Monday, December 12, 2011

Mama Heart

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” - Isaiah 43:19

First of all, I would like to thank so many of you for all the ways you have supported me as an inner city missionary in Atlanta. The Lord has been doing great things through the ministry of NightLight Atlanta, and it is such a joy to get to be a part of what He is doing.

Children are learning to love in an environment based on violence and fear. Women are leaving lives of prostitution, and entering into the Kingdom of God. People are experiencing His hope, and salvation. Jesus is so good!

As much as I love my current job, I have decided to step down from my position with
NightLight Atlanta as the Director of Prevention Programming, because the Lord has made it clear that He is about to launch me into my calling to be a mother to the orphans.

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of becoming a mother. Many people have spoken prophesies and encouragement over me about my “mama heart,” and about the Lord’s call on my life to be a mother. Motherhood is what I was created for.

Even though I don’t know exactly what it will all look like yet, I know that this is the time for me to start making transitions so that I’m available to do whatever the Lord has planned for me. This is my last month working for NightLight.

I dream of having orphanages all over the world. I want kids everywhere to know that they have a good Dad … and a good Mama, and I want them to have abundant life filled with hope. The Lord has told me that I will be the mother of many nations, and I believe Him. I have a feeling that my life as a missionary mama overseas will start sooner rather than later, but until the Lord speaks clearly about when and where to go, I plan on being in Atlanta for a little while longer.

I have been making plans with a few friends to move into the area of town where my kids live, and have an open home, where the kids are welcome anytime. I foresee them planting a garden in the backyard, having worship nights, dance parties, neighborhood dinners, movie nights, and more. I often think about how the name, Maribeth, means “blessed house.” That’s my identity, and it’s exactly what I want this home to be for the kids.

I plan on moving into the “blessed house” in February or March. I know that this open home will be just the beginning of a movement here in Atlanta. The kids that the Lord has entrusted to me will hopefully become the leaders of whatever ministry is birthed through me soon.

I have also been looking into adoption. The Lord made it clear to me that this is top priority in my life, so I am currently going through training to become an adoptive parent. I don’t know if the Lord’s intentions for me going through this are for me to get some really good training, or if He has a certain child, or certain children in mind for me to adopt as my own. Who knows? By this time next year, there might be a couple of little ones calling me “Mama.”

So please, be praying for me as I continue to say yes to the Lord’s voice. I would love to have you support me through this journey. Ask me how things are going. Come and visit the kids. Pray that the Kingdom comes. I know that the dreams the Lord has placed on my heart will require the entire Body of Christ to play their part, whatever that may look like.

I will let you know specifics along the way, and keep you updated about ways you can be involved, and ways that you can support me and the kids that the Lord entrusts to me. The seeds you sew into the ministry the Lord gives me – whatever that may look like – are producing and will continue to produce great fruit. We will all share in the harvest and the reward.

I praise God for each of you, and all of your prayers and encouragement!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Dreams Redeemed

One afternoon, a few friends and I decided to drive around and pray for the area of town where the kids live. After driving around for a bit, we pulled into the hotel where we do our Prevention Program, and some of the teenagers who live there climbed into the car with us, saying that they wanted to pray, too.

As we were praying for them, and speaking life over them, more kids came. And pretty soon, they were praying for each other.

That is the kind of stuff that I live for.

One girl spoke up, and said that she had been having nightmares. She started describing some of the things that had haunted her dreams, and it became obvious that a spirit of death had been trying to take over this 10 year old’s subconscious dream world.

I knew that God desired to give His daughter good dreams – straight from His heart to hers. There’s something about our good Father that loves to reveal the mysteries of His heart to His children through dreams. Just ask Joseph.

I asked her if she wanted God to give her good dreams, instead. And of course, she said yes.

So I went to my car, and grabbed some anointing oil. Yes, I did say anointing oil. I've decided to carry that stuff around with me these days. I mean, you’ve gotta have the essentials with you at all times – your wallet, your keys, some chewing gum, and your anointing oil. It comes in handy sometimes.

Anointing oil was used throughout the Bible to make something holy. So as a priest of the Lord, I prayed for her and anointed her, and in doing so, declared her “holy.” Her dreams are now set apart for God alone. They are no longer a place for the enemy to have a destructive party.

Just today, she was telling her Sunday school teacher that I prayed for her to stop having bad dreams a few weeks ago, and now she doesn’t have nightmares anymore. Now, she only has good dreams.

