Fall 2017 Newsletter

Fall 2017

BELIEVE BIGGER!

Many times when the Lord wants to tell me something, He will bring it up over and over again. Last year, I kept hearing, in different ways, “Believe BIG!” I knew the Lord was speaking to me about believing Him for something, but I didn’t know exactly what big thing he wanted me to believe for. So, I prayed and asked Him. Shortly after that, He reminded me of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, who came to Jesus asking Him how he could have eternal life. Jesus told him to give all that he had to the poor and follow him, but the Bible says, that the young man walked away sad, because he had great possessions.
After this, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” His disciples were amazed at this saying and said to one another, “Who then can be saved?”

I picture Jesus turning around and facing them as he replied, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Did you get that? Salvation is an IMPOSSIBILITY! And something impossible is pretty BIG! I knew right then that the Lord was asking me to believe for the impossible salvations of many, many children! I was so excited! I shared this with the beautiful group of people pictured above, at our Volunteer Luncheon, encouraging them to believe with me that God would save the children in their clubs. But I have to tell you that they encouraged me! They pointed out that if the ministry of CEF were to grow, more and more children would hear the gospel and the result would be THAT many more salvations. Honestly, I wanted Good News Clubs to be in every school in Collier County, but I was hesitant to radically pursue it, because of the funds, staff and church partnerships that were necessary to do so. But I know it was the Lord again, using my brothers and sisters in Christ, to help me believe even BIGGER!! So, here we are with potentially four new Good News Clubs starting this school year, three new church partnerships and possibly three new people who will be coming on staff to help me! God is so good!! Please, pray and believe BIGGER with us for the salvation of children this year and the growth of this ministry that reaches so many children all over the county with the Good News of Jesus Christ!

Lori McGraw, CEF Local Coordinator

80 YEARS OF MINISTRY!

Child Evangelism Fellowship® has been taking the Gospel to children for 80 years. We are seeing monumental growth in our worldwide ministry. Earlier this summer, over 1,500 CEF® staff and volunteers from all over the world gathered together to celebrate at the CEF International Conference.

Much of the exciting expansion is in Good News Clubs. In 2012 there were 43,000 GNCs held world wide. The number has grown to 74,324 in 2016. God worked through CEF to reach 20,429,085 children in our face-to-face teaching ministries last year. And over 8 million of those children made a profession of faith in Christ! 2016 was the most fruitful year to date and brought the total number of children reached by CEF since its beginning in 1937 to 220 million. Praise the Lord!

CEF Statistics Report

PROMOTING GNC IN COLLIER COUNTY

How do parents find out about Good News Club®? Well, in Collier County it is a little more difficult, because our county has prohibited the distribution of paper flyers to the children in our schools. We are allowed to put our form in the children’s virtual backpack, but unfortunately, many parents are not even looking at it. We have been praying, with many of you, that the Lord would open up ways for us to get our registration form to parents and their children.

In our last newsletter, I mentioned that we were putting a full page ad, which is actually our registration form, in The Collier County Activity Guide. This publication is handed out to every child in Collier schools. This ad was surprisingly expensive, but due to the generosity of many of you that gave, we were able to submit that ad and another one this fall. Please, pray for it’s effectiveness.

But that’s not all, the Lord has opened another door for us! We were invited to leave our registration forms for parents to pick up when they take their children to the Meet the Teacher events, which take place right before school starts! Please, pray with us that our registration form will reach the hands of parents and that many children will hear the Good News afterschool this year.

Lori McGraw, CEF Local Coordinator

CHRISTIAN YOUTH IN ACTION

When Good News Clubs close, CEF doesn’t take a vacation, but ministry continues all summer through our Christian Youth in Action,® (CYIA®) teen volunteers! Toward the end of school teens from all over Collier County come together to be trained how to share the gospel, teach Bible lessons, memory verses, tell an exciting missionary story and lead song time for a 5-Day Club.

This summer we had 15 teenagers and 50% of our them were new to the ministry! They were amazing! I was so proud of how well they prepared each day and how confidently they shared their faith, even with kids that were the same age or older than them! The gospel was taught 17 times all over Collier County, in parks, homes, churches and 2 of our clubs were in Immokalee this summer. We were able to reach 284 children, which is almost triple the number from last year and 45 of those children made a profession of faith in Jesus! The wonderful thing is that all those children were counseled for salvation by the teens, and for some of them it was the first time that they had ever led anyone to Christ. What a blessed summer!

Lori McGraw, CEF Local Coordinator