540

ith both sadness and excitement for the future, I write these opening words for our second edition of 540. As all of you know,

Pastor Alan has an equal passion for the City of Grafton as I do for the City of Westover and her people. That will never change in either of our hearts. These are the towns in which our families settled, built both home and community, and where the generations before us estab-lished a dedication in our hearts for the development of spiritual strength within the people of these two little West Virginia towns both Pastor Alan and I respectively love so much. God has opened the door for Pastor Alan to return to pastor the people of Grafton through the church he and Bonnie founded, The Well. In recent weeks, The Well’s two pastors chose to move from the pulpit and pews of this revolutionary assembly. One chose to step from the pastorate, and the other answered the call to a youth min-istry position in Florida. The door then swung wide open for Grafton’s favored son. With much prayer, Pastor Alan was asked to candidate for the job God had

established through him. He preached to his Well family on August 3rd, they voted unanimously to call him and Bonnie back, and God’s servants willingly accepted God’s call upon their lives. The pastorate and leadership of our Kingdom family with tears stepped out of God’s way as He led the Hulley’s back down Route 50 to their field of harvest, Grafton. Our family and their family are presently working out the particulars to insure Pastor Alan will still oversee all our mission trips and activities here at Kingdom for many years to come, but we must not stand in the way of God’s calling. Though Pastor Alan will not occupy an office at Kingdom, the ministry partner-ship between us will never fade. We love Alan, Bonnie and the kids, we thank them for their investment and spiritual treasures they brought Kingdom, and pray God’s blessings over their coming days. We cry “Hallelujah!” to our God with tear-stained smiles from our hearts.

In Christ,Pastor Kevin

ecently I was watching the early morning news through bleary eyes and the struggles of rolling out of bed long before daylight.

The lights were off and the volume was down, but what was unfolding on the screen caused me to wipe away the night’s scales and turn up the volume a bit to see and hear the story the reporter was relaying. Dateline: New Zealand…a man is caught between the platform and the train at the train station. Only a few people were near by, and fortunately one of the railway employees was able to stop the engineer from pulling out of the station. There was no immediate danger of death, so the handful of people began attempt-

ing to free the man from the platform and the train which were holding him. Try and try as they might they were unable to free the man. Pulling didn’t help. Pushing didn’t help. What were they going to do to allow the man and the train to get back to their day’s work? To make matters worse, now an enormous crowd had formed. This crowd wasn’t simply rubber-neck-ing though; this crowd decided to unify to solve the problem. The man couldn’t free himself, and no one besides Superman can physically control the movement of a train, so what did the railway travelers choose to do? The hundreds of morn-ing commuters spread from one end of the train to the other, each placed his and her hands on the

by Rev. Kevin B. Cain

The Goldilocks Paradigm for Ministry

6

train, and then in unison they all pushed togeth-er…and moved the train to free the man. As I watched that feat, all I could think of was how one Man saved the people of the train by giving His life, and now the people of the train are called to bind together to save the one man. This is the calling of the Bride of Christ universal and the calling of Kingdom’s family. God has assembled two day-by-day pastors, ten licensed ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and a slew of brothers and sisters in Christ to be one family of God bound togeth-er to move the locomotive and free the men and women of the Morgantown community and beyond. Building a people to reconcile Creator with creation has always been God’s plan. Gen-esis 12 records this work of unity began with one man answering God’s call. Abram and Sa-rai were old and had no children. As a matter

of fact, both were well beyond child bearing age. Still, it mattered not. God told Abram if he would go in faith in the direction God would lead him then God would create a team from him that would number the stars in the sky and the sands on the beaches. Abram obeyed and God’s promise of a united covenantal family began to be realized. From Abraham to Isaac, from Isaac to Jacob, from Jacob to the twelve sons, from Ja-cob’s twelve sons to the twelve tribes of Israel, God kept His promise and built a family.

