Summer 2012!

Luke 10:1-3 “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go!”

Wow! We have had an amazing summer so far here in the Tees Valley! Since March we have hosted 10 different mission teams with over 162 people coming to serve and lock arms with Tees Valley Youth for Christ and UK-USA Ministries! They have literally reached out to thousands of children and young people all across Teesside. Most of the teams have served in the England public schools leading assemblies, teaching Religious Education classes, and in some cases we even taught line dancing!!! Way too much fun! Most of the schools have allowed our teams to share their stories of faith in Christ and offer up a time for the English students to ask them questions. It is astounding the freedom we have to share Christ and the hope we have in knowing Him! They have also engaged in outreach through sports, mobile skate parks and cafe churches. It seems that with each team that comes over we find more and more doors opening for the gospel. We have one more team coming over to help us with Olympic outreach the last week of July and then we will turn our eyes to Autumn and then on to 2013! As busy as it has been and utterly exhausting at times…I am refreshed by His presence and how He is working and moving in this community! I sense that we are on the verge of a breakthrough in some areas. Let me give you a quick glimpse of one little community we have been working in the last two months. Thornaby is a challenging place to say the least. We began serving there in May. I believe that as Christians we are bearers of the gospel and the only way to see change is to be present. So we began arriving at Victoria Park to hang out and play games and just be present. We  played and prayed our way around the park and kids started showing up from every direction. We invited them to the “Wild Wild West Club” that was starting there in a few weeks and they were so excited! FBC Texarkana joined us on a ministry project June 8-16 in conjunction with Thornaby Baptist Church and we had 125 children attend the Wild Wild West Kidz Club throughout the week to sing, dance, play games and talk about Jesus! It was a tremendous week. We continue to have Kidz Club at Victoria Park each Wednesday and this last week 28 children went to church on Sunday at Thornaby Baptist Church! That is Amazing!! The Kingdom of God is advancing! But there is so much more to do! Thanks for partnering with us and helping us fulfill the call of God on our lives to reach out to the NE of England! #prayforengland

In HIS JOY,

Mike