Celebrating 16 years of God’s Faithfulness, Favor and Power
in International Ministry to Children and Teenagers
So many memories
We love serving the Lord through King’s Kids and Youth With A Mission. Here’s a summary of what we have seen God do in the last 16 years.
Discipleship Courses
Four books and nearly 30 booklets in print, distributed to Christian leaders in over 70 countries. Two Intensive Discipleship Course books have been published and are available worldwidewide through YWAM Publishing. Book three will be available in the spring of 2010!
Local Teams and Ministry
80 children and teenagers are involved in two monthly outreaches in the El Paso/ Juarez area, mission education and evangelism training. We have ministered in 26 local churches (and countless foreign ones), 12 public and 5 private schools, the Christian Home, Schaeffer House for teenage offenders, the juvenile detention center, Lee Moore Children’s Home, the Rescue Mission, the Opportunity Center, convalescent homes, hospitals, housing projects, YWAM training schools, crusade tents, youth conferences, the House of Cornelius and New Life Ranch children’s homes, secular service organizations, Young Life, two battered women’s shelters, youth coffeehouses, Cohen baseball stadium, a women’s conference, men’s meetings, New Mexico State University’s Campus Crusade group, the Baptist Student Ministry at UTEP and at Christ for the Nations.
Camps in Mexico
Over 60 camps with kids from 30 states and Canada coming to Juarez to experience a week of mission outreaches, building homes for the poor, orphanages and Christian schools, serving the needy and telling children the Good News.
Now Spring Break Outreaches are being held in El Paso due to drug cartel violence in Juarez.
Summer Mission Outreaches
Panama- our first experience living in the jungle and holding evangelistic assemblies in public schools and prisons.
Nicaragua- school evangelism in a country filled with hopelessness.
Paraguay-ministry to people from all over South America who came to the Americas Cup soccer tournament and in prisons.
India- first contact evangelism in villages where the people had never heard the Name of Jesus and pastoral training seminars.
The Philippines- three trips, including places so remote, not even the Mormons had been there, plus preaching the Gospel in prisons and schools including the world’s largest high school to crowds up to 7000 students.
Taiwan- outdoor evangelism and training Chinese youth for Christian leadership and evangelism in Mainland China.
Ecuador- ministry to countless poor children in the Andes and jungle, to lepers and 7000 people in the bullring.
Ethiopia- in the world's poorest nation, we worked with schools, many churches and youth groups, orphanages, feeding centers and hospitals. A busy day would put our team before 1000+ people in 2-3 places. Seeing the misery, AIDS orphans, leprosy, 60,000 street children in the capital city alone, incredible numbers of beggars and the rise of Islam was sobering.
Hong Kong- Jodie and I took a teams of 18 and 32 to intensely humid Hong Kong for five week trips. Chopsticks, strange food, pagan temples, ancestor worship, idolatry and heathen festivals were new experiences for the team!
Future Plans- a continued emphasis on the frontiers of the Gospel in Asia. As in all the trips above, we’ll take groups of teenagers from around the US with us.
Leadership Training…
In the US, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Croix, Grenada, Barbados, India and Mexico. We have begun King’s Kids ministries in most of these countries. Missionaries, pastors and young Christian leaders from about 20 nations have been in these leadership classes.
Conferences
In 7 states, Mexico, Korea, Mainland China, Canada and Thailand, I represented our region and reported what God is doing in El Paso, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean to hundreds of Christian leaders from about 80 nations.
India 2005- This was a 3 week trip to India to lead pastoral training seminars and preach in the cities of Nagpur, Wardha and Yavatmal. A side trip to Calcutta fulfilled a desire I’ve had for many years to see one of the spiritually darkest places in the world.
The local Mali tribal leaders came to the seminar to investigate Christianity for their people. The 8.5 million Malis had no known Christians among them, and zero churches! According to my pastor friend there, many are now going to his cousin’s church, where the seminar was held. I preached in village churches and a big regional conference where a radical Hindu paramilitary organization made serious threats against me, but God took care of everything.
We still enjoy it!
We love the richness of the experiences, the education for our children experiencing far off places, the adventures and the amazement that God chose us to participate with Him in bringing hope in Jesus to kids all over the world. Jodie and I enjoy working with a dedicated staff of hard working people whom we count among our closest friends. We’re not tired, burned out or coasting- it’s still full speed ahead!
We can hardly describe the impact on our lives. We have seen so much poverty that we could never complain again. We’ve had interviews or coverage on national TV or radio in Haiti, Paraguay, Panama, and Ecuador, and been translated into about 15 languages. We have ministered in the largest churches in Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama, and had a few close brushes with eternity in Haiti and India. The Lord has protected us through intense spiritual warfare in many countries. We’ve eaten things you’d rather not know about, lived in the jungle, and shared rooms with rats, bats and giant spiders. We have so many friends overseas and love people of all colors and cultures. We’ve met government officials and experienced great Divine favor. The Lord has done so much, and all credit for the things in this report goes to Him. May He receive honor from our lives and service!
About our Finances
Many people ask how we are funded. We do not receive any salary or benefits from King’s Kids or YWAM. All missionaries in our organization are supported by people and churches. We have 5 churches that send us offerings totaling $850 per month. We rarely receive honorariums or offerings for ministering to kids. Youth leader training seminars totaled $700 and book sales brought in $950 last year. People like you who believe in the effectiveness of what we are doing are the means the Lord uses to pay our family’s bills and ministry expenses.
As directors of the King’s Kids base, there is no salary, insurance, retirement or other benefits provided to us…but job security is great since the needs of kids around the world are staggering, and we can look forward to excellent eternal retirement benefits!
By God's grace, our fruitfulness and the scope of responsibilities the Lord has given us continues to increase. We tithe and give offerings to many needs overseas. God’s provision for the last decade has been amazing, and we will continue to trust Him. We are believing for God’s supply to meet our needs. We also need to think more about earthly retirement finances.
We are so grateful to each person God has called to support us so faithfully over the years. Many people say they admire what we are doing, but fewer take responsibility to help us do it! It’s always a blessing when we get letters telling us that the Lord has increased the income of our supporters, so they are increasing their offerings. Increased donations and new supporters are the way people in our type of faith missions get raises. Please continue to follow God’s leading in supporting us. You are an essential part of everything in this ten year report!
Isaiah 32:20 Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out freely the feet of the ox and the donkey.
The Fruit
Our own spiritual lives continue to grow. All four of our children are walking with the Lord and serving Him. We’ve grown in faith as we’ve seen God’s faithfulness and protection, and learned His compassion toward the poor and how to serve others.
¨Local teenagers have now gone into missionary service in 77 nations.
¨Thousands of kids have tasted missions through camps in Mexico.
¨Hundreds of youth have experienced mission outreaches overseas and learned to share their faith with others.
¨Many foreign pastors and churches have been encouraged and strengthened.
¨Many Christian leaders have fresh vision to reach kids for the Lord.
¨Countless kids and adults have heard the message of new life in Jesus.