This is what God has done with Kingdom. One man asks one man on a chartered bus head-ed for Indianapolis if he’s ready to plant a church in Westover, and the one man says, “Yes!” to the one man. One man grows to two, two grows to twenty people, and twenty people grows to household upon household over the course of nearly 16 years. The roots, trunk, branches and leaves of Kingdom are far more established, sub-stantial, and far-reaching than they were 16 years ago. Many leaves have come and gone, along with many branches being pruned, but as long as we maintain our devotion to the five-fold disci-pline (Prayer-Fasting-Worship-Scripture-Minis-try) upon which God has built us, unity will be maintained here at 540 Fairmont Road, and we will continue to set at liberty all of those who are trapped from engine to caboose. Israel always struggled with unity. Ev-eryone seemed to be quite eager to walk from the slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, but as soon

as trouble was bearing down upon them at the mouth of the Red Sea, Egypt’s produce and its taskmasters didn’t look half bad. Deliverance through the parting of

the Red Sea came, and once again, Israel was on the up swing in their devotion to God. We’ve all heard the song sung many times: when circum-stances are good, then people are content with the actions of God, but when circumstances are unfavorable, then somehow the character of God is viewed as unreliable, unfair, and silently dis-tant. In a light reading of the Old Testament, it is easy to see this was Israel’s constant attitude. Christ’s Bride is not called to dress in ancient Is-rael’s suit of circumstantial unreliability.

Building a people to reconcile Creator with creation has always been God’s plan. “ “

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Jesus took 120 followers and told them to bind together and change the world. The strug-gles were many even when they were few. Con-sider the circumstances and how the 12 pressed through to become a spiritually deep and tall 120 initial followers of the Way. Jesus exploded on the scene out of the baptismal waters of the Jor-dan to call Andrew, John, Simon Peter, James, Phillip and Nathanael. They lived together for a week, traveled to Cana where Jesus turned water to wine, His disciples saw the manifestation of His glory and believed, they headed back home for a few days, and their believed to be Messiah disappeared for 40 days somewhere deep with-in the Judaean wilderness. When you believe someone is something you’ve always needed in your life and then that person just up and disap-

pears without word, call or warning, it’s logical to lose faith in the individual. Yet, 40 days later, Jesus does come back and gives those guys the opportunity to come with Him again. They place their faith in the man rather than the circumstance and battle through the question to become a more united team. They follow Jesus for awhile and see many miracles. Once they even see Jesus take five loaves and two fish from a boy and feed somewhere near 12,000 people. The next day though, Jesus isn’t quite so nice. As a matter of fact, the believed-to-be Messiah blasts the crowd who came back telling them the only reason they were there was because they wanted more food. Then Jesus proceeded to break from all Jewish

tradition telling the people they had to drink His blood and eat His flesh if they were ever to have a part of God’s family. The 1000’s of peo-ple who had been following Him to that point walked away saying, “This is a hard saying,” but Jesus turned to the 12 and asked them, “Are you going to leave Me too?” Over the silence of the crowd who had already walked away, once again Simon Peter spoke as the captain of the unified team, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” A.W. Tozer says it best as to what happened next, “And those that re-mained were those that changed the world.” It takes a unified family to change the world. The family Jesus built was unified through power plays and misinterpretations of Jesus’ in-tent. They battled through the harsh criticism Je-

sus offered to Simon Peter saying, “Get behind Me, Satan!” to every single one of the sheep scatter-ing when the Shep-

herd was struck. From Peter’s three-time denial to Judas’ decision to commit suicide, those that chose to remain truly did change the world. Is it any wonder Jesus turned to His disciples in the upper room and said, “No longer do I call you servants, but I call you friends.” To Jesus friendship meant brotherhood, and brotherhood meant a united front around the Gospel of our King. And, that united front would always do his and her individual part to move the train to declare good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed, and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor. Running the risk of sound-ing like the 35th President of the United States,

It takes a unified family to change the world.“

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we need to ask a better question. The question cannot be, “Who is going to be the third pastor Kingdom is going to hire?” We must simply look around at the family God has birthed in our midst and ask, “What chores for Christ am I to be doing within the family of Kingdom living at 540 Fairmont Rd., Westover, WV?” It’s not a matter of looking through Kingdom’s pews and

saying we can see diamonds nestled among the rough. No…for us we need to see all the dia-monds in our midst and welcome the rough to be among us so they can see the diamonds God de-sires for them also to become. Know that you do not have to move the whole train yourself. It will never move. God wants you to take your two hands, stand where God has placed you, and then simply push with His strength and your personal spiritual gifts to set the captive free. It’s a Gold-ilocks paradigm for ministry: not too much and not too little, only the amount that’s juuuuuust right.

Family is God’s design, not the world’s. Paul says in Acts 17:26-28, “God marked out (our) appointed times in history and the bound-aries of (our) lands. God did this so (we) would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us…’We are His offspring’.”

