Do you S.P.R.I.N.G.?

Hello everyone, I’ve been having problems getting on the site and with things being blocked. But I think everything is working now, so hopefully we will be back on schedule next week. We’ll see you then and as a reminder, no Wednesday nights this week.  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Hello Everyone, 

I wanted to share an Email I just recived from the Seed Company (our VBS mission) to give you more details on what was accomplished this summer and how you can get involved as a family:

As the vacation Bible school (VBS) season comes to a close, we at OneVerse — a program of The Seed Company — invite you to celebrate some of God’s accomplishments.

More than 500 churches participated in the VBS Missions Module in 2012. That means more than 25,000 kidsheard about the needs of those living in darkness without God’s Word. God moved many of these children to give sacrificially. Churches from all 50 states, Canada, Germany, Australia, the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia joined hands to help fulfill the Great Commission by funding Bible translation.  

Together you raised $79,764.78. Even more exciting, some of you supported languages that qualified for the dollar-for-dollar match through the Least of These program. This brought the total gifts raised for Bible translation to $124,621.87 — enough to fund the translation of 4,793 verses of Scripture!

And we have more great news.  The matching-gift opportunity doesn’t stop with VBS. Through 2013, every church and church-related group can double their impact through the Least of These  program. Would you consider partnering in prayer and investing in Bible translation to help bring Scripture to people who are still waiting to hear God’s Word in a language they understand?

We invite you to prepare your hearts by watching the Least of These video featuring Francis Chan and Alistair Begg, as well as the video How Does Translation Work? As God speaks to your heart, please share this opportunity with your church leaders and church body. Your VBS kids will be all for it.

All Glory to God as He unites His Church to bring the Good News to those who long to have it.

For His glory,

Scottye

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share with you what we accomplished at VBS through our partnership with The Seed Company.  At VBS we raised $1,757.97 which went to The Seed Company to translate bibles.  Our money went to translate bibles into a language that has never had bibles before, and in a country where it is dangerous to even read a bible.  Because of this, we can not be told which country our money went to help, but we were told our money translated Luke 1:12-78.  We were also thanked by numerous people at The Seed Company and told that because of a grant, our money was doubled.  God has blessed so many people because of what happened at VBS. Good job everyone and remember to keep living a radical life.

http://www.theseedcompany.org/

So I’ve lost track of what day it is.  I’ll have to go back and count. But it doesn’t change the fact we’re still in our year of focus on Radical living and now it’s time to talk about the Spiritually Lost.  

Now I know that your thinking, “Isn’t that the point of all the other things we’ve been talking about?”  Give them water to tell them about Jesus, give them clothes to tell them about Jesus, Give them food to tell them about Jesus.  And the answer is “Yes” that’s is what all the prior posts have been about, but what about the person that has everything they need.  What if someone has everything but Jesus, what do you do then?

This may be one of the easiest and hardest needs to fulfill.  Easy because there is nothing extra you need to do, nothing you need to raise or carry or give.  Hard because walking up to someone and saying “Can I tell you about Jesus?”  can be very scary.  But think of the alternative.  Talking to someone about Jesus isn’t as scary as what will happen if we never do.  We like to talk about how much everyone that believes in Jesus goes to heaven.  But what about the people that don’t believe in Jesus, what happens to them?  Well, They don’t get Jesus, or God, or heaven for all eternity, that’s what we call Hell, being separated from God.  

Think about it this way.  What are all the good things in life- Love, nature, beauty, friends, family, animals, the night sky with all the stars, telling stories and playing games.  There are so many good things that God has given us, now think of the world with out them.  Without people who love us, without trees and rivers and sunsets and stars, without games and toys.  A world with only bad things because God isn’t there-  That’s what Hell is like.  And Heaven is a place where only good things are becuase God is there and he can only be with good.

So knowing and understanding this: is it really scary to talk to someone about Jesus, or is it more scary not to?

Hello everyone!  After getting off schedule do to VBS I’m back again, and wanted to let you know about the series we starting this Sunday.  It’s based of a book called “Tales of the Not Forgotten” by Beth Guckenberger and each week we will be taking a look at a topic we talked about during our Radical Sunday.  I’m so excited about this series and think you’re going to have a lot of fun too.  And if you want to hear some stories of the not forgotten, you can get the book on amazon by following the link below.  I promise we’ll get back to discussing the 10 problems in the world next week, but I just wanted to give you a heads up on this great book, and great series that we’re going to be starting.  

See you Sunday!

Tales of the Not Forgotten

Hey everyone,

I’m taking a break from discussing our 10 for this week and wanted to remind you about the Carnival and VBS coming up.  These are both great ways to reach out to those around you that don’t have a realtionship with Jesus and invite them to see how great being part of a church family can be.  Make sure to invite all your neighbors and friends because it’s going to be a great time.  And as a reminder here are the details.

