Spring Break Outreaches Last month about 220 kids and families came for two different weeks of Spring Break Outreach in Juarez. Our staff led them in construction, children’s ministry and Bible distribution. Here are some of the best testimonies from the two weeks in Mexico:
· One of the men who went into the Christian drug rehab center right after last Spring Break (you may remember reading about this last year) came and testified to the group that he has been completely drug free for eight months. His wife and kids had left him because of his violence and addiction, but the Lord has restored their family. There is a lot of drug abuse in the neighborhood, and we know of drug addicts as young as 10 years old, and have heard of addiction at age 7!
· Jodie and her friend Ana were summoned to the home of a desperate man in the final days of his battle with cancer. He gave his life to Christ and his family followed him. Just a few days ago, he went to be with the Lord.
· People in the colonia came to the Lord nearly every day. One of the door to door evangelism and Bible distribution teams met a man who told them they needed to talk to his wife. She was very depressed and immediately opened her heart to the Lord. He gives hope to the hopeless!
· The team made huge progress on the construction of the new community center building in the Chavita colonia. The rickety house that was on the property was torn down and the walls and part of the slab of the new 1700 square foot building went up. As donations for the project come in, the walls and roof will be finished and the building will be completed inside
.· We were amazed at how many people from the colonia worked hard on the construction projects as unpaid volunteers alongsi
de our kids.
· Youth and adults who came to the outreach responded to the worship and preaching each night. We’re discovering in different settings that even many kids who are raised in Christian families and go to church have only a mental concept of what it means to be a Christian. Often they point back to a quick prayer at age 6 or 8 at a Vacation Bible School or church service, but cannot testify to any reality of knowing Jesus. Our small group leaders reported that kids were saying they realized that they knew about God without knowing Him. Here are a few of the comments from their evaluation forms:
· “I was really changed by the message on Thursday. I probably cried for an hour with my dad.”
· “This outreach brang me closer to God.”
· “Now I believe I am a genuine Christian and to have a relationship with Him is everything.”
· “I learned that I didn’t really have a relationship with Him.”· “I really understood how sinful I am and how merciful God was for taking that away.”
· “We need to stop giving in to Satan. We should follow God always.”
Local Teams The 9-12 year old Junior Team went to fire stations to minister to the firefighters. This was really successful and a lot of fun for the kids. They were able to share testimonies, songs and pray for the men there. This year’s theme for the children is loving God and loving your neighbor, and we emphasized loving and serving your community on that day. In February the 9-12 year old Junior Team took a pretend mission outreach. Our staff and volunteers were in different rooms representing Russia, India, Israel, Australia and Guatemala with food, foreign clothing, information and spreading the vision of why we do mission outreaches. We want them to get excited about reaching out to a lost world. The most important part was hearing the sincerity of these young children as they prayed for the people in those countries. It was really powerful! We took the Senior Team to the Albuquerque area for the ninth annual IGNITE youth conference. About 300 kids came. Our team led workshops on purity, worship, being a man of God, the arts, anger and prayer. It’s great to see God work at these conferences.
Summer Plans in Hong Kong Vinnie and Jodie Carafano’s team of about 24 teenagers, college students and adults is eager to go to Hong Kong for 4 ½ weeks. Here’s a little history. We worked with Dale Kauffman, the founder of King’s Kids, in Taiwan in 2002 with the first camp for Christian kids to come together for training and preparation to reach China. Then in 2005 the camp moved to Hong Kong, where we had about 150 people. The next two years we sent small teams of college students from El Paso to work with the camps and go into Mainland China. Last year they had to cut off the registration at 1200 youth because that was all the camp could hold. This year 3000 youth from 50-70 countries are expected! After the training camp, they will break into smaller teams, pairing Hong Kong Christian youth with foreigners, and go into Mainland China and the Hong Kong region. This is an incredible opportunity to impact kids from around the world. Summer of ServiceDave and Mary Arnold will take a team to a youth conference and outreach at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. They write, “We are so excited about this year’s S.O.S. This year is unlike any outreach that we have done so far, as it will include more discipleship in the areas that are so very important in equipping us as saints for all that God wants to do in us, and through us, in these last days. This will include the following: * Knowing our God, His personality, character, emotion and heart of Love towards His people* Knowing who we are in God, our place and standing in Christ* Understanding, according to the Word, how God wants to reveal Himself through us in these last days* Encountering and experiencing the presence of God We live in exciting times as we see world events shaping up before us, let’s look and see what God is doing in the earth and how we fit in the picture as His servants. God is in control! Let’s not waste one day of our lives wondering why we exist, fooling around with sin, and living for selfish goals. Let’s be kingdom minded, walking in the Spirit and living in all the fullness of God!”