By faith in Jesus Christ, we are the family of God, and we are the family of Kingdom. God has properly positioned us exactly where He wants us on the platform of this life. Now all we have to do is push together to set free one person at a time.

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f you read the fourth chapter of the John’s Gospel, you will find the account of the wom-an at the well. Jesus shares the Gospel with

this initial ne’er-do-well turned daughter of the King, and then as she runs back into town to share the Gospel with the townspeople, Jesus has a discussion about evan-gelism with His disciples. There’s a brief discussion, as recorded in John 4:27-34, as to whether or not Jesus has eaten lunch, but then Jesus brings his young, Padawan learners to the real truth of evange-lism. Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and to finish His work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months un-til harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (John 4:34, 35 NIV).” In a few sentences, Jesus exposes the disciples’ laziness to-wards evangelism and calls them to get to work sharing the Gos-pel. The calling is no different for Kingdom’s family. God has shared with us that everything ministeri-ally He will ever call Kingdom to do can be done with the land He has given us here at 540 Fairmont Road. Every construction project Kingdom is presently undertaking is being done in order to harvest the ripe fields before us.

Here’s a snapshot

The Garage

A two-story 40x40 garage is near-ly complete. The 3200 square foot facility will house all the Nativity sets, props, and costumes upstairs, and all Kingdom’s vehicles, trailers and outdoor equipment downstairs. Storage problems should be elimi-nated.

Old Sanctuary Roof

The pastorate and leadership is presently negotiating with Veri-tas Contracting to replace the roof over the old sanctuary. The hip roof will be replaced with a gable roof.

Old Sanctuary

The old sanctuary will be convert-ed into a coffee house style meet-ing room where people can meet with one another during the week over a meal, cup of coffee and con-versation. There will be comfy fur-niture and WiFi for a quiet place to read or talk away from home and work. It will also be used for Kidz Kingdom on Sunday mornings and our up-and-coming College Wor-ship service we will be holding on Saturday evenings. This room will be more than capable handling all of Kingdom’s medium-size family get togethers.

Downstairs Kidz Kingdom Rooms

Looking Unto the Fieldsby Rev. Kevin B. Cain

THEY ARE RIPE FOR HARVEST

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The classrooms of Kidz Kingdom will be given a facelift with new storage areas, new carpet, fresh paint, and new dry erase boards.

Kitchen

Kingdom’s kitchen hasn’t been up-graded since the initial construc-tion by the Catholic Church built it in 1977. While the project will not be extensive, cabinets, coun-tertops, and some more sufficient appliances will be a welcomed im-provement to the nearly 40-year-old space.

Old Sanctuary Small Room

The room that once was Kingdom’s prayer room will now become a remodeled room for counseling and private discussions.

The Family Room/Source Room

The Family Room will become the area where all Source Lunchbox ac-tivities will occur during the week and where all information concern-ing Kingdom Family activities will be offered before, between, and af-ter Sunday worship services.

Large Storage Room

The large storage room adjacent to the Living Room will be a two-fold area. The left side will be the stor-age for all the Source Lunchbox tubs and food, and the right side will become Pastor Kevin’s new office.

Outdoor Covered Patio

A covered patio will be built off the kitchen area in order to have a space for cookouts right off the kitchen, and a covered area for the kids to have snack during VBS week.

Three Acres of Ground/Excavation

The fill project at Kingdom is near-ly complete. Through a joint effort between Mountaineer Contractors, Laurita Excavating, and Shiloh Turner, the three acre 250,000 cu-bic yard fill project will create three acres of usable flat land, an outdoor covered platform and baptismal for services and worship, and an addi-tional 30 parking spaces.

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hen Kingdom opened her hearts and doors in December of 1998 it was far

easier to meet as small, medium and large groups, because there were only 20 men, women, boys and girls at that time calling Kingdom home. Much has changed in 15 plus years, and now we see the problem of only addressing our large group needs. Kingdom has grown larger and larger in Sunday morning worship attendance

as she has increased by 26.25 times. Still, as lo-cal assemblies grow larger, they must continue to grow smaller to remain healthy families. Not only is Kingdom’s leadership and pastorate ad-dressing the large group needs of our family, we are also honing in our focus on the medium and small family gatherings too. Let’s start small. The first century church began with only 120 people, but on the day of Pentecost, those few families members saw them-selves swell to a household of 3120. What to do? What to do? The Scripture teaches us that as the church grew larger they also maintained their small group roots. “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts (Large Group). They broke bread in their homes (Small Group) and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:46, 47).” This is the model for Kingdom’s Family. Right now, small groups are forming all around Kingdom. A growing group of ladies meet every Wednesday at

