ABOUT CORNERSTONE MINISTRIES

ABOUT OUR MISSION.

ABOUT OUR FOUNDERS.

ALL ABOUT JESUS.

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Founded from generations of faith.

MEET OUR FOUNDERS,
MAYNARD & DORTHY HOWE

A black and white photograph of an elderly man and woman standing together, both wearing glasses. The man is dressed in a suit with a tie, and the woman is wearing a light-colored blouse or jacket.

Maynard A Howe Sr.
February 21, 1909, to October 6, 2001

Maynard was born in 1909 in a small town west of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He left this town in his early twenties and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he eventually went to work for a large printing company, becoming a supervisor of one of its departments. In the years leading up to his conversion in his early thirties, Mayard became the Northwest wrestling champion and developed a high level of skill in the martial arts of judo and jiujitsu, which he taught to many police officers, firefighters, and rescue workers. He also became an avid hunter and fisherman with a deep appreciation for the outdoors. These skills would serve him well later in his life as he became a missionary to many countries where he endured harsh conditions and threats to his life.

After his conversion, Maynard became proficient in the Scriptures and began ministering to local churches, eventually becoming the cofounder of a church in St. Paul. At the age of 50, he felt that God was calling him to be a missionary among the Cree, Saultex, and Ojibway Indian tribes in isolated villages in Northern Manitoba, Canada. For the next eighteen years, he traveled extensively to these reservations, preaching the message of Jesus Christ, bringing clothes, household goods, and other necessities to people in need. He established churches, helped build homes, and arranged for medical services to reservations when they were needed. His early years as an athlete, a lover of the outdoors, served him well as he endured difficult travel to these reservations and often experienced harsh winter weather, fierce snowstorms, and fifty-below-zero weather. He chronicled his travels and God’s miraculous salvations, healings, and life-changing results to countless numbers of men, women, and children on multiple reservations throughout Manitoba.

After his missionary work in Canada, Maynard traveled and ministered in the following countries: the Philippines, Belize, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the Islands in the Caribbean. After his full-time ministry in the field, he assisted missionaries and pastors in numerous countries, such as Kenya, India, Uganda, Puerto Rico, and others by providing them with Bibles, financial support, and educational materials. Together with members of his local church, Maynard formed Men for Missions, LLC, which was the forerunner of Cornerstone Ministries. For his work as a pastor, missionary, and humanitarian, Maynard was awarded an honorary doctorate from an International Christian organization.

Dorthy M. Howe
June 18, 1915 to May 31, 2009

Dorthy grew up in the heart of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. At the age of 13, her father passed away. Since her mother had to work long hours to support her and her two brothers, Dorthy became in charge of the household, responsible for cooking meals, baking bread and desserts, cleaning, washing clothes, and other household duties. She took care of her younger brother and became a strong support to her mother, who struggled to make ends meet. During her early years and up until her marriage to Maynard Howe Sr., Dorthy developed excellent skills and a strong constitution that prepared her for marriage, for the motherhood of eight children, and for the strong support she gave to her missionary husband.

After her husband left for the mission field, Dorthy worked to help support the family by taking on jobs in restaurants, pharmacies, and household cleaning and at the same time provided for the younger children who were still at home. Over the years that her husband was in the mission field, she was an active participant in his ministry by helping to secure clothing and household items that were sent to the mission field. She sent out thousands of Bibles and educational materials and was an active participant in raising funds to support the construction of housing for orphans and widows and for churches and educational learning centers. She became the inspiration for the construction and operation of the Dorthy Howe Learning Centers in the Philippines. Dorthy was known as a woman who deeply cared for children and women in her church and her neighborhood. Up until the last days on earth, she mentored and counseled hundreds of women and children and took many of them into her home, where she provided them with motherly love, affection, and spiritual guidance.

Dorthy was an integral part of missionary work that led to the formation of Cornerstone Ministries. She never wavered in her role as a faithful daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and child of God. Dorthy became a believer in her Savior Jesus Christ about eight years after her marriage. The positive change in her life as a result of this experience led her husband to give his life over to his Savior.

A classroom with children sitting at tables learning, with teachers assisting. There is a chalkboard with alphabet and number posters on the wall.
A classroom with a teacher standing at the front near a chalkboard, teaching young students who are seated at desks, with educational posters on the walls.

DR. MAYNARD’S WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).

  • In 1976, Dr. Maynard Howe Sr. visited the Philippine Islands on one of his many missionary trips. During his time in this country, he met with local pastors, parishioners, and citizens while also spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ through preaching, home visits, and prayer meetings. During his trip, Dr. Howe became aware of the tremendous problem in the Philippines with vast numbers of orphans and widows who were without the basic needs of housing, food, water, and protection from both the severe weather and from those that had evil intentions to harm them.

    Shortly after returning to his home, Dr. Howe, with encouragement from the local pastors in the Philippians, began raising funds from his family and a few of his friends to build refuge centers for widows and orphans. Within a few years after his visit, he had raised enough money to build four homes for widows and orphans, each home to house two widows and four orphans and each home and yard equipped to provide work for the residents, which in a short time would make the dwelling place and earning from the work sufficient to support every occupant in the home with the necessities of life and a fair wage for those providing the work.

  • In addition to the widows and orphans’ homes, Dr. Howe raised funds to build additional learning centers and churches. Over several years and up until his passing in 2001, Dr. Howe continued to raise funds to help build churches, several Sunday schools, and kindergarten schools.

  • Cornerstone has picked up the mantle from Dr. Howe’s work in the Philippines. The need to provide support for widows, orphans, and those suffering from the harmful effects of human trafficking is enormous. According to the Philippine Orphanage Foundation, there are over two million orphans in this country. The United Nations Children’s Fund reported in the year 2020 that there are estimated to be two million, nine hundred thousand widows in the Philippines. Human trafficking, now the second largest criminal enterprise in the world. is a major problem in the Philippines, with an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 Filipino children impacted by labor or sex trafficking. (Estimate from Exodus Road)

    Cornerstones’ programs are inspired by the legacy of Dr. Howe and by Apostle Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus, where he encouraged the believers “to do good works” as is stated in the verse that heads this section.