Our First Annual Singing Competition

One of the students at the institute took the initiative to plan a singing competition. It what such a great idea and turned out to be a lot of fun! 

 

It brought many people onto the property that I think would normally be too shy to come.

 This was an outreach of our youth group. Our heart is to build relationships with people, especially teens, who do not know Jesus Christ. 

 

Besides, the messages in the songs, they did such a good job sharing the truth of Jesus Christ before they would even start singing. I was so proud of their God given boldness and clarity!

There's my Momma! She was with us for this event!

Jimmy and I got to be some of the judges. It was very difficult! 

I was shocked by the poise and confidence that many of them had. It made the competition a very tight one!

 

Jimmy did a great job MC'ing and announcing the winners!

 

There was a finals round where the top 3 competed with new songs. Then we had trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place!

 It was so well received that we have decided to make this an annual event for our youth group!

 It was a very memorable night!

Field Day 2014

 God has been bringing so many young people across our path, so many that are searching. God clearly laid a youth ministry on our hearts several months ago. With Grupo VIPs, the age group we are focusing on is 15-25. They are becoming independent of their family, ready to make their own decisions about life... ones that will affect the rest of it. What a great time to meet Jesus! We love seeing God work in their lives and seeing them form friendships with others who want to serve the Lord. Youth ministry can be addicting!

  Josh and Jared were with us for 3 weeks. This was both of their second times coming down. Josh feels like God is leading him into full time missions possibly in Petén and Jared is Becca's brother. Becca just finished her Masters and is raising funds to start a deaf school in Petén. Jared wants to help his sister on the non profit end from the States. So, that was a quick summary. They came down with plans to help our youth group as their main focus. Among helping out with our youth services each week, their big outreach was a field day. They planned it all out really well! 

{Invitations}

 Jimmy, Josh, and Jared went from school to school, many times from classroom to classroom, inviting the students to our field day activity.

{Ready to pass out invitations}

Our town has a large square in the center and then another one kind of next to it that has a community center in the middle of it. Our church is right off that secondary town square. We hosted the field day there and then could walk to our church for pizza afterwards.   

The nice store we set up in front of let us use their power to hook up our speakers.  

{Community Center behind our early arrivers}

As people arrived they were assigned to a team. Here is the yellow team:

Each team had someone from our core group as the team leader.

 Everyone was calm in the beginning... but then they got vicious (in a good way)!

They fought to win! 

Jared and Josh had 4 games planned: Dodge Ball, Body Part Bingo, Barbarian, & Tag-a-Lot . They played each one for about half an hour. I was on the green team playing, so I didn't get pictures of all the games.

 I think everyone had a really good time! 

  We met over a dozen new young people from our town!

  Those who were already members of our youth group were proud to wear our t-shirts with our logo on them!

  I am so thankful for the youth that we get to work with!

 I'm also thankful for how kind they are to my children. Here is princess E getting all fussed over:

It was a hot day! We were praying for no rain. It was really perfect.

 There are two brothers that are a part of a family that just accepted Christ and started coming to our church. They have become best of friends with my boys! I am SO grateful to God for providing Christian friendships for my kiddos.

{Jonah & Geronimo}

Josh and Jared were really prepared and did such a great job planning this all out. That makes the difference.

Just in the few weeks since this activity, 4 teens have put their faith in Christ. I believe that number will continue to grow! So many seeds have been planted!

  

After it was over, the winning team got pizza at our church! The red team:

The team captain of this red team, Jose, was the first teenager we met from San Pancho when we started this youth group just a couple months ago. He is a Christian and wanted to have Christian friends. Well he keeps bringing friends to our youth group. Please pray that they will all come to put their faith in Christ very soon! At least Jose knows now that there are others like him that want to live for Christ!

The winning ladies:

 Josh and Jared ended up getting enough pizza so that all the teams could come to the church afterwards and eat. The red team did get all they could eat though, so there was something special about winning.

 It was a wonderful day!

 Thank you to Jared and Josh for hosting it!

 Please pray for Grupo VIPs, that God will use it to work in the lives of the youth of San Pancho and the surrounding villages! 

