One to One with Sam Poe

Terry first met Sam Poe in Mexico many years ago. Now he is based on the West Coast of the USA and travels to many countries. He is increasingly involved with David Devenish in Russia and former Soviet nations. His prophetic ministry has often been influential in helping us find direction and form strategy as a movement.

Andy Martin (Bedford, UK) caught up with him in Crimea.

AM: Sam, how did you get involved in the work in Russia and Ukraine?
SP: The story began about five years ago. I was at the African School of Leadership in South Africa with Marlene, my wife. Very early one morning I was awakened with a phrase flowing through my mind repeatedly, kind of a sing-song phrase, ‘there’s a Caucus in the Caucasus’. I felt it was from the Lord but at that point in time I didn’t know where the Caucasus were, although I knew the word caucus in our culture would mean a team, usually with a political intention or purpose. I had a little atlas with me and as I looked it up I sensed the witness of the Spirit and felt something was happening in the Caucasus region, which is in South West Russia. Later that morning, when I shared this phrase with some of the leaders, Terry Virgo asked if I knew that David Devenish was involved with some churches in the Caucasus region and that I should talk to him about it.

Some time later, at a conference in England, David Devenish introduced me to Valery Seleznev and some of the other Russian guys and I told them about this strange word that I had in Africa. Once again, as I was sharing it, we felt the witness of the Spirit. So Valery invited me to come and help them build the team, and that is how I wound up coming to Russia and the Ukraine for these last five years.

AM: So when you are not visiting here where are you based?
SP: For the last ten years I have been part of the leadership team at Jubilee Church in St Louis, Missouri. I went to St Louis to join John Lanferman and the team that he was forming to plant the church.

AM: Tell us a little bit about your background – how did you first come to faith, Sam?
SP: I was raised in a Christian home and early on in my life I was exposed to the things of God. My parents had come to Christ in the earlier days of the Pentecostal movement and they had three children soon after they married. Then there was a nineteen-year gap and I was born. Not long after I was born, my nineteen-year-old sister responded to a call to go to Japan as a missionary after the Second World War and has been there ever since serving the Lord.

So I grew up with an awareness of God and mission, but in my early adolescence I got away from the Lord and deeply backslid. When I was about nineteen, I had a real encounter with God in the beginning of the Jesus Movement in the Western part of the United States. I was swept into involvement with a mini revival. I think that was the point I was really converted and my sister’s influence had put a sort of DNA in me for the nations. As I gave my life to God I knew I would go to people in other nations.

AM: When was it that you met Marlene, your wife?
SP: I met Marlene in about 1973. I made connection with the church that she was attending. She was part of a singing group and I would invite them to sing at our church and I noticed her. As time went by I spoke with her pastor and asked if it would be OK if a relationship might start and he gave his approval. So I wrote Marlene a letter – by the time I got round to writing it she had gone to serve as a missionary working with the native Canadians in Canada and I was very impressed! I thought, ‘Wow, she’s involved in mission to another nation!’ and this was certainly something I had in my heart, so our relationship started with letter-writing. About six months later she came back to the area of Portland and we began dating. Within a further six months we were married.

AM: And did you stay based in that same part of the US?
SP: Yes, I was leading a small church in Washington State for the first number of years of our married life. Then God began to deal with us strongly about going to Mexico and in 1984 we left pastoring that church and made a move to Mexico.

AM: Tell us a little about what you did in Mexico. Did you need to learn another language?
SP: Yes. The first thing that I did was get into a language school. Marlene was working with a tutor who was Flora Evans, John Evan’s wife in Guadalajara. We spent about a year there studying language and during that year I was involved in church life and had opportunity to do some teaching as I was gaining my language skills. During that time there was a massive earthquake, which devastated Mexico City and other cities. We moved to a city called Ciudad Guzmán, about 80 miles from Guadalajara, and spent a year there in a young church plant alongside some friends who were helping in the relief effort among the people who had lost their homes in the earthquake.

AM: So when did you first begin to link up with Terry and Newfrontiers?
SP: During our first year, while I was still in language school, it was actually in 1985, Terry and Ray Lowe came to Mexico to be at the church in El Camino and Terry gave his teaching on grace. I was so taken by it, I said this is what I signed up for, this is what I want. I remember having a chance to talk to Terry and Ray and asking them questions about what was going on in England and I learnt a little about Newfrontiers. Nothing further came of our conversation until several years later. We had moved and were planting a church in Los Mochis.

God began speaking to me about becoming part of an apostolic community and in 1990 I received a powerful prophetic word about it. About that time, one of the churches we had strong relationships with in the state of Missouri were going through a difficult time. They asked Terry to help and give apostolic leadership to their situation. In all of this God spoke to Terry and Wendy about moving to America for an extended period.