by Rev. Kevin B. Cain

Keeping In Step withThe Spirit

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Kingdom. The resurrection of the original Care Circle of Kingdom has begun Sunday nights at the home of the Cain’s. Shiloh Turner has opened up his home to 20 to 30-somethings who are gath-ering weekly to study the Word. These are but a few that are presently meeting, with all-in-all about 20 groups forming our present small group structure. Those groups just evolved on their own, so in the near future a system will be estab-lished to get everyone plugged in. Until then, if you have a desire to begin a group or be a part of a group let either Pastor Kevin or James know. The next step is medium. Right now there are three plans, two existing and one on the hori-zon, to address the medium group needs of the Kingdom Family. The two existing are Pastor Kevin’s Hollywood’s Version of Christianity Bible study that meets Tuesday nights in the sanctuary from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., and the REAL Women’s Ministry which has been meeting and continues to grow. The medium ministry in the works is the refurbishment of the old sanctuary where we will be able to have small concerts, worship services, fellowship events, funeral dinners and many other kinds of meetings where 75 to 150 folks can gath-er to join together. Even though we lost sight of the value of these mid-sized meetings, Kingdom has remembered her first love and headed back towards the direction of the mid-sized gathering.

Though the large group is strong at King-dom, even it is going to undergo an overhaul. This is happening on a few fronts also. Sunday mornings are going to get an even stronger feel as the response at the altar will become more inter-active. At one time, the leadership and pastorate would join with those who were praying at the kneeling rails. For whatever reason, we walked away from the practice, but in the weeks to come, the practice will reignite. While you certainly can pray alone, those who come to the altar rails for prayer will be asked if they would like for someone to pray with them. It’s always powerful (and Scriptural) to have someone agree in prayer. The grounds project is also going to be vital to the health of our large group ministry. With the committed investment to the Live Nativity this Advent and beyond, the building of the covered patio, and the worship services and baptisms that will be held at our amphitheater, Kingdom is not only strengthening the family as a whole, but also there is certainty that these large steps will bring Pentecost-like increases to our family and the family of our God. Small, medium and large, this is how God has designed and ordained ministry, and King-dom is keeping in step with the Spirit. Please join us in prayer and participation with each of these divisions of the ministry family.

by Rev. Kevin B. Cain

Keeping In Step withThe Spirit

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Almost 5 years ago now I was sitting in Pastor Kevin’s office and he was sharing with me, how Kingdom was seriously thinking about adding a youth and family pastor at Kingdom, and as he says, before he knew it, I had moved in and set up shop to begin the youth ministry we all know as the EDGE.

I remember that first Sunday we met in the “Old Sanctuary”; we had myself and about 7 students (middle & high), talking about how God had great plans for the youth of Kingdom EMC. Four and a half years later, the EDGE is a very strong presence, and not only in our local church, but in our community and in our local schools. It is amazing to think that with a GREAT youth leadership team, a little italian from NY/NJ, a supportive Pastoral Staff, and a generous and prayerful church family, what God would do in the lives of Kingdom’s students. In a short time, we have seen God grow our stu-

dents into Christlikeness, start prayer groups in their local schools, travel to NYC to help those in need, feed the hurting and the hungry of our local community, go without food and sleep on multiple occasions to raise needed funds for the Source program, and host lock-ins that would challenge their unsaved friends to turn from their own way of life to the Savior of their souls.

“I am overwhelmed by the work of the LORD in such a small time frame, but as Jesus declared, ‘What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God.’ What has been accomplished concerning the EDGE Student Ministry, is truly an impossibility according to mere human standards, but totally possible in the hands of our Lord!”

