Costa Mesa Group Links Churches in U.S., Socialist Nations

A new organization linking American churches with those in Communist and Socialist countries has been launched in Costa Mesa by a British and a Soviet Christian.

In its first 9 weeks, Assist, which stands for Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times, has lined up 50 churches in Cuba for U.S. churches to “adopt” in its Sister Church program, according to Dan Wooding, 48, journalist, author and the new ministry’s president.

Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa has also pledged $15,000 and the support of its 400 affiliated churches worldwide for the nonprofit, nondenominational program, he said.

“His program is something the church will definitely be involved in,” said Rick Dedrick, missions pastor at Calvary Chapel. “We have supported him not only on a one-time basis, but will continue to support him monthly financially,” he said.

In addition to providing another avenue for worldwide evangelism, Dedrick said Christians in other parts of the world need their prayers, money and “face-to-face contact to broaden Christ’s vision for the world.”

A letter of support for Assist will be included in the church’s monthly newsletter to its affiliates. Their involvement is voluntary, he said.

U.S. churches in the program specify a country of interest, then receive a profile of their sister church, Wooding said. Members are encouraged to visit the church, determine its needs and then fulfill them.

“Hopefully, they’ll be very much encouraged by the caliber of Christians they meet in the country. They will learn tremendous lessons from Christians who live under persecution,” Wooding said.

As a result, he said, “I think we’ll get a rejuvenated church in America.”

According to Wooding, an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population lives in what he termed “restricted” countries, those in which he said ordinary missionaries are not allowed to live and preach. Those countries are primarily Communist, Socialist or Muslim, he said.

Assist’s targeted countries include Poland, China and Ethiopia, Wooding said. “Project Glasnost,” a separate program of Assist, will raise money to send 1,000 young evangelists to the Soviet Union this summer.

Nicaragua also is targeted, even though evangelical sects have gained a strong foothold there because a group of Miskito Indians from that country’s Atlantic Coast have had their Moravian churches “torched” by the Sandinistas, Wooding said.

Also targeted will be about 20 churches in Egypt, which is predominantly Muslim and does not allow ordinary missionaries to live and preach there, Wooding said.

Wooding said Assist is not politically motivated, and does not target anti-Communist countries. “None of these things are meant to have any political base,” he said. “We’re basically an advocate for Christians who are living under persecution, whether from the right, the left or Islam.”

Assist is also recruiting “prayer warriors,” people who will pray for Christians in those countries, raise money for ministers working there and help assimilate Christians coming to the United States.

They say they are also going to pass out portions of the Bible to gain converts, according to an Assist membership brochure.

The brochure offers individual memberships starting at $10 and corporate memberships at $400 a year.

Wooding, a publicist for 10 years for Open Doors with Brother Andrew, the evangelical “Bible smuggling” organization based in Santa Ana, formed Assist with Soviet immigrant Lida Vashchenko, 38, of Garden Grove.

Vashchenko is one of the so-called “Siberian Seven”--Christians who lived for 2 years in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to call attention to religious persecution in the Soviet Union. She will head the organization’s program to help assimilate Christian refugees, mainly from Eastern and Central Europe.

Born in Nicaragua to British missionary parents, Wooding has written for several British publications, including Sunday People and Sunday Mirror, and he was a correspondent for the National Enquirer. Later, he specialized in stories written for the Christian and secular media about Christians being persecuted for their faith in such countries as Albania, Romania, China, Cuba, El Salvador, Uganda and Lebanon. In 1984, he received first prize from the national Evangelical Press Assn. for eyewitness reporting from Lebanon.

In the United States, he appears on Trinity Broadcasting Network’s “Joy” program and has been a guest on the evangelical “700 Club” television show and Wally’s George’s “Hot Seat” program. He lives in Garden Grove with his wife, Norma.