Man, God is so good at being good!

And all I have to say is that it’s great to be His priest. I get to usher people into His goodness, out of the darkness, and into His wonderful light.

“… for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” – I Peter 2:9

Friday, September 30, 2011

Father to the Fatherless

One of the biggest factors that puts a child at-risk for entering into the sex industry is not having a father at home. The role of a father is to LEAD his wife and children, PROTECT his wife and children, and PROVIDE FOR his wife and children. When the father is absent, it leaves the wife and children vulnerable to purposelessness, abuse, and poverty.

And most of the kids I work with are fatherless.

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a couple of the girls from our prevention program, and they started talking about their dads. One of them, a ten year old, assured me that when she says, “my dad,” she really means her step-father, because her step-father has been more of a dad to her than real dad.

She doesn’t even know who her real dad is.

The fourteen year old girl eating with us then spoke up to say that her dad didn’t even sign her birth certificate.

While they were talking, I was thinking, “How in the world will these girls know they are worthy of being loved if their own fathers haven’t loved them? Will they ever believe that there are actually men who don’t abandon their families?”

I told the girls that God is a really good dad to us. I told them that He’s really good at taking care of us, and no matter what our dads are like here on earth, God won’t ever leave us. And then they chimed in by saying, “Yeah, He won’t ever leave us or forsake us!”

That’s right. They quoted Scripture.

Whether fathers like it or not, they give us a picture of what God the Father is like. And that’s why so many people have warped beliefs about who God actually is.

If our earthly fathers abandoned us, we probably will have problems believing that
God actually WANTS to be near us. And if our earthly fathers beat us for no good reason on a regular basis, we will probably go through life believing that God is in a bad mood.

But God is in a good mood. He really is. And the truth is that He’s gone to great measures to be with us. The veil has been torn. We have 24-7 access to His presence because of Jesus.

Wake up, Church!! We are the priests. We are the ones who get to lead the fatherless into the presence of God!

Often, when I simply ask God what’s on His heart for the kids I work with, I get this picture of the Father sitting criss-cross-applesauce (to be politically correct), and all of the kids coming into His lap. This is the heart of our good Father! He wants the kids to climb up into His lap, and just rest for a while.

There are no orphans in Daddy God’s lap.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Psalm 68:5

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Sowing In Tears. Reaping In Joy.

We began the summer season of Kids’ Club by planting seeds into pots. Each week, we watched the plants grow, and we talked about what we look like when we’re growing with Jesus. We have steadily sown seeds of the truth about Jesus in the hearts of 124 children throughout the summer. My prayer is that we will reap a harvest that is a hundred times greater than the amount of seeds that have been planted.

We have been taking a handful the kids from our prevention program to Church on Sundays, so there are even more seeds being planted, watered, and nurtured by people ministering at our Church. We started off bringing 5 kids at the beginning of June. By the end of July, there were 13.

One of the kids that has been coming for the whole summer asked one of the newcomers, “Since when have you been coming to MY church?” I love that the kids are actually claiming to be a part of this body of believers now.

It’s one thing for us to come to where they live, into their darkness, and introduce them to Jesus. It’s totally different for us to bring them into a healthy environment. We are doing more than just bringing them to a Church service. We are introducing them to a whole new world, one where it is normal to love Jesus, and earnestly seek Him.

When they come to Church, their teachers are reinforcing what we have already taught them. At Kids’ Club, we have introduced these little ones to the Lord’s voice. Just this season, they have heard the Lord speak His love over them, His encouragement, and His destiny for their lives. Now these kids are learning to hear God’s voice in two places.

The thing I love most about taking the kids to Church is that I get to spend so much time with them. I’m discovering that the more I invest in the lives of the children we work with, the more I know their brokenness, as well. The reality they live in is dark.

One 10 year old girl after Bible class one week told me that she started crying during class because she shared her feelings, and then she admitted that she was ashamed of her tears. I asked her what she had shared, and she told me she was upset because her dad was in jail, her uncle just got out of jail, and her great-uncle was on his death bed. I told her that it’s good to cry about things like that, and we talked about the importance of sharing our feelings. Her feelings had been locked away deep within her.

Prison is a reality that has been passed down to this 10 year old. But I’m holding onto the truth in Isaiah 61 about who Jesus is. “He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”

He offers freedom from darkness to these children. He is why we do what we do. Jesus is our strategic plan in preventing these children from entering into the darkness around them. As we sow in tears, we hold onto the promise in Psalm 126 that we will reap with songs of joy.

