November Newsletter--Bible Belt?

Pictures: Kids at an outreach to military children listen to a puppet skit presented by me and a CEF volunteer.

God provided this studio apartment (view from the front door) I am enjoying during my internship.

The CEF of Kentucky team includes Kari and Randy Ash, Audrey and Nathan Hamilton, and temporarily me.

The day after I arrived in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, the amn changing my oil assumed my Kansas license plate meant I was one of many soldiers overflowing the towns surrounding Fort Knox. When I told him I was actually here to intern with Child Evangelism Fellowship, he asked if I was Mormon. He said his mother was Mormon but that he was pagan. Not exactly what I expected from one of the first people I'd conversed with in the Bible Belt.

Nor did I expect the mindset exhibited by neighbors who, after discovering I was a missionary and telling me they'd been Christians all their lives, informed me they hadn't been to church in twenty years and offered me a beer and a cigarette. (After I declined, their next offer was Kool-Aid).

While the area phone book does list almost 150 churches, I'm surprised by how small their congregations are, and the area is filled with children who have never heard the message of salvation. Twenty-seven Good News Clubs are currently reaching children in Kentucky with this message. But we want every child in the state to have the opportunity to hear, a goal that reminds me of Jesus' statement about the ready harvest and the few workers. CEF of Kentucky has a team of just five people. That includes me, a person here only temporarily, with the goal of learning an idea of what I'm doing.

But through all this, I see glimpses of God's kingdom: I've listened to several children pray for salvation, I've helped teach the biggest Good News Club I've ever been a part of (with 60 children), I've witnessed the joy on children's faces after correctly looking up a Bible reference, and I've seen the dedication of our team who moved from other states to reach these children.

In addition to teaching at Good News Clubs, I've also taught at several teacher trainings. I've participated in my first committee meetings, learned the answers to many of the questions people ask about CEF, and learned how to use details like the filing system that keep the ministry working. I will be in Kentucky for about seven more months, continuing to gain experience and continuing to pray for more and bigger and farther-reaching glimpses of God's kingdom.

Praise God That:

There are 27 Good News Clubs reaching children in Kentucky.

I can work at this internship, seeing how to build up new ministry and learning from such a talented team.

Before I even arrived, He provided a studio apartment with wonderful Christian landlords, despite the high demand for housing near a military base.

Please Pray That:

I can learn and gain good expereince during my internship, as well as being helpful to the ministry in Kentucky.

God will provide more staff for CEF of Kentucky.

Children in Good News Clubs will believe in Jesus as their Savior.

August Newsletter--I Should Have Worn A Helmet

Pictures: Children play with a parachute during a 5-Day Club in Boston; a teenage student counsels a child for salvation during a 5-Day Club.

Never before have I been asked by over 70 people per day about the welfare of my nose. I'd taken a break with the teenagers who were attending a two-week training in which I was participating as a teacher, dorm mom, and guest missionary. After hours of learning how to teach Bible lessons, counsel children for salvation, and teach all the components of a 5-Day Club, the teens were ready for an active game. They had picked a game best described as team tag. Someone from the other team was about to make it across our line, so I sprinted full force to tag him, failing to notice that another teammate was coming from the other direction with the same gaol. We definitely gout our opponent out, but in the process the side of my head collided with my teammate's shoulder, toppling us both. The most visible result was a nose bleed that persisted off and on for acouple days. Of course the black eye and swelling that followed also attracted a lot fo attention. Someone said the changing colors of my eye reminded him of a blooming flower; I was reminded more of a rotting vegetable.

I didn't realize until six weeks later that my cheek bone had been fractured in two places. My body had already healed enough on its own to prevent the doctors from doing anything else. The sides of my face are no longer completely symmetrical, but the injury helped me appreciate God's family. The concern that these youths showed at an age when the normal teenager is self-consumed reminded me that the good I see in other Christians is always a sampling of the God who is living in them. I was also able to see God's power working in their lives as teens who had never taught children before learned how to use a Bible story to present the Gospel message and make applications for saved children. At one club, a student was teaching children the sotry of Naaman, who was told that the only way he could be healed of his leprosy was to bathe in the Jordan River. As he was explaining that similarly there is only one way to Heaven, one of the kids exclaimed, "So Jesus is like our Jordan!?"

In addition to the training I helped with in Kansas, I stayed busy over the summer working at at training in Michigan and acting as a team leader and teacher in a 5-Day Club ministry in Boston designed to connect 30 churches with children and families in their neighborhoods and provide them with training to begin weekly Good News Club in their neighborhood schools. This week I moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky where I will be interning with the Child Evangelism Fellowship state director, Kari Ash, for about nine months.

Praise God That:

Over 2,000 children heard the Gospel and over 200 children were saved during the initial week of ministry in Boston.

70 teenagers and young adults in Kansas and 70 in Michigan have been equipped to teach children, along with other youth all around the world.

Please Pray That:

God will grant wisdom as I learn and work in many new areas in my internship.

God will continue to provide opportunities and workers for the pioneering work that CEF is doing in Kentucky.