Jim’s Presentation on Iraq Trip 6-27-10 from MBC Loudoun on Vimeo.

We, the Nicaragua Team, just wanted to say thank you SO much to all those who attended and so generously gave. Some of you have already been big contributors to the trip and yet you were compelled to give even more. We as a team are so grateful to you all. It really isn’t a matter of just being grateful for the money. We are grateful also for your hearts, for the bottomless love you guys exude for the Lord and His work as well as your love for the team.

We are humbled and truly grateful. We can’t thank you enough for all that you do, for the support you offer. The people at the Loudoun Campus are truly a blessing and it is our hope and prayer that the Lord will bless you all and that your generosity will not return unto you void.

Special thanks to Jason G and all the folks on stage who donated your time. You guys did an amazing job.

Thanks again to all of you.

The Nicaragua Team.

Did you know that there are 40,000 children with special needs in the Washington D.C. area? That means there are a lot of parents out there feeling lost, alone, and exhausted. And those parents have an 80% chance of their marriage ending in divorce. That’s a sad and distressing statistic. If I didn’t have Christ and the loving support of others in my life, I am certain I’d be one of them. And it’s only through Christ and the help of others I can embrace and be thankful for both worlds I find myself in. That’s why I’m really excited to share with you that Kid’s Quest has selected Jill’s House as our missions project for October and November.

If you’ve driven into or past MBC Tysons recently, you can see the construction for Jill’s House well underway now. It plans to open in the fall of 2010. Jill’s House will serve children age 6-17 through short-term overnight care, social activities, and a range of therapy activities. This will enable parents to get the break they need to concentrate on their marriage or to spend with their other children.

This month our elementary children are learning about individuality and discovering who they are meant to be. As part of our Large Group programming, we’ll be sharing specific stories about individual children who will be served by Jill’s House, a place where children with special needs can discover and celebrate who they are meant to be in an environment that is welcoming, safe, engaging, and fun. Please share with your children how their offering gifts will be used to impact the lives of other children in the DC area and join with us in praying for all the lives that will be touched through this ministry.

To learn more about Jill’s House and how you can be a supporter, visit their website at www.jillshouse.org. Also, if you’re on Facebook, become a fan of their page at www.facebook.com/jillshouse.

If I could have taken one home, it would have been Teressa.

Teressa (short vowels, beautiful rolling “r”) has deep passionate eyes and a sweet smile. She is 7, but probably weighs as much as an average American 4-yr-old. Every time I saw Teressa, she was wearing an emerald green tank top and muddy boy’s sneakers at least one size too small.
She also had this nagging cough that made me cringe every time I heard it.

Teressa was God’s reminder to me that, more than anything else, children (and all people) need to feel loved. You see, we had brought down all kinds of toys: balls of every size, beads for bracelets, and markers and crayons for drawing. While the hundred other children were playing, Teressa wanted to stay on my lap. Even when the local band was brought and a congo line started, Teressa tucked her head under my chin and buried herself as deep in my arms as she could get. She didn’t need toys and games and entertainment; she needed love.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:34-35

A rough summary on how God used the team:

• 6 baseball clinics (325 attended) 144 decisions for receive Christ
• Purchased 2 motorcycles for missionaries to plant churches in new neighborhoods
• Passed out 1000 tracts
• More than 1400 came to the basketball arena in San Pedro for a big outreach
• Estimated 500 decisions for Christ during the week
• Delivered food to approximately 70 families from the new churches
• Renovated a day care for 50 poor children under the age of 9
• Added a 30 x 30 lean to roof to the back of Jackie’s Orphanage, added two wheel chair ramps, new freezer and refrigerator, and a stockpile of food

The SCORE Director sent out his weekly newsletter and shared some comments about the group:

On Friday the largest single group that we have ever had arrived in the DR. McLean Bible Church (179 people) sent their youth group along with several chaperones. All I can say is, “Wow”. What a week we had with them. We saw so many great things happen that I could write for hours but I will try to keep it short. With so many people, they went in 9 different groups so it was like having 9 separate church groups. Because they were so well prepared and organized, it made it a lot easier…..Abby Prado made a statement that the work they have done in one week has advanced the church plant ministry by 6 months!!

God worked on our team:

- One student who came to Christ just this year learned to share his testimony and that prayer is powerful. He had the joy of sharing Christ all week.
- The junior high team pooled their personal money to buy bowls and utensils for a desperately poor nursing home they visited. They also sacrificed their own money to feed the village where one of the new churches has been planted.
- Adult Team Leaders said that often kids were slow boarding the buses, because they didn’t want to stop sharing the gospel with the people they were talking to.

Some comments from Students:

- “I’ve never been so convicted to change my friends back home”
- “I am a 1000 times more comfortable sharing the gospel than I was before coming on this trip”
- “This trip has put life in perspective for me”
- “God taught me patience and sensitivity”
- “When I was holding one of Jackie’s orphans..she fell asleep in my arms…she doesn’t have a father to hold her..I thought if I didn’t have parents to guide me through tough circumstances…”
- One student said the missionaries showed her the passion for Christ she wants in her own life.
- Another student wrote that “I would love if I did something the people of Score or Jackie (who started an orphanage) are doing. This trip was life changing.”
- “While the food will never last, I was reminded this week that the peace and joy of Gods word will.”