Our First Youth Meeting

 

Last Friday night was our first youth/singles meeting (Grupo VIPs, ages 15-25)! Besides the youth from our church we had 5 new people from San Pancho come! Please pray for our second meeting tonight! We had some new teens and singles visit our mid-week service last night, so we are hoping they will come back tonight too!

{Juan and a couple guys decorated the kitchen, where we serve coffee and bread. I thought it looked really happy!}

Please pray for the singles and teens in our church that are young Christians. It seems that so many of them are being attacked by Satan right now. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to work in their lives and give them the victory over all of the things Satan wants to bring into their lives that will draw them away from God. They are still coming to church, so that's good, but Satan is always fighting for their hearts. 

Thank you!

More Ministries of Our Church

We are starting to advertise our church's new ministry to teens and young adults (15-25). It is called Grupo VIPs. Please pray with us over this new ministry. It kicks off May 9th and will be held every Friday night.  

We are praying this meets a need in our church and in our town. We have many in this age group that have come and put their faith in God, but really are lacking the Christian friendships they need for encouragement and accountability. Also, in our town there is nothing for this age group but trouble. Please pray with us! 

For the last two months we have started a discipleship class that meets on Sunday mornings. 

 

Jimmy found some really good curriculum and printed off all the sections and bound them individually so that each of us could have a workbook. I love this time! It is really hard to get people talking sometimes. Everyone is afraid of answering a question wrong or being embarrassed. This setting is perfect to get people talking. It has cleared up some confusion and people have asked some really good questions. The material covers everything from who Jesus is and who we are in Christ to basic doctrines and how to share your faith with others. 

Please pray for this discipleship class. This will be where the leaders and teachers of our church come from. Please pray that all those who are Christians will commit to this class. I feel like it as already been under a lot of attack. Two weeks in a row we had people injured or admitted to the hospital right as class was about to take place. Of course some of the people who want to come are being pressured not to attend by those who serve Satan. 

Jimmy and Juan try to follow up with anyone who misses to keep everyone on track. 

 

Right after our lesson on Salvation, one of our teens led a new 12 your old at our church to Christ. That 12 year old started coming because we met him at the basketball courts in our town during one of Jimmy's games. He is one of about a dozen other guys who come together just for our children's ministry. 

{The one on the far left led the one on the far right to Christ}

Please pray that the rest of them will come to know the Lord too. I feel like there is a huge opportunity in our town with the children, youth and young adults who are searching for truth. Please pray for our church and that we will be wise with our time and resources in order to be used most effectively by the Lord.

Starting a Youth Group

We have a pretty good group of teens that come to our services on Sundays and Thursdays. For a while we have been wanting to start a service that would be just for them (13 and up) which would give us a chance to cover some very important topics that might help them navigate all the important decisions coming up in their lives. 

This past Sunday morning we had our first youth service. It is a long way for teens to ride a micro by themselves for those coming from SR or NH, so we figured we might just have the teens from San Pancho there, and that's what happened. We had 3: Hugo, Wendy, and Mariela. Next week we are moving the the service to the patio of our house for a cookout. I think it might be good to have it there every Sunday morning.

{Our first meeting}

 We had a really great time. It was more intimate. We sat in a circle and discussed things over Coke and cookies. Juan led the study. I think this will be a great way to get them talking and more involved. One of the girls was already talking with me more that evening. Please pray that our youth group will grow!

We have seen a great need for some marriage counseling in our church as well. We hope to start some couples classes and then some singles classes here soon. There are 3 of us now, so that helps, but our people are still spread out over 3 towns and we still have our itty bitty building with the sound issues. We are going to be working on hanging some foam boards this week to improve things for when we split off into groups. Our team of three is very excited about strategizing and working to help our church grow in number and just as importantly to help our members grow in their walk with the Lord! 

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

 This little iguana looking guy was on my mic stand during the entire music service Sunday night. I think he was enjoying the serenade! You can't tell his size, but he could have eaten one of those little FL lizards that live in my house without any problem.