I can’t wait to see the harvest.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Stories from Africa

I went to Africa expecting miracles. Really, I was just expecting God to be Himself. And over and over again, I was completely amazed at my “Daddy God” (The Africans we were around referred to God in Creole as “Daddy God”).

Miracles aren’t about putting on a show. They’re not magic. And they’re not something of the past.

Miracles flow out of the heart of a loving Abba. God’s extravagant love knows no limit. It’s amazing to me how so many people have put a limit on what an all powerful God, whose very name is LOVE, can do.

His power flows from His love.

I started keeping a list of the miracles that we witnessed when we were on the plane headed to Sierra Leone. The woman sitting next to me on our last little flight from Ghana to Freetown, Sierra Leone wasn’t feeling very well. So I prayed for her. After praying for her, I asked her how she felt. She said her headache went away while I was praying. Wow! Praise the Lord!

And that was just the beginning!

While in Sierra Leone, we visited a few different villages, and ministered to the churches in these different communities. While we were in the first village called Kambia, one particular family served us daily, and prepared all of our meals while we were there.

The youngest daughter in their family had had a fever for 2 weeks. She was three years old and adorable. It wasn’t ok for this little girl to be so sick, so we prayed that the Lord would bring justice to her and heal her.

And He did.

We kept asking her family if the fever had come back since we prayed for her. They said she was 100% better. What a loving Father she has!

While we were in Kambia, the church asked us to pray for two of their kids who were demon-possessed. A little bit of fear went through me when they asked US to cast the demons out. I didn’t really grow up believing in all that “crazy spirit stuff.” But the more I bring the Kingdom of God into the darkness of this world, the more I experience the warfare that goes on in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6)

The fear I felt only lasted for a moment, however, and then I started getting excited about what the Lord was about to do. There was no doubt that He wanted those demons to stop tormenting His precious ones.

The first little guy’s name was Abraham. He might have been 7 or 8 years old. During worship the day before, Abraham had manifested a demon by running bent over through the building at full speed, running into walls and into people, and foaming at the mouth. Someone from the church came and laid hands on him and started praying, and the child fell asleep.

After praying for him the next day, the demon left peacefully. Thank you, Jesus!

The second child we prayed for was a 13 year old girl named Elizabeth. Her demon manifested immediately and threw her on the ground. We prayed that the demon would get out of her and go to Jesus so He could deal with it appropriately. After a few minutes, the demon left and the peace of God came over her.

Elizabeth was all smiles after her deliverance. She started hanging around us regularly from then on, and gave me a gift the last night that we were in Kambia. Because she had received something of high value from us, she gave me something of very high value.

A chicken.

Elizabeth gave me a for real live chicken. This was a pretty big deal. Families in this community struggle to have enough to eat, and only have chicken on special occasions. I named my new chicken, “sozo,” which is the Greek word meaning “to save, heal, and deliver.” The chicken had been “delivered” to me by someone who had been “delivered.”

We found out later that Elizabeth had been in a secret society – it’s pretty common in Africa for people to join these secret societies. And it’s all pretty demonic. People have to make a blood covenant to enter – for girls, they have to be “circumcised” to enter, and guys are cut on the lower part of their backs. Demons are assigned to protect them from leaving the society. Elizabeth’s didn’t want to let go of her.

But God wanted freedom for her. And because of His great love for her, she is FREE indeed!

You see, the demonic is very real. But the more important thing is that God’s power is EVEN MORE REAL. All we have to do is believe that He will show up. The things that we witnessed in Africa would not have happened without God. He loves doing the impossible.

I can’t even count how many people got healed while we were there. And that’s not to mention the 25 people who got baptized in one particular village. 25!! About 3 months ago, no one in this village knew who Jesus was. Now there is a church, and many new believers. What a beautiful work of God! He loves the people in that village so so much.

Our God is supernatural. That’s how He rolls. Jesus didn’t just pray for the sick. He healed them. And He didn’t send His disciples out to just pray for people and do some nice things. He told them to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and raise the dead to life. (Matthew 10:8)

Our God loves to give Freedom, Wholeness, and Life! That’s the kind of Kingdom business our God does. And it all flows abundantly from His deep wells of love.

May Your Kingdom come, Daddy God! May Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!

Friday, April 29, 2011

BAPTISMS!!

