Local Teams Begin

Local teams got off to a great start with our Senior Team retreat in September. We spent the weekend in Cloudcroft, New Mexico where we focused on God’s theme for the team this year, “Seeing Him who is invisible.” The time there was packed with worship, teaching, team building, and a lot of fun, food, and fellowship. Most of all, the team that is a bit young this year made up of mostly 13– 16 year olds focused on the Lord and His plans for our teams in ministry this year.

Junior team began with the return of Dave and Mary Arnold as directors. They have a strong desire from the Lord to see the youngest members of King’s Kids come away with firm foundations in Biblical truth, resulting in an unshakable faith in God and assurance of their salvation that they can share with others. The theme for the year is, “If God says it, it’s a FACT,” and appropriately the team name is Myth Busters!

Over the month of October both team met regularly to prepare ministry tools for the year. Ministry preparation days are always long and jam packed with teaching, prayer, learning choreography, and generally doing what ever is needed to be ready for the many outreach and ministry opportunities that will come our way during the year. Both teams have put together performing arts programs that are geared toward ministering the many Spanish speaking people in our community and in Juarez. The songs and dances range from lots of fun salsa style, to powerful worship songs like “Canta al Senor/ Shout to the Lord ”. Both teams have also invested a lot of preparation time in giving testimonies declaring the truth and reality of God in each one of our day to day lives.

We are planning a variety of outreach opportunities with both teams. Our November kick-off was a combined team family outreach in Juarez. Each month after that will be doing a range of things like evangelism in the plaza, friendship and performing arts at the Christian Men’s Home, training and ministering with a youth group from Chihuahua, packaging food for the poor, teaching workshops at the Ignite Youth Conference, and a lot more...even gold mining!

We are looking forward to discovering what the Lord has in store for us this year and are blessed to be able to minister with such an amazing group of young people. Really, we are honored to be a part of what our Heavenly Father desires to do in this world through even His youngest children.

Juarez Fall Outreach

The 36 teenagers, 12 adults and our staff pictured here spent a week in November working in eastern Juarez. We were warmly greeted by the women from Jodie’s weekly Bible study, who prepared tamales for all of us and shared their testimonies. We can really see the fruit of their efforts to reach the women and children there. The presence of the Lord is very noticeable in some of their lives. The stories of deliverance from drug addiction and transformation in their families are powerful. One woman who hosts the group spoke to the team, and her husband gave his testimony at an outdoor evangelistic meeting held on Wednesday night. Both were addicts, and their example of changed lives speaks loudly in a community saturated with drugs. Of the kids here who get involved in drugs, and not all do, most begin about age nine! The children’s program for about 100 kids was based on the theme of our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit, and had an anti-drug abuse emphasis.

This building was constructed by teenage labor at our spring and fall camps, and is just opening up. The local gangs covered it with graffiti right after this picture was taken. It’s outfitted with weight benches and other gym equipment. The plan is to use it as an outreach to the local gang members, with a missionary who lives in the neighborhood opening up four nights each week. This is a tough neighborhood! One room is empty, with an aerobics class led by a Christian instructor to begin soon. The medical outreach in the trailer shown here kept three doctors busy seeing many patients, including enough with symptoms of hepatitis that they feared a major outbreak could begin. The trailer itself was donated to the ministry we partner with in Juarez by Christians from Longview who saw the need after coming to Spring Break with us last year. It was a busy and fruitful week, with many great testimonies of the impact both on the students and the local people.

Mainland China Outreach

Last summer four King’s Kids from El Paso, who are now college students, had an amazing door of ministry open in China. Here’s their story.

“The first week was in Hong Kong, where my small team of 4 worked directly under the founder of King's Kids to help unite the churches and youth groups of the city. We spent time building close relationships with many kids as we discipled them on having a solid relationship with Christ. God gave us awesome opportunities to really reach into their lives- we prayed with many of the youth who were suicidal and I counseled one girl who had planned on murdering her mom...God was faithful to bring her to a place of forgiveness and she and I are still in close contact. God is good! The second week of the outreach my team staffed the Gateway Camp, which is an international camp aimed at using Hong Kong as the key gateway for Christianity to be taken into mainland China. The camp had several hundred people from over 24 different countries. It was incredible to see so many people from extremely different cultures, backgrounds and languages come together to passionately intercede for China. My team was put in charge of leading worship, running sound and children's ministry. I also spoke on reconciliation during one of the morning sessions and the Lord really moved through the camp! There was a long time of ministry afterwards and I was approached all throughout the rest of the week from people who really needed prayer in the area of forgiveness.

The bulk of my summer, however, was spent in Beijing for a government-sponsored camp. They arranged a camp that gathered some of the top students in all of China to learn moral attributes from Christians for a period of 2 weeks. It was an amazing time that challenged my faith and deepened my dependency on Christ an incredible amount. This was a huge responsibility since there was so much pressure from the government to have a successful camp. I was also working with some of the top Christians in all of China- God has definitely provided me with some very key contacts!

The door to letting Christians into China is being widened. Praise the Lord!”

Contact our office for the full story!