Local Teams Make a Difference
The Senior Team had a great outreach to the poor and migrant workers in Mesquite, NM with Heart for the World ministry. First the team boxed up donated groceries for distribution to 350 families. Then we played basketball and had fun with the children before ministering in music, drama and some really powerful testimonies to the people who met at a park. The kids helped prepare and serve a meal, and had good prayer times with those who responded. Pastor Dale Walker said that he had never seen the people be so responsive.
We’re preparing for the annual IGNITE youth conference, which will draw several hundred local kids for a day of youth led workshops and worship at Sunshine Community Church in April. This is sponsored by the local youth pastors’ fellowship. Our last event was a mostly for fun lock-in which drew 450+ kids in January. Each year we’ll have two fun events and two ministry events
In December, Junior Team went to India, Israel, Peru, China, and the Hopi Indian reservation! WOW…and they did it all in one day. How is this possible? It wasn’t time zones or just a small world. It was Mission Adventure Day. The team applied for pretend passports, got immunizations, raised thousands of dollars, applied for visas and even built their own airplane. All this to introduce them to world missions. Volunteers from Senior team and others that have been on real mission trips prepared food, pictures, and cultural experiences from the nations to teach our youngest missionaries about what they can look forward to doing in service to God.
In January, the team went to one of our favorite places, The Christian Home for Men. We ministered through performing arts and playing really fun games. We always love going to there and are blessed every time. It’s wonderful to see how Jesus knits together hearts in the most surprising ways.
In February, we joined Dave Arnold and his Mining club out in Oro Grande. That’s right real life gold mining still happens and surprisingly it’s loads of fun! But not surprisingly there are many biblical principles to be learned out in the desert searching for gold. Like, when God tells us to search for him like we do hidden treasure it’s not easy like we might want to expect…It was pretty hard work.
Spring Break Outreaches
Over 300 kids and adults from ages 5-83 came to Juarez from Canada, California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina for two different week long mission outreaches. They reached hundreds of children with Vacation Bible Schools, a medical outreach with doctors and nurses from El Paso and Juarez participating, worked with the Tarahumara Indians in children’s ministry and painting their center, distributed hundreds of Bibles house to house in a very poor colonia and did construction on a ministry center in eastern Juarez.
People came to the Lord every day, especially through door to door evangelism and women’s classes. One result of the women’s classes is a weekly Bible study and children’s program every Tuesday.
We saw a great response from the kids at the camp to God’s call on their lives to be set apart for Him. The spiritual growth, challenge and hearing God’s call that takes place during these camps is just as important as the outreach to lost people.
News from China
Every three years King’s Kids international leaders meet for a conference in Asia. The last two meetings were in Korea and Thailand, and this one was held in Shanghai, in Mainland China.. Leaders from 60 nations met for a week of encouragement, vision and planning aimed toward King’ Kids’ focus on Asia. It was a great opportunity to network with other leaders and pray collectively for God’s wisdom and blessing.
Here are a few surprising facts about China.
- 350 million cell phones- more than the population of the US
- more internet users than the US
- 221 dialects
- 1 million babies born every 3 weeks
- 30,000 people meet the Lord daily
- the constitution of China has especially strict laws preventing anyone under age 18 from receiving religious training
China is opening up to the Gospel despite continuing persecution of Christians in some places. We are planning on sending a small team to Beijing this summer to work in a Christian program with Chinese youth that’s sanctioned by the government!