Kids, kids & more kids

This is the group of young people, from Trinity Christian High School in Lubbock, Tx, who spent the week with us. The girls slept in the Baptist church down the road and the boys camped out in tents on the edge of town. They used our church building as their main meeting place & headquarters. They arrived on Monday and left Friday morning. They got dirty during the day doing various projects around town and at night they hung out here, playing basketball & such. Every night at about 9 pm, they had praise & worship and one of the chaperons (one is a superintendent & one a professor) would give a short message.  On Wednesday afternoon, Tom & I went out & tried rounding up kids & adults to come for a cookout. The HS kids had gone to the school earlier that day & had an announcement made to everyone. I was not expecting the response that we got. I told the lady chaperon that maybe 25 extra burgers besides all of ours would be enough but I was wrong!  This place was crawling with kids & even several adults. We ate, had fellowship, played & later that night had praise & worship outside. The young man, Philip, who led the band & sang, related to the kids so well and he shared the Gospel with them & urged them to respond.  We couldn't believe the amount of teenage boys that came from the town. I also met a young lady who lives across town who I spent a lot of time getting to know. She is in her early 20s & has a 4 yr old daughter. She also helps raise her 2 younger siblings. I look forward to ministering Jesus to her.  Thursday night, our church family fed the Trinity team. Four huge beef brisket were smoked & barbecued...Oh my! Delicious! We had many kids & teens show up again despite the cold, nasty weather. Big switch from the day before when it was 90! After we ate, the Trinity teens shared their testimonies using pieces of paper or cardboard. Their life before Christ & their life now. They did not speak. It was pretty powerful. We had praise & worship also and then they played the movie 'Courageous'. Before praise & worship, Tom shared brief testimony & preached the Gospel. 


It was good for us to have this group show up so soon after our arrival here. They were an encouragement to us. They gathered around us & prayed for us and blessed us in many ways that were unexpected!  We were also able to meet many small children & teens from here in town and establish relationships. Adults also are responding and our friends here in the church tell us that they are shocked at some of the people who have showed up & offered help, brought their kids & stayed to fellowship, even dared to come! There is a strong Catholic domination here and I know of one older lady who came & immediately was called by others in her church who questioned her about it. She firmly told them that she had a good time and she would come back again if invited! 


I'm going to be honest, it is overwhelming to us when we hear of and see the bondage of religion, the stronghold of Catholicism, the mindsets, pride, etc.  We have to hang onto Jesus and trust Him! It is really no different here than most other places but then in some ways it is. We are the new guys on the block and must work on developing trust & relationships. We must prove our commitment & faithfulness all the while speaking the truth in love. When we hear of the different struggles and conflicts of past attempts to reach the people, we start to look at our weakness and inabilities. We have to encourage each other to trust Him and know that He is able to break all bondage and tear down walls of separation that man has built! We have to trust that if He sent us here then He has a plan that we cannot comprehend with our understanding! The Gospel is the power of God! If we lift up the name of Jesus, He will draw all men unto Himself!  


We are excited about working with the youth. We are expecting more children. We see the great need for a teen ministry. We don't know how this will all happen but trust Him. That is where my heart is right now...the children & especially teens. Tom has spent time talking to some of the teen boys. The need is great and the door is opening! We are praying the Lord will provide the means for us to have praise & worship...have church...with & for teens. We are not musical in any way! We would love to have a projector so that we could have worship the way we have done at Living Hope with the kids. He has shown His provision to us in many ways, so we trust Him to provide what we need. 

Finally, here are some more pics from the week...thank you all for praying for us!! We love you all!!

Also, here a couple of video clips. The first one is from Wednesday night after we were essentially done but the kids just kept playing...this was taken fairly late that night. The second one is from the praise & worship on Thursday night.