“From the lips of children and infants, You, Lord, have called forth Your praise.” (Matthew 21:16)

Jesus quoted this passage from Psalm 8 after the chief priests and teachers of the law had gotten pretty upset at the children who were shouting in the Temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

It made the religious people mad enough that the crowds had shouted that through the streets on Palm Sunday. And now the kids were copying what they had heard from the adults in the Temple courts.

So they asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

Jesus simply replies, “Have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants, You, Lord, have called forth Your praise?”

He loves their worship! God not only accepts the praise of His little babies, He delights in their faith!

Many of the kids in our Prevention Program have put their faith in Jesus this season as we have talked about who Jesus really is. Their faith is simple, and the way they declare His praise is profound. They sing and dance in His love for them.

Just this spring season, we have had 88 new children come to our Kids’ Club. And a total of 353 kids have come through our Prevention Program since it first started.

And we celebrated the baptisms of 19 of our children this season!

They proclaimed Jesus as their Lord as other children and onlookers from the motel gathered around to take in the day’s events. Everyone listened as the children stated their reasons in wanting to get baptized.

Their explanations were amazing. The majority of them simply said that they loved God and that God loved them. Some said they wanted to be with Jesus forever. Some said they wanted Jesus to save them. Others said they wanted to become a new person.

The Greek definition of the word baptizo means "to overwhelm." As each of the 19 children were overwhelmed with the cold water in the kiddie pool, they were also overwhelmed with a new identity in Jesus, and they are entering into a new covenant relationship with Him.

Our desire has been to see these children come into their true identity in Jesus, and this has happened right before our eyes.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Faith Like A Child

Wow! What a day at Kids’ Club! In the words of the United Pursuit Band, “Praise is befitting to the One who died! Your Name is high and above every name on Earth and in Heaven. You are good. You are holy. You are worthy.”

Recently, I feel like I have been under quite a bit of attack from the enemy. He knows that we, at NightLight, are preparing for baptisms with the kids the week after Easter. He knows that these kids are already believing in Jesus, and that their baptisms will mark the beginning of a covenant relationship with the One who is victorious over him. Satan absolutely can’t stand that Jesus is a CHAMPION! And he wants to taunt and discourage the ones on Christ’s winning side in any way that he can.

But the enemy will not get the last word with me … nor with these kids. Nope. I am more than a conqueror. And these kids will rise out of the water into new life with Jesus. I don’t care what that liar has to say about it.

Tonight, we talked about how the payment for sin is death, but that God made a way for us to not have to die, and that His way brings LIFE FOREVER. (Romans 6:23)

I started off my lesson tonight with a bottle of water. I asked one of the kids to put a pinch of dirt in the bottle, and then I went to take a sip. The kids went crazy. “NOOO! DON’T DRINK IT!” One girl even came up behind me and grabbed the water bottle from my hand, and said, “DON’T DRINK THAT!!! THAT’S GROSS!!”

I told the kids that it was just a little dirt, but they didn’t care. They wouldn’t let me drink it. I went on to tell them that the dirt in the water bottle is like sin. Even a little bit makes us dirty and unclean. And we deserve death when we sin.

I then asked one of the kids to try and get the dirt out of the water bottle, so that I could have some clean water to drink. He looked at me like I was crazy. So I asked the other kids if they could get the dirt out. It is not possible to remove dirt from a bottle of water, and neither can we get sin out of our lives on our own.

So I told them about the One who makes us clean when we’re dirty with sin. I told them about His death, and that He didn’t stay dead for very long. No way! He left death in the grave, and rose to new life. And because of His sacrifice and His resurrection, we can LIVE FOREVER WITH JESUS!

I then pulled out a gift bag that was marked, “To: Maribeth. Love: Jesus.” I asked the kids if they thought I needed to pay for the gift, but they said that since it was a gift, I didn’t need to pay for it. Inside, I found a brand new water bottle with pure water in it. No dirt. No sin. Jesus paid the price for our sin, and gives us brand new pure LIFE as a free gift.

I asked all of the kids to close their eyes, and answer some questions for me. I asked them if they believed that Jesus is the Son of God. Hands started flying up in the air, and they stayed up when I asked if they believed that Jesus died for them, and rose from the dead. Some of the kids put both hands in the air when I asked if they believed that Jesus could get all the dirty sin out of their lives, and make them clean again.

A couple of them even announced, “I got both my hands up!” Then I started seeing feet fly up in the air when I asked if they wanted to have new life with Jesus. It was such a sweet (and absolutely hilarious) sight to see kids lying on their backs with both of their hands and feet sticking up in the air (but their eyes stayed closed, of course).

