Letter from Sam Berberian - April 26, 2009

From Sam and Martha Berberian
P.O. Box 1602, 01901 Guatemala, Central America

Telephone: 011 (502) 2478-0634 (home)
Fax: 011 (502) 2443 6582 (home)



Making a difference through preaching, teaching and writing. April 26, 2009
Dear Friends,

After going over my agenda since November, and seeing the diversity of ministry, I remember what I prayed when I was a newly converted teenager: Lord, make me useful! That is a dangerous prayer, because the Lord takes us seriously. Even today the Lord calls us: "Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (Matt.4:19).

I never imagined the wide variety of ministries God would lead me into over 50 years of serving the Lord: fishing for men through street evangelism, tract ministry, literature distribution, traveling speaker in 36 countries, pastoral ministry (in Lebanon and in Kansas), and now in Guatemala: training Christian leaders since 1977. Martha has been updating and editing my life story, adding more photographs, and, you bet! The title is "Señor, Hazme Útil" (Lord, Make Me Useful).

So, what "useful" activities filled my agenda in recent months? I have traveled five times to the interior with responsibilities as Dean of the School of Theology, because pastors from several major cities have been requesting extensions of theology in their area. Three extensions have already started with much enthusiasm in Zacapa, Jutiapa and Puerto Barrios. My present goal is to train enough teachers who can teach in these extensions. I think you agree with me that a pastor who reads and studies makes a better pastor, and serves his congregation more efficiently.
On the other hand, the Instituto Federico Crowe (Frederick Crowe Institute), graduated 27 students in November, including a pastor's wife, Irma, a grandmother, whose husband, Fermin Cuyuch, graduated from the IFC a few years ago, and recently graduated from the School of Theology (see foto). We are proud of these Guatemalan leaders who didn't give up, but decided, with effort and determination, to complete their high school education and more.

A new school year began mid January, and at the end of February we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Institute and Library, that my wife and I, with a group of Christian professionals, established in 1989. With my wife, my daughters and their children, and a host of former students, we celebrated this unique effort to train leadership, in a country where education has been so limited. One after the other, our graduates (now university students or professionals) expressed the meaningful impact the Institute had in their lives. This is just the hand of the Lord that makes it possible, using donations from many of you to provide sponsorships for needy students.
And the Dr. Núñez Library? Begun with my personal library, it now has 13,000 titles. Let me tell you something: every time I get a call that someone has books to donate for the library, the question is: where do I put them? The library is growing and we expect a miracle of the Lord to give us the right facility (a building of our own) so we can serve God and His people through education as well as through the facilities of the library. There is no greater gratification than when you see someone walking out of the library with a smile and a spark in their eyes, expressing appreciation because they found what they were looking for and promising to come back because there was a lot more available.

The more meaningful for my heart is the privilege to serve the Lord, preaching the Word and counseling with people in different ways. Believe it or not, I am 68 already, an old man, and now I have volunteers to drive for me, taking me to my preaching engagements in the interior. In one of the cases, my son-in-law, Ivan, offered to drive for me to Cobán which is 200 kms away, and then drive back the following day after the preaching engagements were over. It must be God's grace.
Last Sunday our home church had anniversary activities, so I was asked to preach in the three services. Man o man! The third round was a "knock out" for me! Gone is the time when I could preach five times a day and no problem! Today the pastor gave the comment that it was a real blessing, that my being worn out in the third service didn't show. What was so gratifying was that in the services people came forward to accept the Lord as Savior.

Thanks for your prayers, so this old "machine" can still function and be productive on the basis of God's requirements. My prayer for you is that this crisis that we are going through, can reveal in you the Mighty One that can give you maturity to adjust your life and not miss your responsibilities.

Your brother,
Dr. Samuel Berberian mailto:samuelberberian@hotmail.com

Letter from Martha Berberian - April 28, 2009

LETTER FROM MARTHA BERBERIAN
Guatemala, April 28, 2009

Dear Prayer Partners,

Life is always full of things to learn, and Sam encourages me to keep learning. With the crisis in the world today, we have ample opportunity to study about what happened, how it happened, and pray intensely that God work mightily in the hearts and minds of the world leaders today. It is said that the United States is in trouble because its leaders left aside the Word of God and its teachings, and are harvesting the consequences.

WRITING AND PUBLISHING

It seems that I spend 8-10 hours a day at my desk writing, editing, correcting. Personal letters are part of my ministry. For several years (until he was set free in December) I corresponded with a Christian inmate, unjustly incarcerated, encouraging him to write; God has given him a wonderful writing ministry now. My weekly column comes out in La Palabra newspaper, where I answer questions related to family, studies, church ministry, health, all kinds of topics, and folks comment how they are helped. Who knew when I took that elective typing course in 10th grade that I would get so much good out of it! November 26 I graduated with my Masters in Pastoral Theology (see the picture above), and the following day I began a blog to train Christian professionals to write, with 53 now signed up.

