Kid's Quest Camp

About a week ago, Sarah and I went to Camp Kid's Quest with our Church!  There were about 27 counselors and 120 kids at camp.  A couple of days before camp, the Kids Quest staff held a meeting for the counselors that were going.  We learned each counselor was in charge of around 4 to 6 kids.  I was picked to have a special group of boys for the week; whose names are Kevin, JJ, Javier, and Diego.  I was introduced to Tim Gardiner, the one who invited these boys from his public school.  It was truly a God thing that they were able to come.  Tim told me that these boys had a rough childhood and they didn't attend church on a regular basis.  He told me about their different personalities.  I was getting more and more excited to meet these boys and share the love of Christ with them!  We prayed that the Lord would rock their worlds!

Large group time!

                The first day of camp arrived!  It was a busy day of figuring out what was going on and meeting our campers!  My boys arrived and you could tell that this week was going to be fun!  They were full of energy, ready to do things!  While they went and put their bags down, I introduced myself to Diego's family, they brought all four of my boys. The parents didn't speak much English, but I let them know that I was going to take care of her boys and that they didn't have to worry about a thing.   Later that day, after setting up our cabin and eating dinner, we went to "Club"!  The message, funny skits, and worshiping took place here.  It was interesting to see how the boys reacted to worship.  At first, they were very timid and shy, not wanting to stand up and sing with everyone or do any of the motions.  During the second song, I encouraged them to stand up and sing so they stood up and tried to learn the motions.  By the end of the week, they were jumping up and down singing all the words and doing all the motions!

               The theme of the week was on how God has had a plan from the very beginning.  The first night we talked about the magnificent garden and how sin entered the world.  After every club, we had small group time.  We each led our groups in a discussion about the club's message, how the kids were doing and what they thought.  My group talked about the relationship Adam and Eve had with God and that sin broke that relationship.  I was blown away by how fast these boys absorbed and understood the message. The following messages were about Abraham and Isaac, the Israelites being saved from slavery, and the lost tribes.  Each message emphasized that God keeps His promises and that He was the only way the world could be saved.  I could see that the Lord was working on the hearts of my boys by their answers to the small group discussion questions, especially Javier.

Me and my boys!

                On the last night, the message was about Jesus and how God's plan has come together to save the world from their sin.  It was a powerful presentation of the gospel and made my kids start thinking and asking really good questions.  They asked how to get into heaven giving me "what if" scenarios such as, "what if a man pushes a lady out of the way from getting hit by a train, would the man go to heaven?"  We went through about 10 different scenarios before it clicked that Jesus is the only way for to get into heaven. They understood that by admitting you are a sinner, believing in Jesus Christ, and choosing to receive Jesus meant that your relationship with God is restored and you have eternal life.  Javier was excited to share that he had done this and that Jesus Christ was his Savior! I was super excited for him; we celebrated by doing a dance!  Diego and JJ were still taken back that the people in the scenarios didn't go to heaven and started to become distracted.  Kevin became quiet as he started to think about it really hard.  Later that night, we had a bonfire where kids could share their experiences of being at camp.  At the end, the host gave an invitation to all the kids to accept Jesus into their hearts by saying a simple prayer.  with everyone's eyes still close he asked everyone to raise their hands if they prayed that prayer.  At this moment, I had to see if any of my boys did; so I peeked and saw Diego's and Kevin's hands were up! PRIASE THE LORD, I thought to myself!  What an exciting way to end camp!

The End of Our First Year!

Me listening to a memory verse

  Ministry at our church, McLean Bible Church has been a great time for both Sarah and I! We have helped lots of kids with learning bible verses, core truths, and made lots of friends.  The ministries we volunteer in are Kid's Quest and Awana! We enjoy the ministry at McLean and hope to incorporate into our ministry one day. One thing that I really enjoy about the Kids Quest ministry is the leadership team that is in place.  The director, Mary Scott, does a fantastic job communicating the vision of the church and leading her coordinators.  Her coordinators are Yasmin (Large Group) and Ana (Small Group), they do an outstanding job bringing the kids great material that is engaging!  Yasmin’s team tells the bible story, do funny skits, and sing interactive songs.  Anna’s team leads the kids in a more in depth study of the story. We are both on Ana's team. I am going to join Yasmin's team this summer!  I hope that we are able to construct a leadership team of volunteers wherever we are stationed.

Sarah and I lead the kindergarten small group.  Recently, we had to say good bye to our kindergartens as they are moving up to 1^st grade.  We are going miss them!  We taught what the bible says about compassion, friendship, truth, faith, mercy, wisdom, and many others!  As small group leaders, we lead them in scripture memorization and dug deeper into the large group message.  My favorite part of the small group is the scripture memorization.  Our favorite way to memorize a verse is by putting it on a white board and erasing one or two words at a time.  When the words are all gone…everyone knows it!  We meet our new kindergartners next week; we are super excited!

