Kids and Missions

So, Josh and I have been home for about 1 week from Dr. Arroyo, Nueva Leon, Mexico. We are in the states for a few months gearing up for the upcoming year. We are visiting friends and family and trying to figure out which way is up. Right now I am sitting in Hastings with (you guessed it) a big cup of coffee.

As I began to think what I could share with everyone in this blog, I thought of many things from the reasons why we do missions to stories that Josh and I have had over the past 11 months. Let just say I have gotten an opportunity to do things I never thought I would do. But, something that is very near to my heart is children and missions.

How do we as the local body of Christ and missionaries help teach our kids to be mission’s minded people? Honestly there of plenty of adults that have a hard time being mission’s minded. Sometimes our lives get so busy with stuff we forget the reason we are here on the earth. We are here to glorify God in everything we do. Jesus told us to go into all the world.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Whether you feel you are called to go into a foreign country and take the gospel or work at home doing the same, we are all called to be a part of missions. I believe this requires us to be intentional with our lives and hearts. We are all called to the great commission.

There are so many ways that we can get kids involved in missions. I could sit here all day and not exhaust a list of ideas. So, here are some thoughts on how to help kids have a heart for missions and how to get them involved in missions.

1. Pray with your kids. Pray that God would give them a heart for Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. God is ultimately the one that places the calling and desire for the Great Commission. Pray for missionaries working in various parts of the world. Have pictures of these missionaries and a map of where they are ministering posted somewhere in your house.

2. Help your children focus on kids in other parts of the world. Take some time and teach kids about the differences and similarities of kids in other cultures. Help them see some of the challenges that other kids face growing up in different areas of the world. For a real life example, True Vine Church has begun a program called “MO Change”. (MO is an acronym for Mexico Orphanage.) The kids bring any change that they can round up from allowances to searching under the cushions of the couch. All the money goes to help an orphanage on El Higo, MX. When the kids meet their goal they have a celebration and start the process over again.

3. Go on short term missions’ trips with your kids. There are great short term trips available that are family friendly. Not only do the children get a first hand experience of another culture, as parents you are setting the example for your kids about the importance of missions in your lives. One family Josh and I know have over the years established a tradition of going to Mexico in the summer to help minister to local kids in the area. This summer they gave their boys a choice between coming to Mexico and doing a mission’s trip or going on a cruise. The boys had no hesitation in choosing to come to Mexico. I believe part of the reason is that this family has been instilling the importance of missions in their kids for a long time.

4. Serve as a family locally in areas that may be different from what your kids see everyday. This could be helping out in a soup kitchen or taking books to kids who don’t have the money for them. Helping a neighbor across the street mow the lawn and pick weeds is a very inexpensive way to show a person in need God’s love.

The commission for sharing the gospel doesn’t start in a foreign country but first in our hearts and then is expressed in our daily lives by loving those around us. Life can get really busy. If we allow it our schedule will begin to dictate what we hold as valuable and precious. Let work on raising up families that put God first in all that we do. Then all the other things will take their proper place in our lives.

Kids and Missions

So, Josh and I have been home for about 1 week from Dr. Arroyo, Nueva Leon, Mexico. We are in the states for a few months gearing up for the upcoming year. We are visiting friends and family and trying to figure out which way is up. Right now I am sitting in Hastings with (you guessed it) a big cup of coffee.

As I began to think what I could share with everyone in this blog, I thought of many things from the reasons why we do missions to stories that Josh and I have had over the past 11 months. Let just say I have gotten an opportunity to do things I never thought I would do. But, something that is very near to my heart is children and missions.

How do we as the local body of Christ and missionaries help teach our kids to be mission’s minded people? Honestly there of plenty of adults that have a hard time being mission’s minded. Sometimes our lives get so busy with stuff we forget the reason we are here on the earth. We are here to glorify God in everything we do. Jesus told us to go into all the world.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Whether you feel you are called to go into a foreign country and take the gospel or work at home doing the same, we are all called to be a part of missions. I believe this requires us to be intentional with our lives and hearts. We are all called to the great commission.

There are so many ways that we can get kids involved in missions. I could sit here all day and not exhaust a list of ideas. So, here are some thoughts on how to help kids have a heart for missions and how to get them involved in missions.

