular program, but based on building relationships with people, holding meetings and presenting educational programs.
During the past year, a study group of Adventists and Muslims has met three times a month to study themes relevant to the endtimes. It is helping Adventists and Muslims alike build relationships and interact lovingly with people who are different from them, as well as studying Biblical truths, including the character of God and His justice and mercy, the great controversy between God and Satan, the law, preparation for the return of Jesus and the judgment.
One team member provides 20 hours of weekly English language instruction to Muslim immigrants and refugees in the Atlanta area. This interaction has led to spiritual conversations and has given the instructor
opportunities to invite Muslim people to join the study group. The instructor also teaches people in their homes, with a growing understanding among the Muslim community that Adventists are a unique people. Other team members conduct one-on-one studies with Muslim individuals, as well. ASI funds have helped cover the cost of this face-to-face ministry, including the materials used.
AMFA-Atlanta’s health work continues to provide health expos as opportunities arise. The project has even empowered Muslims to present their own health expos. Some health expo materials are being translated into Somali so that a Somali Muslim nonprofit entity can partner with AMFA-Atlanta in connecting with Atlanta’s Somali community. ASI funds are directly earmarked to help produce these materials.
The funds are also being used to sponsor ongoing team building, mentoring and training of Adventists to break down serious walls of prejudice and ignorance that potentially prevent Adventists from sharing love and Biblical truth with their Muslim neighbors. In the future, AMFA Atlanta will serve as partial sponsor of a church plant. With so few ministries reaching out to Muslims in the world field, the ASI project funds have been put to valuable use in Atlanta.
Centro Misionero de Salud used the second half of its 2009 ASI project funds to complete its secondary school building just in time to pass state inspection with flying colors, according to CMS director Jaime Espinal.
Just a year ago, the same inspector from the Secretary of Education for Nuevo León, Mexico, had visited CMS and shared with Espinal the serious problems the government has been having with its public secondary schools.
“The only hope is in private Christian schools like yours,” confided the inspector. He suggested that CMS expand and establish a secondary school. Funds were used to build a new lab and to purchase classroom furnishings, as well as to install concrete slabs, tile flooring and
electrical outlets.
The local community of Galeana has been very supportive of both the elementary and secondary programs. “They are impressed to see a different type of education where the Bible is being taught,” says Espinal. Students from the secondary school were recently invited to perform musical numbers at a government program to aid disabled children in Mexico.