I am so amazed at how desperately these kids want Jesus.

Such beautiful faith!!

“And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

These kids are ready for baptism. And satan can just sit on a tack. A lot of tacks.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Jesus is Life

Oh God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You. All of my Life is found in You. You are Life to me. You are the resurrection and the life. You give Your grace and beauty and love to the birds and flowers. How much more do You love me? How much more? I can’t even wrap my mind around the goodness and faithfulness and mercy You pour out in abundance. You’re so good, so so good to me!

The other night, I was crying out to God, interceding for my kids. I told God that I wanted these kids to KNOW Him, cry out to Him, turn to Him, look at Him, find HOPE in Him, find JOY amidst their circumstances, and that I wanted God to be EVERYTHING to them.

Do you know what God said in response to my prayer? He said, “Then that’s what you need to do. Show them how to love Me and pray to Me. They’re looking at you.”

Do you know how humbling that is? These kids are looking at me to see who God is. It just makes me yearn for Him all the more. There is so much more of Him that I haven’t even tasted yet. I want more. What I’ve tasted of the Almighty has been so good, but I want more of Him!

This week at Kids’ Club, the theme was “Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.” We talked about how Jesus raised Lazarus from death to LIFE, and how He turns our mourning into dancing, and our tears of sorrow into JOY! (Ps. 30:11-12).

I spent a lot of time talking about the verse in John 11 that simply says, “Jesus wept.” I told the kids that Jesus cares a whole lot about every detail in their lives, and that He doesn’t ignore us when we’re sad, but that He sees our tears, and He cries with us. And then He brings LIFE to those dead places in us.

As we were praying afterwards, I asked the kids to tell God what they were thankful for. One girl said that she was thankful that Jesus is Life. That is huge. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Because this little girl said that Jesus is life with her words, I know that her heart believes that it is true. Praise the Lord.

After Kids’ Club last night, a couple of us were eating together, and we started talking about how some of these kids are going to become Ministers. I got chills thinking about it. Pray that God consumes them like a fire.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

STORIES

This was the first week of our Spring Season of Kids' Club. I am beyond thankful to be back in the swing of things! It was such a great week, and I am so exhausted. God is so good, and so full of love for these kids! I wish each of you could meet them. I have a few stories to share about these precious little treasures.



There is one particular 10-year-old kid that has been around since this summer, and we are pretty close with him. During the skit, he kept on talking really loudly. So I pulled him to the side, and asked him to honor the people doing the skit by listening. He kept talking loudly. So I kept getting onto him.

I finally said, “If you keep being disrespectful, you might not get a snack today. Do you want to lose your snack?” His response: “It depends. What are we having for snack?” He then looked around, saw the box of pretzels, and then agreed to respect me.

I was thinking about his response later that night, and realized that I do the same thing with God. When God asks me to do something, my immediate reaction is usually, “What’s in it for me?” AKA: "It depends, God. What do I get for snack?"



When I was announcing about what we were doing that day, one kid kept on coming up to me, poking me in the side while I was talking, and saying that he had an announcement to make. It seemed rather urgent.

I asked him to whisper his announcement to me, and he said, “I just need to ask everyone who hit my brother. Someone hit my brother, and then ran away, and I need to make an announcement that you don’t hit my brother.”

What a protective little guy!



This season, I have decided to start “interviewing” a couple of kids before and after each lesson. This week, I asked the question, “What does Immanuel mean?”

BEFORE the lesson, I got responses like:

“Um, I think that Immanuel means … um … like, uh … brain.”

“It means baby.”

“Immanuel is like a book … something that people have written … It has words, and it might even have pictures.”

AFTER the lesson, I asked the same kids the same question. And this is how each of them responded:

“Immanuel means GOD WITH US!”

I think they really caught onto what this week’s lesson was all about. God loves us so much that He sent His Son to Earth to be like us and to be WITH us. (Isaiah 7:14)



In addition to what we do with the elementary age kids, we have started doing a Bible Study for teen girls at both locations this season. I have been praying for this to happen for so long, and I am so thankful for the young women who have stepped up to lead these Bible studies.

The girls they are leading are the ones who are most at risk for entering into prostitution. The average age of entry into prostitution in the U.S. is between the ages of 11-14.

At Tuesday’s Bible study, the leader shared the verse from Matthew 10 about being as wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves. While the girls were decorating their individual journals with all kinds of stickers, they asked the leader what the verse meant.