1. Pray with your kids. Pray that God would give them a heart for Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. God is ultimately the one that places the calling and desire for the Great Commission. Pray for missionaries working in various parts of the world. Have pictures of these missionaries and a map of where they are ministering posted somewhere in your house.
2. Help your children focus on kids in other parts of the world. Take some time and teach kids about the differences and similarities of kids in other cultures. Help them see some of the challenges that other kids face growing up in different areas of the world. For a real life example, True Vine Church has begun a program called “MO Change”. (MO is an acronym for Mexico Orphanage.) The kids bring any change that they can round up from allowances to searching under the cushions of the couch. All the money goes to help an orphanage on El Higo, MX. When the kids meet their goal they have a celebration and start the process over again.
3. Go on short term missions’ trips with your kids. There are great short term trips available that are family friendly. Not only do the children get a first hand experience of another culture, as parents you are setting the example for your kids about the importance of missions in your lives. One family Josh and I know have over the years established a tradition of going to Mexico in the summer to help minister to local kids in the area. This summer they gave their boys a choice between coming to Mexico and doing a mission’s trip or going on a cruise. The boys had no hesitation in choosing to come to Mexico. I believe part of the reason is that this family has been instilling the importance of missions in their kids for a long time.
4. Serve as a family locally in areas that may be different from what your kids see everyday. This could be helping out in a soup kitchen or taking books to kids who don’t have the money for them. Helping a neighbor across the street mow the lawn and pick weeds is a very inexpensive way to show a person in need God’s love.

The commission for sharing the gospel doesn’t start in a foreign country but first in our hearts and then is expressed in our daily lives by loving those around us. Life can get really busy. If we allow it our schedule will begin to dictate what we hold as valuable and precious. Let work on raising up families that put God first in all that we do. Then all the other things will take their proper place in our lives.

Outreaching

We finished our time in the class portion of DMT.  Woo Hoo!  Now it is time for us to travel across Mexico to exercise what we have learned in class.  I am looking forward to this portion of DMT.  Our class is already a cohesive team.  We are all ready to go to "war" together.  I know that I can say I fully trust my team and our leaders because they are fully trusting in God for everything.  I believe that God has put this team together for this moment.  Pray that we carry out this most important assignment that we have been brought together for.  Pray for God's will and for His love to completely saturate us as a family.

We will travel first to El Higo for a few days to repack and prepare for the island.  Then in a day or so we will continue on to la Isla de Viejo Soyaltepec.  This is the same island that Cathy and I worked on for several months.  We will minister to and serve the people on island until around May 10th.  We will head out from the island and possibly spend some time in Tuxtepec.  There we will help the churches there and possibly help in some new missions.  After Tuxtepec we will head north to El Higo and we will spend the remainder of our outreach there.  In El Higo we will help with the existing churches and established missions.  Our ministry in all places will consist of street ministry, witnessing, home visitation, children's ministry, holding services and special events, and much much more.  Following the outreach portion of our school, we will help with summer groups.  We have a lot to do and many miles to log, so keep us in your prayers.  Our updates will be limited while in outreach.  Check here for a list of prayer request for outreach.  We feel your prayers daily and we need them more than ever.  We love you and miss you.

Pre-Outreach Bonanza and Such

Well we just got back from pre-outreach. On our pre-outreach we go to the different areas that we will be spending our outreach part of our DMT. We visit the area ministries and just get a feel for the environments in which we will be ministering in. This year we will be spending our outreach time in El Higo, Veracruz (where the orphanage is) and on la Isla de Viejo Soyaltepec. For Cathy and I, this was not necessarily a new experience. We had both visited the orphanage many times and had lived on the island for several months. It was however a different experience to do this with our DMT family. When you are part of a team, your daily experience is very different in any location. It was good to see what things will be like when we will be in these locations with the team.

Our first day of travel took us down to El Higo, Veracruz. It only takes around 7 or 8 hours to get there from la Haciendita, and the driving was nice. We got into the orphanage that evening and set up house. Marcus and Vero Palmer are the American side co-directors of the orphanage and they live in the upstairs portion. Laura and Marcelo are the Mexican side co-directors and they live in nearby San Andreas. Laura is the mother of one of this years students, Gabby. The rest of the team set up hammocks in the part of the orphanage that was under construction. The bare stud walls were easy to attach hammocks to. Marcus and Vero gave us a room off of the dining room to ourselves. We slept in sleeping bags on mats on the floor. It was not too bad at all.