1. Encourage your child to dress up as a character who represents a group whom they want to tell about Jesus. For example, dressing up as Hannah Montana could represent music stars.  Dressing up as a Redskins football player could represent those in the sports culture living without Jesus.  Dressing up as a ninja could represent the lost in Asia.

2. Learn about the group your child is representing. If your child is representing a country, Operation World is a great resource.

3. Pray with your child for that people group. Make a list of specific ways that your child can pray for that group. Each night for a week, before or after Halloween, pray with your child for their chosen country, people group or culture.

4. Celebrate with your child! When you get home on Halloween night and admire your abundance of candy, finish the night with a Scripture verse that promises sweet rewards for those who do God’s work on earth: Luke 12:43 and Romans 10:15.

Adapted from Redeeming Halloween by Kim Wier and Pam McCune

The Power of Prayer
At one site the weather looked bad and it started drizzling just as the kids were about to start the program to share Christ. The team prayed and God held the rain back till after the program and the whole gospel was presented.

People we met
- At the orphanage kids were thrilled by Israel, a 14 year old disabled orphan, witnessing and wanting to know the Word more. This little one is disabled because of incest and grew up without a wheel chair or sufficient food along with his disabled sister, also abused and living in a terrible home before going to the orphanage. It is a miraculous story of life change.
- Manny, a SCORE missionary, grew up in the same neighborhoods we were visiting. He had come to Christ as a teen ager when a missionary visited his high school classroom. He now is the pastor of one of the new churches and attends seminary full time.
- Each of the Score team invested in our students and showed them the personal sacrifice and commitment they have to Christ and to missions.

Poverty
Our kids saw extreme poverty. There were children living around the dump walking barefoot. Some conditions require families to have four or five sleeping in one bed in a broken down room.  There are families living on one meal a day.  Several parents can’t read or write to help their kids with homework. Special needs kids try to function with inadequate and out of date wheelchairs.

by Mike Reed, Director of Student Ministries @ MBC Loudoun

Evangelism:

The first day we arrived we took some down time to swim and get ready for the week ahead. An adult leader felt led to witness to another hotel guest in the pool. The lady in the pool gave her heart to the Lord and then went and got other family members and they also prayed to receive Christ.

A dad who came on the trip had the joy of leading five people to Christ working with the baseball clinics. He also had the joy of seeing his own two junior high sons come to Christ and he even led his wife to Christ back home through the emails they were sending back and forth.

One student led a translator to Christ.

Each team had a morning off where they went shopping and on a short tour of Santo Domingo. Each day kids would come back from shopping with stories of other tourists they witnessed to or in some cases led to Christ!

Many students had the joy of personally leading people to Christ this week. One student led six girls to Christ at the end of our outreach night, another student led three boys and three adult women to Christ during the week. A girl from our team had the opportunity to lead five people in the salvation prayer and these are just a few of the stories.

At one of the outdoor outreaches there were some young guys laughing and standing outside the group. Some of the team members approached them with the gospel and before the conversation was done these tough young guys got down on their knees in the dirt and prayed to receive Christ.

One girl on our team was scared to death to witness. With the help of a leader she approached some girls and was able to experience all four making a decision for Christ. She had never shared her faith before.

by Mike Reed, Director of Student Ministries @ MBC Loudoun

This will be a 5 part recap of the Senior High Missions trip to the Dominican Republic

God blessed us again this year with a life changing mission trip. Here are just a few ways God worked….

We left the hotel early each day and headed out to our designated neighborhoods for each team. We spent a lot of time working in these neighborhoods where SCORE International (the Christian mission organization we partnered with) is planting churches. These are poor neighborhoods where our kids delivered food, cleaned up trash, and shared dramas and messages with the people living there. Our baseball team held clinics in these places and shared Christ. Our construction team worked in unbelievable heat to put in a huge covering to allow the children at the orphanage to play in the rain or the hot sun. They also did a huge makeover for an orphanage day care of 50 kids under the age of 9. There were no toys, food, refrigerator, stove, or hardly any books or things for the children to play with. After two days of work it was repainted, cleaned, the electricity was fixed, a TV/DVD player was mounted on the wall, and a brand new kitchen was put in, complete with appliances, so the kids can receive a meal there each day. The team also left additional funds for rent and food for six months after they left. It was an unbelievable thing to watch the adults and students give to and work in this place, and then see the daycare leader come back surprised. She was crying and praying. It was very moving; pretty hard not to get choked up.

On the final day, our students threw a surprise party for 32 kids from Jackie’s orphanage. It was so moving to see these disabled, abused (some physically, others emotionally or sexually) little children come into the hotel with balloons, cake, cookies, popcorn, pizza, and gifts for each of them with their names on it. Then Jackie and her husband, Ernesto, shared the story of how it all started and how faithful God had been. This was another tough time to hold back the tears. You would have been so encouraged by our students! What a blessing to see how God can use high school kids to make a difference for Christ.