Spring Break Outreach Report
This year King’s Kids El Paso hosted three consecutive weeks of Spring Break Outreach in Juarez, Mexico.
Week 1: 160 kids and their leaders from Massachusetts, Colorado, South Carolina, California and all over Texas and New Mexico conducted a weeklong program for children at an orphanage, built a new house for a poor pastor and did construction projects including painting, carpentry and cement slabs for a Christian drug rehab center and a Christian school.
The first day got off to an unforgettable start in a poor neighborhood where one of the churches we work with is planting a new ministry. The kids distributed Bibles door to door, cleaned up a local park and painted over the graffiti, then spent time with the local kids playing soccer, basketball and volleyball. In the midst of all this, a gang fight erupted. Suddenly bottles and rocks were flying and we hurried to get our kids out of danger. Teenage boys came out of everywhere and the fighting was fierce. They beat each other viciously with pipes and tire irons. Just as quickly, it was over. Many of our kids were in tears and we had a powerful prayer time with the new pastor and his family, who know they are in a dangerous place. The experience gave the kids a lot of insight into life in these poor neighborhoods.
Week 2 brought 60 kids and adults from New Mexico. They continued with the same service projects and evangelism. God worked in an amazing way, with tremendous personal ministry lots of memorable experiences.
Week 3 began Easter Sunday with another 60 kids and adults from Canada. In addition to construction projects at the pastor’s home and a shelter for Tarahumara Indians who come to Juarez from the mountains in central Mexico, the kids insulated and re-roofed the Indians’ living area. These desperately poor people responded to God’s love shown through friendship with the Canadian kids and playing together at a park.
Junior Team has Challenging and Successful Year
This year was a full and exciting one for 40 Junior Team participants aged 8-12. In the fall, we felt God called us to instill the importance of a deep and growing relationship with Him and to teach foundational truths. We dedicated two outreach weekends to in house times of teaching and even “traveling to five countries” during an all day missions event.
The kids learned that in ministry when there are last minute changes to a plan, they can still jump in and serve our God with great enthusiasm! This year we were able to winterize homes and do two Vacation Bible Schools in Anapra, Mexico. We also were able to minister at the Christian Men’s Home. Our last weekend was an exciting one working with “Charlie’s Lunch”, a weekly program that feeds poor children. In a neighborhood where a Juarez church was planting a new ministry, we had a time to play with kids, did puppet shows, and had lunch together. The local pastor that we worked with told us that the only religious contact they have in that community is when a priest comes once a month to hear confession. Several families asked the pastor if they could go with him to church the next day!
It is an honor and a privilege for us to work with this group, and we know and have seen that kids CAN make a difference in the kingdom of God!
Summer of Service Coming Up
This summer is going to be great! This year’s theme for the Summer of Service in Mexico will be servant leadership. The Summer of Service will include worship, intercession, training, evangelism, performing arts and friendship building. The team will go to Chihuahua City where there is an opportunity to work with the pastor of a small church that wants to reach into their community and beyond to other surrounding towns. We will do this through children’s evangelism with a Vacation Bible School, park evangelism and construction.
Dave Arnold will lead the team of approximately 30 teenagers and adult staff. They will start the adventure June 26 with a three day Extreme Encounter in the wilderness of New Mexico for team bonding, spiritual and physical challenge. Next will be four days of training in Chihuahua, then two weeks of outreach and debrief. The team will return July 15 and finish on the 16th. The results of the mission outreach will last a lifetime!
Senior Team IGNITEs Peers
In January the Senior Team participated in an Ignite youth conference in Los Lunas, New Mexico. This is an idea founded by our team in which the key teenagers from various youth groups in an area conduct an entirely teenage led conference. Kids lead all the workshops, lead worship, minister to their peers and give back all that their leaders have invested in them. It was a great time with over 200 youth from many churches involved.
April 27 marked the second annual Ignite conference in El Paso, which drew 275 youth and their leaders from several churches to a full day of ministry at St. Clement church. King’s Kids led 10 of the 24 workshops, performed a drama and enjoyed fellowship with youth from all over the city and as far away as the Albuquerque area.
Haiti Outreach a Success
The Haitian people and culture bear the scars of their turbulent history. France began Haiti as a slave colony, and it was their philosophy to work slaves to death, because they could always import more. In 1791 the slaves called upon the voodoo gods to help them and won a revolution against France. The founding fathers of Haiti officially dedicated the nation to serving the gods of voodoo- in effect, to Satan. This covenant was reaffirmed in 1991 with a government ceremony and voodoo ritual to "preserve Haiti's cultural roots." Is it any wonder that a country with this spiritual heritage would be one of the most miserable and poor nations in the world?
In April Vinnie Carafano and Karen Rissling went to northern Haiti to conduct a leadership training conference for youth workers. Then over 100 Haitian kids attended a training camp with their youth leaders in a beautiful jungle canyon. The young people came to the camp to learn how to share the Gospel with others and form a team of King’s Kids who will minister in their nation. The kids were enthusiastic and some of the older ones are impressive preachers. We ministered in a packed Baptist church on Sunday, then outdoors in a primitive village known for its witch doctors that afternoon. This was a truly great week of ministry.
The camp generated lots of enthusiasm. E-mails since we returned tell of plans for leadership training for their teenagers followed by an outreach to their own nation this summer. We’re considering taking a team there in the next few years.