Sarah  hanging with the kids

During the spring, Sarah and I had to get jobs. Sarah got a job working a Chick-fil-a. It is her second passion right after missions.  She enjoys working there but is really excited to start our future ministry! I started substituting and I really enjoyed it!.  I substitute all the grades, K through 12^th. The elementary age is my favorite! They all call me Mr. A because I don’t want them mispronouncing my last name just like when I was in school haha.  A few of the classes asked me what the “A” stands for, but I tell them its my secret. As a response to that, they picked the A to stand for Awesome!  It is quite the ego boost when I walk down the hall and hear a bunch of kids say “Hey, Mr. Awesome!” followed by high fives!

For the rest of the summer, Sarah and I are finishing our growth plan!  This means that I need to finish school as well as read a few books.  I am very close to being finished; I only have 4 more sections to complete! Yippee! Sarah is reading the same books as well as setting up dinners with potential supporters and working!

Rock that Rolled

This past weekend, Matthew and I helped with our churches Easter celebration, The Rock That Rolled! There were so many different activities the kids could do, from cupcake decorating to a petting zoo! Matthew and I helped our small group coordinator, Ana, with egg hunts! We had four different egg hunts and hid 24,000 eggs!

Matthew and one of his AWANA students getting ready to hide eggs in rooms! There were eggs filled with bouncy balls, tattoos and of course some were filled with candy!


















We scattered some eggs on the floor, so they were easy to find for the little ones.









Before each egg hunt, Matthew went over the rules and safety precautions with the kids and their parents. During the hunt, we made sure everything ran smoothly and every child had a chance to get their 10 eggs.

After the egg hunts were over, we helped clean up! We had barriers set up so there was only one way in and out of the hunt! Matthew had the joy in running through the barriers while breaking everything down.
It was a great turn out and we were so glad we were given the opportunity to help!

Our First Support Dinner

   Matthew and I have recently had our first support dinner! My brother and sister in law invited a few couples over to enjoy a dinner with the two of us and learn more about life as a military child and our ministry! At the start of the evening, each person attending selects a "child" they will follow through three different countries throughout the evening. We start eating salad in the United States, move to a different room in the house- known as Germany- for our main course and enjoy dessert in Asia, in yet another room of the house! With each move, they will find out how their child likes/dislikes their current home. As we wrap up the evening, we share what each child is up to now and how Cadence had an impact on their lives!

   

   Matthew and I decided to make lamented  place cards to represent the kids!

We made boy and girl cutouts using his moms Cricut! I love that thing and I love our cutouts! =)

Matthew cut them out while I typed up the info about each child and printed them out on card stock.

After Matthew cut out the boys and girls, he cut out the names we used. I had the joy in gluing each letter on each card.. looking good, right!?

While I was still gluing the many letters, Matthew lamented each one. We don't own a laminator, so it took him a little while but they look great! =)

Our last step was to make them stand up! We cut one inch tabs and laminated them to stick in the middle of each card! Now they are complete! Yippee!

We are very please with how they turned out and can't wait to use them more in the future! =) 

If you would like to know more about our dinners or are interested in hosting one, please let us know! =D

No Matter the Distance, Christ is the Difference (Part 2)

   From Yokosuka we took an hour train ride, a three hour plane ride and an hour car ride to get to Okinawa, Japan! Our first stop that night was The Harbor, a hospitality house. On Sundays, they have a service so we were able to sit in and meet some servicemen!  Monday, we were up bright and early to meet with the Youth missionaries (Don and Mark). Don and his family run the youth ministry on Camp Foster and Mark, along with his family, run youth ministry on the Kadena Air Base. They teamed up to bring their high school students together for a retreat over the weekend; we were able to catch the last day! There were daily sessions, worship, games and a time for personal devotions for the teens to take part in. They seemed to have a blast! The speaker for the retreat was our friend, Mike Hilt. We met him along with his wife during candidacy this past summer.

Our friend, Mike.

   On Tuesday, we met with two chaplains on Kadena, Chaplain McCain and Chaplain Sellers.  They were excited to meet with us and pleased to hear Cadence is forming a children’s ministry. Chaplain McCain and Chaplain Sellers expressed how having a structured children’s ministry would be invaluable. Having missionaries focused on children’s ministry would allow the Chaplains to provide a better adult ministry. Parents want to provide good, healthy and fun environments for their children. As it stand right now, their children’s ministry isn't growing because they don’t have man power to run it. Sarah and I would become some of that man power. Chaplain McCain and Chaplain Sellers also mentioned the huge effect CCM will have on marriage retreats (as we shared in our previous post). They repeatedly told us having CCM in any chapel would be a blessing and have a great impact on the chapel community!  Wrapping up, the Chaplain McCain and Chaplain Sellers said they will pray for God to provide everything needed for us to be out in the field as soon as possible!

"GaGa Ball" with some Junior High students

   Later that evening, we were able to experience the junior high youth ministry on Kadena.  We saw a discipleship class on leadership as well as the middle school youth group.  When the parents started picking up their children at the end, we met another Chaplain. He had a daughter who attend the youth group. We told him about CCM and the first thing out of his mouth was “When are you coming??!?!”  We were pretty excited to know that Chaplains we didn't have meetings set up with were just as excited as the Chaplains we did meet with!!