TEACHING. I just finished teaching another course Techniques of Research to the first year students at the Panamerican University School of Theology. I am honored to invest in the intellectual lives of pastors and leaders who are excellent preachers and teachers, but few know how to write a research paper. Actually my job is to help them organize their thinking as they analyze a Guatemalan problem such as domestic violence, adolescent pregnancy, or a church problem. Four pastors weren't there the day the picture was taken. I have enjoyed photography since Sam bought our first camera in 1967, and consider it a ministry because it blesses people.

FAMILY. I enjoy baking with the grandkids, and attending school events, seeing the kids participate in various activities. But mostly we sit on the rug, get out the blocks and make a garage, and put cars inside it. With some of the family living far away, we installed Skype in our computers to be able to chat with Lydia in Argentina, and Steve in Houston.

DOULOS FOUNDATION: Frederick Crowe Institute and Dr. Núñez Library. Many of you know about the Institute that we founded with so much love and effort 20 years ago. Over 800 students have graduated successfully from the excellent high school program we set up, oriented to pastors and leaders. Sam is there every day supervising and guiding. Our constant prayer is that the many Guatemalan adults who never completed high school, will have the determination to study in our Saturday program.

About 40% of our 170 students are from extreme poverty level families who live on less than $250 dollars a month, such as Florinda (see picture right), who completed her studies with honors; her mother is a Bible translator. You can make a difference in a student's life being a donor. We continue to rent a large house in downtown Guatemala City; the 6 classrooms barely hold 15 students each when our goal is 23. We are considering a building in downtown Guatemala City valued at $160,000 dollars and we have 20% in hand. You can be a part of this important project by designating a gift.

THANK YOU for your prayers and gifts. We invite you to be a part of our ministry by praying and giving, perhaps sponsoring a needy student ($300 per year per student), or a gift towards buying a building.

For a tax deductible receipt, write your check to CMM (Christ’s Mandate for Missions) directed by our close friend, Jorge Parrott, and mail to P.O. Box 7705, Charlotte, North Carolina 28241, USA. Telephone: (704) 225-3927. If you don't need a receipt and it is more convenient, you may deposit your gift directly into our Bank of America account. Write us for details.

1 Chronicles 4:9-10: “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel 'Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory!…' And God granted his request". God wants to bless you with a larger territory for His glory.

Prayerfully,

Martha Saint-Berberian
To write to me: marthaberberian@yahoo.com

Letter from Martha Berberian - Oct. 23, 2008

LETTER FROM MARTHA BERBERIAN

Guatemala, October 23, 2008

www.edicionessaber.wordpress.com

Dear Prayer Partners,

Today is my 64^th birthday. Where have all the years gone? Certainly the Lord has been faithful since my early childhood in New Jersey, growing up in North Carolina, moving to Latin America at the age of 11, meeting Sam in Argentina in Bible School, serving the Lord in so many ways since then, and living by faith day by day. (And I am still learning new things, Office 2007, blogs and websites.)

Seven months have gone by since our last letter and I am wondering how have YOU been? Has the Lord blessed you in a special way? Perhaps He entrusted you with an unexpected problem that shook you from complacency and brought you into a new relationship with the Lord. That has been the case, working on my dissertation for 3 years, finally finishing October 1^st with 150 pages, titled "The need of national authors and publications to develop a truly Guatemalan church". With 2.5 million evangelical Christians (out of a total population of 10 million), you would think that Guatemala would produce a good amount of its own literature. Not so. Less than 2% of the literature in the bookstores is produced by Guatemalan leaders, and the dissertation includes proposals to solve this problem.

WRITING AND PUBLISHING (via our small editorial: Ediciones Sa-Ber).

My weekly column appears in La Palabra with a wide readership, and I am continually editing articles or books for fledgling writers (all in Spanish of course). We decided to reprint a book Sam and I co-wrote on the family a number of years ago, finding it as straight to the point as ever. We scanned the text, added clip art, retitled it Principios para la Familia Integral (Principles for the Integral Family), and are preparing a new cover. It fits our 3 goals: short (64 pages), economical ($3.25), and useful (family orientation).

TEACHING. The end of April I finished teaching the course Techniques of Research to the first year students at the Panamerican University School of Theology, and then for three months I taught an experimental course on the Masters in Theology degree level, guiding the writing of the dissertations of 9 students (5 pastors, 3 university professors, 1 administrator). See the picture above. We had an interesting experience of learning and growing, with one of the students graduating October 2^nd, and several more will graduate in November.