With so much to celebrate and so much to be grateful for, the EDGE ministry continues to dream big and trust big for the future of our youth. With all of the growth in such a short period of time, the EDGE’s budget has more than quadrupled since our first year. From the beginning, a goal of our student ministry was to allow our students to be involved in camps, outreaches, missions trips (this upcoming year

T H E G O L F & W A L K C L A S S I C

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our youth will be traveling to Mexico), and retreats, at a minimal cost to them and their families. Up to this point, we have not been able to reach that ideal, and with the growth of our ministry and budget, we believe God

has called us to join with Champion Events, a Christian Organization, to raise critical funds, so that the EDGE can meet the goal of providing a cost effective ministry for our church and its families. Accomplishing this will also open up financial opportunities for other fruitful min-istries at Kingdom and help birth new ones. In order to accomplish this, we have set a financial goal of $40,000. This amount will help allow our students to participate and grow through the EDGE ministry with no financial burden to them or their families. The Event we are holding is a Golf and Walk Event, which is unique and will combine two giving opportunities into one. Those who choose to golf (open to anyone), will participate in a four-man scramble golf tournament, while those who choose to walk (students, their fam-

ilies, and anyone else who believes in the min-istry of the EDGE), will participate in a walk-a-thon simultaneously at the golf course. All this will be done in complete safety, of course, with both parties being separate from each other. At the conclusion of the event 3 golfers will take a shot for $1,000,000. Two of the top golfers who raise the most funds and one golfer who gets it closest to the hole on #12, will be chosen to shoot for $1,000,000. No matter which people choose to do, all participants become cheerlead-ers and supporters, helping to spread the word on the importance and value of the ministry by asking others to support the ministry of the EDGE through giving. The day of the event is Thursday, October 9, 2014. Those interested in participating and who would like to get involved are invited to attend the KICKOFF RALLY DESSERT on Sun-day, September 7, 2014, at 6pm. At this event, we will provide all the necessary information and materials, and answer any questions. At the end of our rally, we will be having a dessert time, and we are inviting families of the EDGE to share a dessert, but it is not necessary, as the EDGE ministry will be hosting this event. In order to reach this goal, we will need everyone’s help and total commitment

in the EDGE Golf & Walk Event!

KICK OFF RALLY - Sunday, September 7 Kindgom EMC @ 6:00 PM

EVENT DATE - Thursday, October 9Pines Country Club

by Pastor James Sabin

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In the last issue of 540 Magazine, I shared about God’s intended purpose for the family, and answered the question of “who’s role is it concerning the discipleship of children?”

According to Malachi 2:15 and Dueteronomy 6:4-9, we found out that the primary role of discipleship for children is the parents. The article also noted that it is the church’s job to support and equip parents to fulfill this role and to be successful! The real question is, how will we as church lead-ers and ministries do that and what will it look like? Believe it or not, the answer is Orange. Not the color orange, but the worldwide child and student ministry called Orange, that

provides unlimited knowl-edge, training, curriculum, and resources to both leaders and their families. Now this isn’t a magic bullet or a quick fix, but an intentional process of training and equipping, solely focused on the discipleship of children, and helping parents to fulfill their God given role all under the tutelage of the local church. Starting this September Kidz Kingdom will go Orange. “What is Orange and how will it help my family?” you ask. I am glad you asked. Orange says of itself the following, “En-gaging churches and families to influence the faith and char-acter of the next generation.” Orange gets it’s name from the concept that by taking the critical influences of the light of the church (yellow) and the love of the family (red), I’m guessing you know what those two colors mixed create, you get a strategy of joined efforts showing a generation who

God is and that is more effec-tive than if either entity could be alone. The Orange Curricu-lum says of itself, “it draws on the elements of wonder, dis-covery and passion, infusing them into children, students and young adults. Why? To see God for who He is, to help young people see themselves the way God sees them, so that they can love others the way God does.” What could be better than that, and that is why Kidz Kingdom has chosen to go Orange.

Another way Orange fuels faith in our children, is by continually keeping parents linked to the spiritual lives of their children, and giving them the resources to make an impact. Every Orange curricu-

Kidz Kingdom is going

ORANGE!What does that mean?

Fueling Faith in our Children

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lum has unique “parent cues” (a phone app that is available) that connect and engage them in the overall strategy. Because of this, parents will never ask again, “So what did you do at Kids’ Church today?”, because families are always kept current on what is being taught through handouts, vid-eos, stories, devotions, prayers, articles, and much more! All through the “Parent Cue” app.,

where parents always know what is being taught and are continually provided resourc-es to engage and disciple their children in harmony with the local church. How would you like to be provided conversa-tion starters, bedtime sto-ries (all age appropriate), and opportunities to allow your children to watch biblically

based teaching videos created

according to the curriculum’s

monthly theme. Orange pro-

vides all of this and more free

of charge to the families or

our local church. Everything

you will need to “…train your

child in the way he/she should

go…”, Proverbs 22:6, is at your

fingertips, thanks to the

Orange Ministry.