The leader explained that Jesus wants to teach us to not go crazy in a crazy world. Pray for these girls as they learn to be as wise as serpents in the crazy world that they live in.

The next day at Wednesday’s teen girls Bible study, an eleven year old (Ok, so this one isn’t technically a teenager …) told the leader that she sees a demon sometimes, and described in detail what the demon was like. She explained how scared she was of the demon, and cried like a baby with the leader. Then her 13-year-old sister said that she sees dark shadows behind her every time she looks in the mirror.

This is just one example of the terrible darkness in this neighborhood. Who knows what else is haunting our other children in their homes. Pray that the Light of Christ will breakthrough in each child. There is serious warfare going on over each of their souls.



Our guy intern this season has been so wonderful with the teenage boys we see on a weekly basis. On Wednesday, he got to hang out with the guys for a little while, and they started asking him questions about sex. They were all ears to whatever he had to say. They are so hungry for truth.

Our intern started talking about soul ties, and how sex is so much more than what happens physically. They have never listened to anyone as well as they listened to him on Wednesday. Pray that the Lord fills our intern more and more with His Spirit as he leads these guys into more truth.



At the end of our time with the kids on both Tuesday and Wednesday, we gathered the kids together whose birthdays were in February so that we could pray for them. A couple of kids even prayed for their peers. This was such a beautiful time, and it was such a joy to get to bless these kids.



Keep praying for these precious little ones. And pray for me, too. I need so much more of the Lord! I'm sure I will have many, many other stories to share as the season goes on.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Do They Know?

As you can imagine, the extended stay hotel where we do one of our Prevention Programs is a transitional place for these families. Some stay for a week, and others stay for a year or two. Each time I hear about kids moving out, my heart has to make some difficult adjustments.

I just love them so dearly, and I feel like they’re being taken away from me.

Such a huge part of me is saying, “Nooo! Stay in this nasty, small hotel room forever, so I can come and love you!”

Of course, I really do want them to experience a normal childhood, where they can play in a front yard, and have family dinners, and soccer practice … I’m just really going to miss them.

When I hear that another family is moving, my immediate thoughts are:

Where are they going to hear about Jesus now?
Who is going to love them?
Will anyone show them who God is … who LOVE is?
Have I taught them well?
Have I done my job?
What will they take away from the way I treated them?
Do they know Jesus?
Do they know the one who created them so uniquely?
Do they know that their identity is Jesus … that they were made in His image … with His characteristics?
Do they know their Savior?
Do they know the freedom they can have in Him?
Do they know that all of LIFE is found in Christ?
Do they know?

And these thoughts have transformed the way I write curriculum. What if there is a child that only comes for one week? What if that is the only week they ever hear about Jesus? What will they think? How will their life be different?

So the theme for this season’s Kids’ Club is JESUS.

That’s it.

I want the kids to know Him. Every single week, I want the kids to ENCOUNTER Him. No one was the same after encountering Jesus while He was here on Earth.

Be praying for our Spring Kids’ Club starting up at the end of February. Pray that we have many many volunteers to make this all happen. Pray that the Lord will give me more and more of Himself to share with the kids. Pray that the kids will know Him. Pray for baptisms! Pray for God encounters. Pray for miracles. And pray that the Kingdom will come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

God's Goodness

I just need to take a minute to brag on God. Here are just a few ways that we have seen the Kingdom come recently ...

We got to speak to a local high school a couple weeks ago. This is the first time we've ever gotten in the schools, and we had a lot of favor when we were there. We spoke to the boys about true manhood, and to the girls about true beauty.

We encountered the owner of a strip club who had a horrible headache one night, so we prayed for her. Her continual blood pressure problems were the cause of her headache. When she went to the doctor the next week, it was the first time her blood pressure was better than normal. And now she is praising God for it all!

Also, a pimp's knee got healed while we were on outreach one night. It’s still healed. And he is completely amazed by God.

An 18 year old guy we met on outreach one Friday night accepted Jesus, and is hungry for more. He has never been to church, never had a Bible, and after talking and praying with our group for a few minutes, he decided that he wants Jesus to be His Lord. We gave him a Bible, and he told us that he's been reading the words in red. Our new guy intern is going to disciple him.

Also, on a personal note, I have a beautiful new nephew. The Lord healed him after his traumatic birth, and he is the cutest baby in the world. He loves me very much.