FAMILY. We became great grandparents in July, when Ryan Samuel was born to Kristina and Mark in Houston. The Lord is good. It's unbelievable that Lisa's son Andy is as tall as I am! We are thankful for each of our children and their families. Sam's sister Lydia visited us earlier this month; she and I edited Yenovk Berberian's autobiography (68 pages), adding photographs. Excellent story! Lydia plans to publish it in Spanish in Argentina. See the following picture of Lydia, when visiting the library.

DOULOS FOUNDATION: Frederick Crowe Institute and Dr. Núñez Library

The Institute, founded and supervised by Sam, provides junior and senior high education to pastors and leaders (and other adults) in the Saturday program, as well as providing the same level of education to adolescents in the weekday program. 40% of our 170 students are from extreme poverty level families who live on less than $250 dollars a month. You can make a difference in their lives as a donor. We continue to rent a large house in downtown Guatemala City; the 6 classrooms barely hold 18 students each when our goal is 25. The 13,000 volume library (begun with Sam's personal library in 1989) survives and grows with donations of Spanish books and funds to cover projects. We need funds to digitalize the extensive card catalog.

THANK YOU for your prayers and gifts whether large or small. We invite you to be a part of our ministry by praying and giving, perhaps sponsoring a needy student ($300 per year per student), or a gift for our personal expenses. We want to thank those who have donated towards the building fund, and for library projects. Please send the designation with your donation.

For a tax deductible receipt, write your check to CMM (Christ’s Mandate for Missions) directed by our dear friend, Jorge Parrott, and mail to P.O. Box 7705, Charlotte, North Carolina 28241, USA. Telephone: (704) 225-3927. If you don't need a receipt and it is more convenient, you may deposit your gift directly into our Bank of America account. Write us for details.

Proverbs 11:25: “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

Prayerfully,

Martha Saint-Berberian

Letter from Sam Berberian - Oct 22, 2008

Dear Friends,

Since our last letter in March our ministry continues as varied as you can imagine. For example, twice this month I was a guest on Vision Radio; one was a 6:00 to 7:30 a.m. interview on the subject of "Determination". The other program was from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on "How to recognize your vocation", both aimed at young people. In August I taught two workshops in a large congress for youth leaders called Especialidades Juveniles. I was surprised to be included among the three favorite speakers. I wonder if it is the sense of humor, or saying it like it is.

Teaching and Training Leaders for 30 Years
Looking back over 50 years of ministry, 30 of those have been spent in Guatemala, which has become our home, our people. During these past months I have had trips to Escuintla, Baja Verapaz and Mazatenango for meetings or classes, as well as two workshops in San Lucas, teaching a group of some 40 pastors who separate 3 days every 3 months for training. (See the picture, I am on the left in the black suit.) Most in this group have barely 7th grade education so the training needs to be simplified. As you know, I am Dean of the School of Theology of the Panamerican University; I am proud of the pastors and professionals who give priority to training to enhance their ministry for the Lord. Since March, two of my students graduated, one from the graduate, the other from the undergraduate program. In the picture is one of my 2rd year students, Sergio Martinez, pastor of the large church pictured below where I am preaching.

Ministry in churches, schools, retreats, dinners
Sundays I have been speaking in various churches in the Guatemala City area, some of them with 100 members, others are larger, including a Baptist church, Nazarene, Verbo, Central American, and independent groups. I have spoken at several couples dinners, motivating family unity (once team-teaching with my wife), as well as men's breakfast meetings. A couple of months ago I gave the closing message to a large group of pastors and leaders in their international annual retreat. The presence of the Holy Spirit was very evident and touched many lives. I am often invited to speak in schools, either to the teaching staff or to the parents. As you can imagine, I need to be flexible and my style and content is continually changed and adapted according to the need.

Cell phone ministry and counseling
I use my cell phone for personal ministry, so when the phone is ringing (or vibrating), you wonder, like a fireman, what will be the call and you have to be ready to help and guide a pastor, a teacher, someone with a question or problem. For example, a student of mine got stuck while studying a passage in the New Testament with his discipleship group. I was able to give him some ideas from the Greek context that helped the study get on its way again. (You may remember that my mother was Greek and I have spoken Greek since childhood.) Another call came from a former student, leader of a big church, asking for guidance before attending a board meeting. My goal is to be available to help people in need.

Thank you for praying and giving
The description of our ministry that I just gave makes clear we can go on doing this work by the grace of the Lord and your prayer support, so that we be sure and do the job the Lord asks us to do. Only eternity will show how far has gone the investment of our friends in our teaching and preaching ministry through the years. As Paul said to the Corinthians, knowing that our work is not in vain in the Lord, 1 Cor. 15:57-58.

