The Mad Man - Making Right Choices

Today's story was about the Madman of Gadera. It is always fun to watch the stories being told. Today was no exception as there was a crowd of kids that stood on their feet to watch the story. Abraham Trocio, (Verna's Brother) played the Madman and really brought the madman to life! We went at the story from this angle, that is, the madman didn't get possessed by shopping or fishing or that he just just woke up and suddenly had a demon. No, he made some bad decisions along the way. We had 2 guys assist me to demonstrate our point. One wore black, the other white, representing good and evil or bad. Well the bad guy began to speak to me and, I liked it, and began to choose bad over good, and didn't want to follow good. After a while, I was a long way from the good guy and couldn't get loosed from the bad guy. Only Jesus could free me. I told them a personal story about one as a teenager the only way I though I could have nice things was to steal them. I think we identified with the kids today. We told them that stealing even for a good purpose, like school tuition is not good. God wants to bless these kids and keep them from the pains of sin. Thanks for helping us! More pics here! With Love, Mark and Verna

Love is Everywhere - The Prodigal Comes Home

Although we have done this story before, it was still fresh and new today. Love never grows old and that's what we focused on. The Lord is always faithful to give us utterance. We endeavor not just to teach information, but to impart revelation. Well today, I got to dust off my 'acting clothes' I mean I got to graphically portray some of the prodigals more forgettable moments. Like when he ate pig slop. It was loud and messy as I pretended to eat pigs food. Ahhh, the joy of obeying God. After preaching on the son part we shifted and concentrated on the Love of God. What can separate us from his love we asked? a Lie, a theft, not coming to church? We had some art drawn to demonstrate the God doesn't just have love but that God is Love. One pictured a King with a heart in his hand and the other pictured a heart, robed with a crown to show that God is Love. In the end we ended up ministering the Love of God to a group of girls as we gave an alter call for those who don't feel loved. All as I can say is that He does love them and some of the girls received well as we laid hands on them and prayed over them. Praise God for another good day. In the A-kids we ministered on Worship and Thanksgiving. God is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. Then we said that words are involved to communicate what is in our heart to God. Inside to the outside. God is doing good things here! Thanks to all our partners who make this ministry so much easier! Love, Mark and Verna. More pics go here!

A Changed Man - Paul's Encounter with the Light

What could be more satisfying that last week, well, only this week no doubt. The satisfaction that I feel in my spirit after today's children's ministry almost passes words. We focused on Saul today and re-enacted the story of his encounter with Jesus on the Road to Damascus. Some things we covered were whenever you ask who are you Lord, you must also ask what do you want me to do? We brought out that Saul (Paul) had a big change in his life. He acted differently and he talked differently. Likewise something should have occurred in our lives when we met Jesus. We ended today with telling the children something that Paul said, in effect that he kept a clear conscience before the Lord. We taught them that God talks to you on the inside. Fun, fun teaching to little ones. If you really think you know a subject, then try teaching it to children and you will see what how much you really know. We had a altar call, 6 children came forward and the end of the prayer, the Spirit was powerful as you could literally know that lives were being saved. Now the A-kids: We taught on Proverbs 20:5 drawing up wisdom by praying in the Holy Spirit. We had three that have been AWOL for a while, well they fell right back in, in the end we laid hands on them and they received as easy as any of the other kids. Then, this blessed me so much we all joined hands and lifted our voices as we prayed in other tongues. It gave me such a charge to see our labor beginning to pay off. Well, Praise God, if you help send us here or pray for us or both, you have a good fruit today. God Bless all his children. We appreciate our partners so much. Salamat Po! (Thank you in tagalog) The last pic is us guys praying together in the Spirit. More Pics here!

World Changing Power - Words!

What a satisfying day! Plus this is one of my favorite things to preach because it has helped me tremendously. That is the Power of your words. We started with a skit of 'Sad Mouth Sally". She began to tell all her troubles. Actually calling for trouble, and he came. Our devil character came and placed 'words' on Sally. The words were fear, sickness, poverty and rebellion. Then the 'devil' tied up Sally and she didn't even know it till it was too late. Following this skit we had the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. We then proceeded to preach on the power of words. Overall we had a good response. At the end we had three use their power filled words to call on Jesus. Now that was fun to see the family expand. The A-kids was a blessing today. We just started by praying in the Spirit together. That is awesome. We had a couple of kids that were not filled, so we prayed for them to be filled. It is so good to pray in the Holy Ghost with these kids. It is a closeness that I haven't experienced so far. After that Angelique, Verna's sister, ministered for a short while on prayer. Thanks again to all who bless us so that we can be a blessing! More Pics here! - Mark & Verna

Wait No More - Salvation is Here!

While I was meditating on what to preach to the kids from our story today it came to me that this was a long awaited day for the Father. After all it was His plan that Jesus die in order to secure a family. It is unfortunate that man sinned and became lost, but I am so glad that's not the end of the story. Many of the children are familiar with the death of Jesus, but do not know much more than that. Well, today we took them further. We reenacted some of the story of His death and resurrection. It was moving. We are believers that it is so much better to bring the stories to life than only using words. It is more fun too! We played some cool sound effects from the keyboard that added another dimension to the show. Alexis played Jesus and did a convincing job. We had our new centurion costumes and our new angel costume today. After the 'show' we preached a simple gospel message and centered on three points: 1) Family, 2) Substitution and 3) All for Love . At the end we prayed a mass prayer. It was a good day for salvation. The Lord worked with us to secure the eternal destinies of those present today. It was cool!

In the A-Kids we preached from IJohn 5:14-15 and focused on two points, 1) Getting God to hear us and then 2) Praying the will of God. If we do #2 then we get #1 which means God will grant our desire. It was a lot of fun. I ask them questions while we are teaching just to locate them. It's amazing sometimes how simple answers can become so complicated by religion. Some of our kids are moving away, and we are sad about that. We just put as much as we can into them for the time that we have them. We will miss them though.

Thanks for all who make this possible, you know who you are! Here are some more pics. With love, Mark & Verna

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!