During our time there we helped out with a work team that was there. I took the guys out to the dirt piles and we worked on fixing various drainage problems on the property. Cathy and the girls painted and cleaned. While we did this the work crew was sheet rocking in the orphanage. We worked hard in the heat and our hands had the scars to show it. In the afternoons we would clean up and minister in one of the local churches. It was busy but fun. After a few days we headed farther south, about 11 hours south to the island. On the way we stopped at Costa Esmerelda and took a break by the gulf. For some of our group it was their first time to see the ocean. We made great time down to the island, got all of our stuff on the boat, and got everything set up before night had fully set in.

On the island we showed the other DMT students around and let them just get accustomed to the environment. It is a harsher life on the island and most people need time just to get their daily rhythms down. You have to bath in the lake, wash clothes in the lake, and build a fire for a meal more than few people. When we got there the weather turned very cold. Most of us were expecting warmer weather, so we shared what warm clothes we had. We looked like even more of a rag tag bunch. Fortunately the cold weather enabled us to fudge on daily showers here and there. We visited homes while we were there. One of the families which Cathy had visited with many times during our time on the island, accepted Christ! We also had a church service, where Cathy and I were able to see many of the people we had not seen since we were there last. We past out baptism pics that I had taken in November and they were so happy to have them. One of the families mother told me “thank you” in English with tears in her eyes. Those were the only English words that she knew. That alone was worth the whole trip.

At the end of the week we pull up our stakes took the boat across and packed the van up again. This time we were headed north. That evening we were back in El Higo where the work team had finished most of the sheet rocking, so we all slept in the dining hall. One more day in the van and we were all very glad to be back home in La Haciendita. God blessed us greatly during the trip and brought us even closer as a family. I am praying and looking forward to our outreach time coming up. I hope that you are as well. Thanks for reading this and keeping up with us. We feel your prayers daily. We love you.

Surrender

In Luke 9:1-2 (ESV) says, “And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them to out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” For the first time in the disciples following of Jesus, He sent them out to do what He had been modeling in front of them. He gave them the authority and power to do the works. Instead of walking beside Jesus, He would be working in them. They initially responded to His call when He asked them to leave what they were doing a follow Him. In Luke 9 He is also calling them.

Often in our lives we confuse Christ’s calling with the assignment of a specific task. We are called everyday to surrender our lives to His will, whatever it may be. Often we surrender to a task not necessarily a calling. We may feel like God is calling us to work in prison ministry, children’s ministry, to preach, to pastor, or to be a missionary. Sometimes we get hung up on task. People often say I am not sure what God’s will is for my life.

I have to daily remind myself that I am not surrendered to a task, but to a Savoir who loves me and died for me so that I could experience true life. Today I would like to remind you of the same. Jesus is calling you and I not to surrender to an assignment but to Him. Maybe some of us will be doing one task for our entire lives, like pastoring the same church. Sometimes we find security in thinking we have one task assigned to us, and it will never change.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.” So, my challenge to you today is to surrender to Him with abandon! Daily I find myself surrendering to Him. I am not surrendering to missions, a church, or a specific task but to my Savior. That is true joy!

- Cathy Vaughn

Last Update for 2009

     Hey everyone, this is the last update for 2009.  We have have had a great year of preparing and being sent out onto the mission field.  So much has happened in 2009.  Cathy and I are still trying to figure out where the year went.  Thankfully God has prepared us and provided wonderful friends and family like you to lift us up in prayer.  God has used you all to provide so much for us this year in financial support and most importantly through your prayers.  Your prayers are felt daily and I believe that it is those prayers that give us the push to keep going when our own energy, patience, and endurance gives out.  We know that we always have people back home pushing us forward when we are too weak to do it ourselves.  God has planned it that way from the beginning. We have to have a on going relationship with Him to make it through and we have to have an on going relationship with those around us to complete His will.  It is a beautiful, synergistic dance of love and humility.  It is our privilege to serve with you all.
     We have just wrapped our time on the island, where God poured out His provision and blessings in a most opulent fashion.  Cathy and I have been here at the border for the last couple of weeks recuperating and preparing for the Christmas trips.  Over the next week or so we will be travelling to several villages that we work in to bring Christmas Love Packs to those who need them.  We want to thank all Lighthouse Worship Center in Purcell, OK and True Vine Church in Goldsby, OK for all their hard work in gathering supplies for and preparing over 1500 Love Packs to be given out this Christmas.   These Love Packs contain everyday personal items like soap wash, wash clothes, combs, etc. and also have some fun stuff for the kids like a small toy and stickers.  They will be handed out at children's services all over Mexico.  While we have what we need for this year, we already are preparing  for next year.  If you are interested in helping out with these love packs, just let us know by emailing us at justjoshandcathy@gmail.com.
     We will end the year somewhere in Mexico.  I am not sure exactly where we will be for sure.  When we return in early January we will turn right around the next day and head back in to La Haciendita to prepare for the Dayspring Missionary Training that begins the 20th of January and ends in mid August.  Please continue to lift us up in prayer.  We are praying for you as well. In fact right now I pray that you have a blessed time this New Year.  May God usher in 2010 with a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit in your life.  May you focus more daily on glorifying God in everything you do.  Let this next year be blessed with your denial of your own flesh for the embracing of His Spirit more than ever.  Only you Christ, are worthy to be praised.  We love you and we love each other because of you, God.  Bless your body and draw in those who aren't a part of it yet.  Together God we give you all the glory, honor, and praise.