As a closing paragraph, all of us know how long we have been living, but we never know how much is left ahead of us. Please pray for us to be faithful to the Lord, and thank you that your support gives us the means to do the job that God calls us to do, in the Frederick Crowe Institute, Doctor Nunez Library, Panamerican University, or in the churches.

Your brother,
(Dr.) Samuel Berberian samuel.berberian@gmail.com Feel free to send me a note.

Newsletter from Sam and Martha - May 13, 2007

Making a difference through preaching, teaching and writing.

I see that we owe our dear friends a letter! Evidently we have been too busy “doing” and not much “reporting” about the blessings of God here in Guatemala. After graduations in November last year, Martha went to have an operation so that helped me to slow down some for a couple of weeks, and activities of the end of the year. Starting the New Year, I had a trip to El Salvador for a leadership seminar as well as several preaching engagements before the start of the academic year, which is mid January.

With God’s help, the second week of January we had the start of the classes in the Frederick Crowe Institute, having a new school director. The manager of Doulos Foundation, Margarita Rodriguez (my student of theology back in the 1980s), has set clear goals for this year on matters of administration as well as looking at the possibility of a new building so the whole staff can be consciously involved in this process. Our library of 12,500 volumes (see the picture, with the stacks very close to each other, because of lack of space) could well use the whole space we have now for the institute and library, so you can imagine how tight we are. In the other picture you see how the thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings are collected and bound in black volumes that an investigator can use easily, by topics. Because of our space limitation, it demands careful planning to make things function. So with God’s help we are getting the job done. Thank you for your prayers for us in the decisions we have to make. Our advisors have suggested that when we purchase the property for the library, it can rent class space to the Institute so that can give an income to the library to be self supported.

The good team of teachers has been a motivating force to encourage more students to enroll, even being of a low income. The students have the support of the teachers to help them and encourage them to reach their goals. Plus your financial help, their studies become reality. It is a joy to see among the very poor students excellent minds that are being developed for the Lord. Thank you for your part in sending $250 per year.

In the Panamerican University classes began also in January with the undergraduate and graduate programs. This year we started with a new doctoral program: Sociology of Religion. One of the students is an academic dean of a university and the other student is a consultant for publicity agencies, both who are professionals and actively involved in their churches.

I continue to travel and lead workshops for leaders all the time. In this picture I am giving two talks to 100 pastors and wives in the area of Quiche. Thank you again for being a part of our ministry.

“Whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

Your brother,

(Dr. ) Samuel Berberian

A letter from Martha - May 18, 2007

Sam has been involved with ministry for 50 years now. With our children, we organized a motivating service of thanks to God in April, which dates when Sam was converted in Argentina and began immediately to serve the Lord in street evangelism with other Armenian young men who were also converted. His first ministry was in pushing the sound system cart, setting it up with the record player, and controlling the volume for the microphones. Thousands met Jesus Christ in those 7 years of street ministry.

Sam’s next ministry (actually simultaneous) was with tracts through the mail, sending evangelistic literature all over Argentina to people who requested them. That was hard work but very effectual in winning more people to the Lord through literature.

Sharing with Sam in ministry for these past 42 years of marriage has never been boring. Of course, the first part of our ministry was with books, with the CLC bookstore in downtown Buenos Aires. See the picture. I was expecting Steve at that time. We are still working with books, using them as a tool in ministry, through books we have written, and books that we have collected to share through the medium of our well-stocked library of 12,500 volumes. I need to add that over a 1,000 books are stored in boxes as there is no room for them on the shelves, and they are not repeat titles.

After a two year trip in 25 countries (1968-1969), we were in Buenos Aires for a year, that was when Elizabeth (Lisa) was born.

Our next ministry was in pastoral work, three years in Beirut, Lebanon with the 2nd Armenian Brotherhood Church (see the picture during summer conference). As a young couple with two small children, we gave ourselves wholeheartedly to caring for the congregation.

From there we pastored 3 years in Topeka, Kansas, in English this time, again with special experiences, such as when Sam was a Police Chaplain.

Arriving in Guatemala in August of 1977, our work took a turn toward training leadership. This has been a challenging ministry, to raise up among young people and older people, leaders who know the Word, know their church and know their world, to make a difference. In the picture Sam and I are in a Doulos Foundation session, planning how to help Guatemalans grow spiritually and intellectually, through the Frederick Crowe Institute and the Nunez Library. Thanks for being a part of our ministry.

Income tax receipts are provided by Christ’s Mandate for Missions (CMM), Directed by Jorge and Anna Parrott. Please write your check to CMM and mail to P. O. Box 7705, Charlotte, North Carolina 28241, with a note “For Berberians in Guatemala”.