A 'Lying' Day

Today was a big Lie. Well, that was our message, all about Lying. We had 2 skits to demonstrate. There was a brother who lost a hat, his friend stole it and then lied about it. He was hurt. Then there was Naaman's servant who secretly received the 'gift' and then lied about it. During our sermon part we demonstrated it this way. We had a sheet of white paper with the word 'truth'. We then said in order to lie we have to cover the truth with something. It was a ugly, dark, black piece of paper. It was dramatic and all the kids seemed to focus when they saw that. No amount of lying is ok. We said other lies are homosexuals, cheating on test, stretching the truth. At the end of the service there were two boys who wouldn't come forward for the altar call. One wanted to, but his friend didn't . When it was all over I told them I wanted to tell them a story. Well, they came and we preached to them after all the regular kids left and they saw it and wanted Jesus. It was worth the whole day! Praise God for His Salvation. Here are some more pics! Praise Him!

2 Doors 1 Way! The Passover

This week was just awesome to say the least. We reenacted the Passover found in Exodus 12. Our story was complete with the roasted lamb and the death angel. It is one thing to tell a child a story and use vivid words to describe the account that you are endeavoring to relay to their mind. It is entirely different when you can show them the story. Great things happened as the story unfolded this week. The kids and parents left us with almost no room to do the show as they crowded to see. We had two families represented by the two doors. One family readily obeyed and the other family were dissenters and chided the 'obeyers'. After the roasted lamb came the blood on the doorpost. IT WAS SO GRAPHIC! The 'blood' was sooo red! Thank God for the Blood of Jesus! I was amazed as I stood there and watched as Alexis painted the door. The death angel them made his appearance. He didn't like the Blood-Covered door to say the least, but he found a opening in the 'dissenters' and took his liberty destroying the first born.

After the reenactment we preached Jesus is the Passover Lamb. It was so easy to preach after such a clear display of the Passover story. We had a group altar call and Verna led all in a prayer for salvation. It was such a rewarding day. Awesome! Thanks to all of our faithful partners who continue to believe in us and pray for us!!! Here are some more pics. Enjoy!

Lazarus had his party in Heaven!

Lazarus and the rich man from Luke 16 was our story today. And what a good time we had with it! We had a real angel, well almost, anyway sometimes Verna can act like an angel and today she was. Verna and Alexis worked hard on those wings, too bad they are for looks only. Angelique did a great job today as she narrated the story. Like I said it's almost as fun to watch the kids watch the story. They seems to form a wall for the 'players' as the story unfolded. It was really cool. The rich guy, played by King Abraham had a party which got interrupted by the beggar. Well, both died and then enter 'Angel' Verna to carry the beggar to heaven, however satan showed up to escort the rich guy into hell. We even had some dramatic lighting portraying hell. Well, what else to preach but a real heaven and a real hell, but we also emphasized how they both arrived at their eternal destinies. It was so fun to preach, you could see how the story gripped certain ones as the preaching progressed. The power is in the gospel according to Romans 1 so we preached the Word in such satisfying way today. We then lead a mass prayer to receive Jesus. If you would have been present you would have sensed the saving Presence of the Holy Spirit as He recreated the hearts of many children and even parents today! What a job! Thank you again partners for all your support! This is fruit that will abound to your eternal account. For many more pics go here. Love, Verna and Mark

Forgiveness-Gotta do it!

It was a great day, to minister forgiveness as the Lord helped us lots. We had 39 pray to receive Jesus! Awesome! Angelique directed the reenactment of the story from Matthew 14 on forgiveness. Germaine was the forgiven servant dressed in glasses and big nose. It's always fun to watch the kids watch the story. Verna and I (Mark) then ministered more in depth. The anointing was present to help and we could really see some of them identifying with the examples of unforgiveness. The Lord gave us a simple ideal of using black paper to signify unforgiveness. I asked someone for a piece of black paper, well, this was a special black paper that had a white side to it as well. It worked perfect to demonstrate unforgiveness (black) and forgiveness (white). Sometimes some of the simplest things can bring the clearest meaning. I believe they got it. We ended leading them in a prayer of forgiveness. In the second service with the A-Team kids we have been ministering on Faith. This week we started at Romans 4:17, calling things that be not as though they were. Well we got to the point where we said money has ears, and they all laughed. It was a laugh of unbelief, well they never heard that before. We worked on them some. Verna reminded them of Jesus encounter with the fig tree and how it heard him. More work to do, but it is so rewarding. Thanks to all who are supporting us, this is your fruit! More Pics click here. Love, Verna and Mark!!