Adoration

      Hey everyone! It is Christmas time! (like you hadn't already figured it out.) We just got back into the states a week or so ago. It was nice to miss the big commercial push for christma$ that you usually have dredge through each year. It is always a struggle for me to really stay excited for Christmas, frankly because christma$ always got in the way. The places we have been in Mexico for the last several months didn't have much started yet for Christmas. It was nice. It was nice to come back and be able to get into the Christmas spirit. I haven't had the pleasure in many years. It reminds me of growing up. When I was a kid it didn't seem that Christmas took up so much bandwidth. We didn't even think about it until after Thanksgiving when dad would take us all out to go look for a Christmas tree. (Well that is except for a Christmas when we didn't get a tree till just a little over a week before!) It was a magical time, a spiritual time. Somewhere we lose that in the shuffle of growing up. I probably held onto it longer than most. I made a point of decorating the family tree and always looking for a way to bless someone for no reason. Through the years though I had lost my edge and just became another lemming charging headlong over the edge into christma$ burn out. This year it is like I found the reset button and everything is new again.

      I believe that there are many things that contribute to this reconnection with my long lost Christmas spirit. First of all this year will be the first year that Cathy and I will not get to spend Christmas with family and in their absence the heart feels the void. We have both grown to appreciate our families and networks of friends more than ever. We miss our moms, dads, brothers, sisters, extended families, pastors, church families, friends, and just about everyone else. This makes us remember how much our loved ones mean to us. Then there is also the fact that we won't be running around crazy this year to go to parties, to brave the malls, or to pick up that last thing that we promised to bring or supply. Instead of focusing on getting our list of tasks completed, we are blessed with time to savor this season. Finally I think that the most important contributor to this renewed enthusiasm for the Christmas season is that this is our first Christmas as missionaries. We are realizing more each day what it means to carry out Christ's last commandment on this earth. Christmas is not just about the birth of Christ. For if Christ was the son of God, lived on this earth a blameless life, and then decided to not die on the cross for our sins, would we still be celebrating Christmas? To properly celebrate Christmas, we must celebrate his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension! To bring the glory to Him that He deserves we don't need another party or holiday, but just to obey His word. Christ told us that all obedience can be summed up into two principles: 1. Love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul and 2. Love your neighbor.

     This Christmas that is my challenge to you (and me). You don't have to be a missionary or live in a grass hut to really be serving God. I believe it is more of a challenge to be right where you are, especially in Western culture, and hold strong to your faith by loving others as Christ would. When you are in extreme circumstances, it is easier to rely on God for everything, to obey His every word, but at home we find it all to easy to limp along on our own terms.  So this Christmas the try this: Don't do some drastic reroute of value driven events, but do whatever you do with love. Go to the office party with love for your coworkers. When you visit grandma and grandpa in the nursing home, don't be rushed. Give them your love in time. Spend less time checking off your holiday task list and more time working on God's task list for your life. It has one item. There is a big number one with an asterisk by it. The task is “Adore Him”. The asterisk is “Adore Him by adoring others for Him, because of Him, by Him, and through Him.” So, I will end this Christmas message in a candy encrusted sentimental but pertinent fashion. O, Come let us adore Him, for He alone is worthy, for Jesus is our Savior...Christ the King.