When I heard this I immediately realised Newfrontiers was the movement that the Lord had been stirring my heart about. I wrote to Terry asking if we could begin to build relationship together with a view to him bringing apostolic oversight to us in Mexico. He came to Mexico and visited our church in Los Mochis. At that time we were thinking about moving to plant another church but as we talked to Terry we felt that we should join him in Missouri. He said we could build together and I would catch his heart and be influenced. The idea was to stay there one year and then return to Mexico, but over the course of time the plan to plant the church in St Louis emerged and Terry asked if we and John and Linda Lanferman would consider going to St Louis. We had become really good friends with John and Linda so we felt that it was right. So for these last ten years we’ve been based in St Louis and we’ve learned many things about living and working together in team, and it’s been a transforming experience.

AM: So you and Marlene have moved around a lot and not stayed in one place. How has that affected family life? Do you have children and how easy has it been to move around?
SP: We have three children, Aaron, Andy and Abigail, and we have moved a lot over the course of our life together. I think that at this point, now they’re all grown up, they would say that it’s been a great adventure with the Lord and would have a real appreciation for having had the opportunity to do some of the things that we’ve done.

AM: Has there been a price that you’ve had to pay as a family?
SP: Well I don’t think about that very much really. I think about the privilege that it’s been. We have been through some times of struggle and battle; I think that’s common to life and particularly common to being involved in church planting for sure. We’ve gone through some times of difficulty as a family but we’ve seen God’s faithfulness. We’re thankful that our children have all met the Lord and love the Lord and we feel like God has really blessed us as a family.

AM: Tell us a bit more about working cross-culturally.
SP: I think any time you move into a new culture you’re reduced in some ways to being a child again. Nothing goes according to the cultural dictates that you’re used to and you need to learn a way of thinking, a new world view. I have been greatly affected by some things I learned early on when I was planning to go to Mexico.

I learnt not to go in with a presupposition that you know what the culture is; you have to be a learner in the situation. Then, as you begin to learn culture, you can begin to share something of yourself and share things that you’ve been able to understand out of your own background. So there’s this trading of stories, trading of experiences with new friends in a new culture. I am finding increasingly that actually telling the stories of the gospel becomes a powerful expression because everybody loves a good story.

AM: Those lessons must have helped you in your work with David in the former Soviet Union.
SP: Yes they have. In these last years we’ve had opportunity to work along with David in serving the churches both in the Caucasus region and in eastern Ukraine especially. We’ve spent considerable time with Valery and the church in Armavir and have also visited numbers of the churches that are related more specifically to that region and who receive the apostolic ministry and team that Valery represents there. Again, we’ve found great friendship and our hearts have really been linked and joined to Valery and the other guys that work there in team with him in the region in the North Caucasus.

We’ve also had opportunity to spend time in East Ukraine in Krasny Luch and to visit the churches there that are served by a team led by Anatoly and Andrey. Again warm relationships have emerged. We’ve been deeply touched by the zeal and desire that we see in so many of the churches in the Ukraine to plant new churches and in reaching out to the poor.

AM: And you’re now on the move again. Where are you going and what is your role in that?
SP: Right now we’re trying to sell our house and are planning to move to the Seattle Tacoma area where we’ll be involved in a new church plant. There’s a team going led by Bo Noonan and his wife Alexis. We’ll be alongside the team and very much a part of that, helping plant that church and I’ll be serving more as a coach to the team. The Seattle Tacoma area is very multicultural. It’s part of the Pacific Rim and we’re believing for a strong church with a multicultural focus and a real vision to reach out to the nations from there. I will also be giving leadership to the churches that are there in the North West, representing our apostolic team in that region.

AM: You’re clearly passionate about church planting and the nations – tell us some more.
SP: Well I do feel a great passion for people who’ve never had an opportunity to know the Lord or hear the message of the gospel and to respond. I’m so grateful for what the Lord’s done in my life and for how He’s had mercy on me and how His grace has been extended to me. I want to see God glorified in places that are now held in the darkness of superstition and materialism, and all of the things the enemy sets up to try and keep people out of relationship with God.

We want to see the Lord glorified and exalted among all the peoples of the earth because He’s worthy to be praised and He looks for worshippers. I want to see worshippers from everywhere, as in the great picture in the book of Revelation, this innumerable host of people from every nation. The fact that they’re from different nations is still there even in this vision of heaven and they’re all enjoying God, they’re all around the throne worshipping and delighting in Him for ever. That’s a passion that’s gripped my soul.

AM: Thank you Sam for sharing with us. We’ll look out for further developments with great interest and expectation!

One to One with Sam Poe

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