Orange has listed and provided the basis for their Family Ministry approach on their website,

and I believe it is worth noting:

The primary principles that we have established as the basis for our approach to family ministry are:

• Nothing is more important than someone’s relationship with God.

• No one has more potential to influence a child’s relationship with God than a parent. • No one has more potential to influence the parent than the church.

• The church’s potential to influence a child dramatically increases when it partners with a parent.

• The parent’s potential to influence a child dramatically increases when that parent partners with the church.

by Pastor James Sabin

At Kingdom we truly want to synchronize church leaders and parents to build faith and character in our sons and daughters, and we are excited to have the opportunity to partner with Orange to eternally benefit our families and to Glorify of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

If you ever have any questions concerning Kidz Kingdom, Pastor James is always available and would love to meet with you to form a spiri-tual plan for your family!

If you would like to learn more about Orange, you can always go to www.whatisorange.org.

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n July 13, thirteen members of Kingdom crammed themselves and their luggage into the church van and headed to Pittsburgh bound for Rancho San Juan Bosco, an orphanage in Tecate, Mexico for Kingdom’s first mission trip.

The team had eagerly prepared for months spending time together in conver-sation, team building and sharing stories around a common table. All of the prepa-ration paid off as the team gelled into one cohesive group with a heart for serving Jesus and making Him known to all that we would encounter. As we traveled from Pittsburgh to Chicago to San Diego to Tecate, it became obvious that the Lord had great plans for us. The travel was easy without complication. All of our connections were on time and even the trip across the border was without effort. In fact, the hardest part of the journey was dividing 13 people among 2 minivans…don’t forget the luggage and supplies. Even in tight quarters, the team didn’t grumble or complain and this attitude would continue throughout the entire trip and would allow the Lord to use us to get more work done than should have been able to be accomplished.

Let Them See YOU In Usby Pastor Alan Hulley

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We left Westover think-ing that we were going to pour a concrete pad for which a new water tank would sit on. We not only poured the concrete pad that 2 new 1250 gallon water tanks now rest on, but we also poured another large concrete pad and wheelchair ramp. We finished roofing a pergo-la and repaired old, worn church pews in the chapel. We taught Kids Club (a mini vacation bible school) with the help of sock puppets Juan and PePe.

We painted finger nails, sang One Direction songs, jumped rope, grilled burgers, made French fries, cheered at a soccer match, hugged, loved, lifted buckets of stone and sand, navigated old, worn wheel-barrows to their much needed final destination, danced around like

“Anna and Elsa”, made friends, traded jabs with Big Tim and Little Tim, ate amazing frozen fruit bars, shopped, walked, listened to the roosters crow at all hours of the night and day, painted a chicken coop and washed clothes all in an effort to show the world that we were tired of just going to church. We want the world to know that we are the Church. We are the very hands and feet of Christ, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a shining city on a hill. And for a brief moment in time, in Tecate, Mexico, we left the world behind us and focused for a week on the least of these. For this particular week in July, we put others before ourselves. We left the luxuries and comforts of home and were totally blessed beyond mere words. We planned on giving all that we had to the children at the orphanage, but soon learned that we were go-ing to receive more than we could have ever imagined.

At our post-trip gathering, it was interesting to listen to the sto-ries of the team who had traveled, worked, laughed and cried together. It was amazing to realize that the 13 of us would never be the same. We had grown closer to God during our week in Tecate, but we had also grown closer together. A group of strang-ers just weeks before were now bonded together in a way like no other. Stepping outside of our individual and collective comfort zones in order to share the Gospel through word and deed had allowed us to see each other in a new light. The world desires to shape us one way and most people know us as the product of years of earthly molding; but now, after serving together in Jesus’ name,

we shed a little bit of the world and began to see each other as God sees us. As vessels of unimaginable potential just waiting for the moment when we hide behind the cross long enough for the world to see more of Him and less of us.

It is our prayer that you will join us next year wherever the Lord leads us. It may be Tecate

or Kentucky or Peru. It may be an orphanage, a family in need or a community devastated by poverty. But let us also be aware that our next mission trip might be to the neighbor’s house or food pantry or across the dinner table. It may be a widow, a struggling single mother or an estranged family member.

“Regardless to time or place or person…may they

always see Him in us.”

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