   The next couple of days we were taken to visit the marine bases of Camp Foster and Camp Kinser.  Our meeting on Camp Foster was with Chaplain Bradley -Davila.  Chaplain Bradley -Davila was a wonderful lady full of the Spirit!  She was very excited to hear about CCM.  She had great insight for what CCM would look like between the three Marine Bases.  She said that CCM is needed to affect the whole family unit; the chapel ministry would grow and grow.  She understands that if the family’s children are taken care of in a structured, safe and fun environment then the whole family is going to benefit.  She also told us that any chapel would be stupid if they didn't want CCM.  This was very encouraging!                 

   On our last day in Japan we had the chance to meet with a Chaplain and his wife about children’s ministry. They echoed everything the previous Chaplains told us. We talked about how having CCM will be extremely beneficial having a tsunami effect. Meaning CCM will impact the kids first; reach their parents and then the military community as a whole! They were excited to know our hearts and our dedication is for children’s ministry! They also encouraged us to continue pushing to make our dream come to life!

       The theme for this trip can be summed up in two words: exciting and encouraging. We were excited to see Japan and our potential place of ministry, excited to meet Chaplains and hear their hearts, and excited to see Cadence in action! We were so encouraged by the support the Chaplains gave us; encouraged by their excitement for us to come and encouraged to get there as fast as we can! We see the need and the potential for children’s ministry in Japan and we can’t wait to see God move in the hearts of these children!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

No Matter the Distance, Christ is the Difference (Part One)

  

   Every good adventure has a purpose and is filled with excitement! In our case, our purpose was to introduce Cadence Children’s Ministry (CCM) to our U.S. Military Chaplains and to hear their hearts for children’s ministry. Our excitement came from many different things. We were excited for the opportunity to travel to Japan for the first time, excited to introduce CCM overseas for the first time and excited to take another step closer towards serving our military children!! Leading and guiding us through Japan was our VP for Field Ministry, Todd Tillapaugh. He, along with his family were missionaries in Japan for nine years!

  

The Chapel on the Yokosuka Naval Base

   After about 24 hours of continual travel; Sarah, Todd and myself made it to our first stop in Yokosuka, Japan where we met the Cadence missionaries to the Yokosuka Naval Base! We were super tired from a day of traveling, real excited to be in Japan and thankful we finally had a place to call home for the next couple of days! The following morning, I had the opportunity to visit the Yokosuka Naval Base with Todd, Matthew Bachali (the director of the Yokosuka Hospitality House) and his friend Jason! We met up with one of the Chaplains to play ultimate Frisbee with some Sailors; this has become one of his avenues for outreach. After playing, we were able to sit down with him and discuss what children’s ministry currently looks like on base. We learned that the Chaplains actually attempted getting rid of children’s ministry because there wasn't enough man power to keep it running. Taking away children’s ministry had parents up in arms and not wanting to attend chapel, so the Chaplains kept it running. Now their children’s ministry is solely run on parent volunteers! To hear that our hope and dream is to minister to military children was a huge encouragement to the Chaplain, which turned into an encouragement for us! Not only are we wanted on military bases, but we are needed.

Game night at the Hospitality House

   For the remaining 3 days we spent in Yokosuka, we saw ministry in action at the hospitality house and we also took some time to see Japan! Our first night there, we walked in during their Bible Study. We were also able to sit in on their weekly Friday service! Another night, we had dinner and “game night” with the Sailors and their families, about 80 in attendance. Some of the sailors and their families come over on Saturday mornings for breakfast, giving us the opportunity to have another meal with them.

  **This is only the first half of our adventure; stay tuned for the final half...

Japan, Here We Come!

While Matthew and I finish up preparing for our 11 day adventure, we would like to let you in on some final details. As many of you know, we will be traveling to Japan November 6^th and returning on the 15^th. Our entire travel time will be a whopping 20 hours! We will cross over the International Date Line; so we will be jumping ahead a day, talk about jet lag! We will land in Tokyo at 3 PM Japan time and 4 AM Eastern time. Our Vice President of Field Ministry, Todd Tillapaugh, will be flying into Tokyo and taking us to the military bases and Cadence ministries.

Our first stop will be at a hospitality house in Yokosuka, it is run by fellow Cadence missionaries.We will stay with them for four days. Staying in a hospitality house is a wonderful advantage, not only will we get to see a part of Cadence ministry in action, but we don't have to pay either! While we are visiting, we will have the amazing opportunity to visit our U.S. Naval Base and the chaplains. Meeting and establishing a relationship with the chaplains will give us a greater idea of their hearts and their vision for children’s ministry; this will give us a better idea of what they will be asking us to do with them. We will also get to share our dreams and vision with them!

On the 11^th for us (10th for you), we will fly down to Okinawa! We will be staying in the hospitality house, seeing the ministry first hand and meeting more Cadence missionaries! Matthew and I will get to visit the base and the chaplains here as well. While we are here, we will get to serve alongside the missionaries as well! We will head home on the 15th at 1PM! =)

Matthew and I are asking that you would pray for our travels, jet lag, safety, our conversations and the hospitality house missionaries. We are so excited and can't wait to return to share our experience with everyone! =)