Summer Summary! - A Great Year!

We have had such a great time this summer and now fall. Our attendance has been sustained beyond anything we've seen since starting, which means we are reaching more kids than ever. Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest, and He certainly loves this harvest field. Every week we are just amazed to watch and see what happens during this service. We have had many, many new births, even some parents and older siblings. We started this summer to teach the kids to give, so each service we minister about giving and then receive an offering. One girl really liked to give so she gave a little bear, doughnuts, earrings. Some of the things we have ministered to include: wrong friends, pride, jealousy, wisdom. Bible stories of the 9 lepers, Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar and more. If you are a part of this ministry, you are helping us reach these children for Jesus and you won't loose your reward. For more pics see here. Love, Mark and Verna

Party Spirit

Hello, last week we introduced a subject that we have noticed quite a lot since our tenure here in Manila. That is "grupo" or groups, or what the Bible calls 'party spirit.' The kind of 'grupos' we are talking about are very unhealthy and separates the children unnecessarily and causes hurts and fights. This has even tried to creep into our childrens church!!! Well we are not ignorant of satan's devices. We went on this week to pull the covers off his tactics against our children. Angelique did the 'soap-opera' portion of our service. The kids love to see the story in action. Attendance was tops, we did the altar call, as a group event. We ended the preaching with the best group to be with is the "Jesus Group." That led to a neat salvation message which involved a 'gift'. This type of preaching can be 'on the spot', someone had a gift-bag, so we used that to demonstrate our point. Well you have to receive any gift no matter how nice or good. So, we led them all to receive, there was a really good anointing as Verna led them all in a Salvation prayer. This week was also reward week for inviting and rewards for the A-Kids efforts of attendance and memory verse. The top inviter, Rhea had 29 kids, Awesome! Love- Mark and Verna. Click here for more pics.

3 Weeks of Increase!

Praise God! We've had great 3 weeks since our last post. Starting with over 48 kids pray to receive Jesus!!! during this time. That's Awesome with 28 of those today. The kids are doing a great job inviting. Of course we reward them for inviting. One boy, El Roderick invited 34 and Jason Ray another 14 + many others who have continued to invite. We did have a contest a couple of months ago to invite kids, but this is just extra. Today we had over 180 kids. This is the largest amount of kids for a regular weekly service ever!!! It's our heart to do transformational teaching each week. So this week we started with the story of Mary found in John 12 when she broke the Alabaster box on the feet of Jesus. He said wherever the Gospel was preached this story would be told. Well, His words rang out in Manila today as we retold the story. Angelique (Codename: Gel) did a great job on the narration as usual and then Verna and I finished up and preached from there. We preached, this woman's very expensive gift was received by Jesus, and that she gave her best. We asked the kids what they could give that Jesus would receive. Some answered prayer, faith, love, kindness. We then told the story when Jesus watched the widow give her two mites in the offering and then we taught the kids on giving. We have never took up an offering during this childrens ministry, but that all changed today. We said this woman gave her best, and that we weren't looking to take their money, but that God would bless them for their giving. All I can say is the Spirit of God bore witness to what we were doing. One girl gave a little stuffed toy and then her earrings. Of course we didn't want to take them, but because we knew her heart and the preciousness of all this we received them for Jesus. It was a special time. The last two weeks we ministered the story of Blind Bartameaus and then had a healing line as we preached Jesus 'the same yesterday, today and forever.' Another ministry here in Manila blessed our childrens ministry so we had a spaghetti dinner. Kids in the Philippines love spaghetti, and this is a special treat for these kids. We also rewarded some of the aforementioned kids for inviting. The big gifts were remote control cars. The week before we preached on the publican and the Pharisee. We had some castouts come to the 'church' and pray who were then harassed by 'religious' people to demonstrate the modern day Pharisees. You can see more pictures here from the last three weeks. In His Love, Mark and Verna