“Reach a child today, change the world tomorrow.”
We often use this phrase to encourage children’s workers that their ministry to children is important. Unfortunately, those who work with children often don’t get to see the end results of their ministry. But recently I had the blessing of seeing a real-life example of this principle.
During a visit to Ivory Coast, I encountered a young man named Falley. Everyone who talked about Falley raved about his talents as a children’s evangelist and trainer of children’s workers. When we finally met, I introduced myself. Falley’s eyes widened. He looked at me and asked, “Did you used to live in Bouaké?” (a city in the center of Ivory Coast.) I said yes, but was puzzled how he knew that.
Falley explained that when he was a young boy, he lived in Bouaké. He had attended a children’s outreach event that we held in the city’s soccer stadium. His life had been impacted by that event.
Meeting Falley again and hearing his story was a huge encouragement to me. We had only stayed in Bouaké for a couple of years before a war started and we were forced to leave the country. I often wondered if we had really had any impact. Now here stood Falley – living proof that God had used our ministry.
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Falley and Phil in Ivory Coast, January 2016
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Notably, after our event touched his heart, Falley had dedicated children’s workers in his church that continued to pour into his life and disciple him. Today Falley is ministering to children all across the country of Ivory Coast. Not only is he ministering to children, he is equipping other children’s workers through training seminars. Falley’s ministry has even grown outside his own country. He has been asked to travel to other countries to train and teach children’s workers.
Tens of thousands of children are being reached and discipled today because fifteen years ago, a few children’s workers were willing to invest in the life of one young boy.
“Reach a child today, change the world tomorrow.”
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What a blessing it is to partner with the many churches and individuals who make up our support team. Because of you, we’ve travelled across Africa (during this term) and made the move to Togo. But now we want to go even further.
Take a look at some of the amazing ministry opportunities we have coming up.
- The Benin church has requested that we come do a Training of trainers for Children’s Ministry, Pastoral Awareness Seminars (why children’s ministry is important), and to help build up their Sunday school shelter program (building classroom space for needy churches).
- The Ghana church has invited us to speak at their National Children’s Ministry Conference and to lead a Children’s Leaders training seminar.
- The Liberia church is asking for help to launch the newly reestablished Children’s Ministry Department.
- The Sierra Leone church has asked us to help them train key leaders and trainers for a new children’s ministry focus started by the national church.
- The Burkina Faso church needs help organizing, developing, and launching a new training system for the national children’s ministry department.
- The Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) church is launching a Sunday School shelter project to build a classroom for kids with every new church planted, training of trainers seminars for children’s ministries and Christian school teachers.
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Robin teaching at one of our Children’s Workers training seminars
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All of these opportunities are amazing – especially when you consider the potential to changes millions of children’s lives. BUT…none of it can happen without your help. You’ve helped us go – to the children of Togo. But now we need your help to go farther – to the children all over West Africa
Unfortunately, we never knew that we were going to be doing all this travel when we raised our budget for this term. So now we’re asking our faithful team to consider a special one-time offering to assist us to go to each of these countries.
Each of these trips averages around $3,000. This includes travel, accommodations, food, and the costs of the training seminars (photocopies, scholarships, materials, etc.) With an average attendance of 60 people, that means that you can support our training efforts for just $50 a person. Each leader trained represents an investment in the lives of dozens of children’s workers, who will in turn reach thousands of children.
Please consider helping us to go farther and reach more souls for the kingdom of God. Click on the button below to give to our training trips.
Be sure to type “Teacher Training” in the comments so we know what you’re giving for.
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