Carnival:  July 8 5p-8p

VBS: July 9-13 6:15p- 8:15p

Remember: it’s all free.  We just want as many people as possible to come and have fun with us.  

Hope to see you there!

Spelling was never something I liked to do in school and I’m still not very good at it.  But the truth is I’m still better than a 70 million kids who have no education.  I know a lot of you are thinking those kids are lucky that they don’t have to go to school, but are they really?  I’m sure all of you have dreams about what you want to be when you grow up.  I wanted to be a Paleontologist when I was in elementary school before I realized being a Children’s Minister is really the greatest job in the world.  But I wouldn’t have a chance at either of those if I didn’t go to school.  School is where we learn to read and write which gives us a chance at a Job which helps us buy food, clothes, a place to live, medicine, and other things that we need.  Without an education, life is hard.  And what’s worse, without an education you can’t read, which means you can’t read your bible, and it will be difficult even to understand it even if someone read it to you. 

And you can help others get an education.  There are many organizations out there that work to build schools so that children can learn and grow up to have a better future than their parents.  Below are some sites you can look at to start investigating more about the education problem in the world and how you can help.  And remember when a person can read, they can read their bible allowing them to know the God that loved them so much that he sent his son to die for their sins and raise from the dead so that every person that ever lived could have a chance at eternal life through a relationship with Christ.

www.worldvision.com

www.compassion.com

www.overlandmissions.com

Hey Guys.  Sorry I’ve missed the last couple weeks.  Camp has been a little time consuming, and my internet wasn’t working at camp.  But I’m back now and want to talk to you about our next world problem: sickness. 

Now I’m sure all of you have been sick.  Whether it was a cold or the flu, some of you may have even been in the hospital for your sickness.  But imagine getting sick and there is no medicine, no hospital, no doctors.  You would just have to suffer and hope you get better.  The sad thing is that there are 270 Million people, kids and adults, that have no medicine or doctors or anyone or anything that can help them get better.  Sometimes something as simple as a cold or a mosquito bite can kill a person when all they needed to get better is a pill or shot.        

But there are people out there trying to make a difference.  Doctors and Nurses go to help people either by giving them vaccines that will keep them from getting sick or by fixing mouths, legs, arms, eyes, or any other part of the body that might keep people from being healthy and having jobs.  Below are organizations that work toward providing healthcare to people that might die without it in other countries.  Check them out with mom and dad to learn more about how to help.  Who knows, maybe God is calling you to be a doctor to help others that need healthcare.

One way that you can help now, though, is by buying nets.  Now I’m not talking about the kind you use to catch fish.  These nets are called mosquito nets and it keeps mosquito from biting you while you sleep.  In a lot of countries where medicine isn’t available, people get malaria when a mosquito bits them, which can cause you to get sick or even die.  A $10 mosquito net can save a life and keep a whole family from getting sick. You can learn more about buying a net for a family at Bite Back.

Check These Sites Out:

World Medical Missions

African Christian Medical Missions

I don’t know about you, but at least once during a week I will say “I’m hungry.”  Now, I’m not lying when I say this.  I really am hungry: my stomach makes funny noises, sometimes it even hurts, and sometimes I even shake or get really tired.  But when this happens I go to the kitchen and I get myself a snack or dinner or go to the store or a restaurant and the problem is solved, at least for me. 

826 million people in the world are malnourished.  What this means is that they don’t have enough food to eat, and the food they do get doesn’t give them the right kind of energy and vitamins to be healthy.   16,000 kids die every day because they don’t have enough food.  If 16,000 people in Jasper died every day, it would take 2 days for everyone to be dead. 

But the saddest part about the hunger issue is that this shouldn’t be a problem.  There is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone.  Think about the food that you don’t eat when you go out, or even leftovers that get thrown away because no one wants to eat them for the third night in a row.  But there are kids out there that eat rice and beans every single day of the year, because that’s all they can afford. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.  You can do something about it.  Money is a way to start, but you could also grow vegetables to donate to the food bank here in town,  make peanut butter sandwiches to hand out  to people that need them, or collect seeds and supplies for people to grow their own food.   And there are always mission trips that your family could do for vacation this summer to help people in poverty.  Below are some organizations that work to get people food, maybe they will inspire you to do the same.

*Remember kids: let Mom and Dad know what sites you’re going to look at before you look at them.

http://www.worldvision.org/-  Along with other things, World Vision works to provide not just food for the children and families but also a way for them to keep producing food for their families, so that hunger stops being a problem all with Christ as the center.

http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/-  Another Christian organization, they teach people to plant and care for fruit trees, so that they not only will have food to eat, but also sell the extra food so they have money to buy other things they need.

http://www.chfus.org/- Children’ Hunger Fund does just what is sounds like, Helps make sure children have food from right here in the United States to international to disaster relief, they want to help the church help others.