Special Events

Dear Friends of Children,

Where do your children stand in their relationship with Jesus? Do they truly understand eternal life, sin, redemption, saving faith? Are they firmly grounded in Jesus for life? Have they developed a language of faith that they can clearly share with others with understanding?

Generally, this requires a long-term engagement with the Gospel principles and truths. And we can help you do this and impact kids FOREVER!

Kids’ Evangelism Explosion is a ministry that internalizes the Gospel of Jesus Christ for life. The concepts are developed in ways that deepen children’s understanding of grace, redemption, and faith and assists them to share these truths with others.

We know 8 to 12 year olds are in a critical stage of life. They may have accepted the faith of their parents/grandparents and may attend church, Sunday school, and other Christian activities. But they are like ships approaching the uncharted waters of adolescence.

Do your kids have a personal anchor in the Christian faith that will take their childhood faith to a more mature level? How do you strengthen their faith? Philemon 6 says, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ”. So how do you teach them to share their faith in Christ with their peers and adults?

Kids’ EE will assist you to empower kids to share the Gospel. It gives them real experiences that deepen their faith in Jesus Christ. It gives them tools they can use for life to win others to saving faith in Jesus.

One Day Kids’ EE Training! November 21 in Diamond Bar

Adults and Parent/Child teams

are invited. (children must be accompanied by an adult)

In addition to exciting, interactive, hands on teaching, you will receive a Kids’ EE Teacher’s Handbook, K-Student Packet, KEE Promo DVD and other helpful teaching tools.

$35/adults and teens

Devotionals

shared by Chris Montgomery, San Diego Chapter

Her Journey

I want to tell you a story. It’s a true story, about a little girl who was born, the oldest of five children.

It was not an easy family to grow up in. Both of her parents were alcoholics. Multiple kinds of abuse were the norm. When her parents went drinking and left her and her siblings alone, she was the one to take care of the younger ones. There wasn’t anyone else to do it. Life felt pretty hopeless.

Until a friend took her to church. The church gave her a safe place. People cared about her there. No one hit her. And she found a Father who truly loved her. He considered her valuable, understood her hurts, and promised never to leave or forsake her. It was, in so many ways, her salvation.

She married young, having four kids of her own. She vowed to give them the kind of family life she didn’t have. Team mom for Little League. Room mother who made the best cupcakes ever. Girl Scout leader. And she taught Sunday school so that other kids would know the same hope that someone had once shared with her. Her kids helped her there, and many were the times they would hear her say, “Stand still, and see the wonders of God.” She was just like that, always there for her kids.

I know these things, because she was my mom.

As Mom got older she developed Parkinson’s disease and its related dementia. The mom who had been the rock in our family slowly disappeared, leaving a frail, anxious, and dependent lady old beyond her years. But even in that there was much of God’s grace.

One day in particular I’ll never forget. It had been a hard day for mom, a day she struggled to form words, and when she did they skittered between long ago events and today, making little sense. She grew increasingly fretful at her inability to communicate, so in hopes of calming her I asked, “Mom, do you know how much Jesus loves you?”

In her only lucid moments of the day, she answered, “Yes. He’s coming for me, you know.”

Stunned, I paused. I had heard of people seeing Jesus right before they died, but surely she wasn’t that bad yet. Then I heard the motorcycle roaring down the street. “Mom, do you mean the motorcycle?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Laughing a bit, I said “I don’t think Jesus needs a motorcycle!”

“No”, she admitted. “But sometimes He uses one anyway.” Pausing, she went on to say, “I see Him sometimes.”
“What does He look like?”

“He sits on a throne.”

I have absolutely no doubt that she did see Him, and I am so grateful for that time when she was comforted by remembering His love for her.

Mom died December 18 with my sisters and I and my dad holding her hands. And while I would not wish Parkinsons on anyone, I am thankful for the time to say all those things that needed to be said: thank you, I love you, and good-bye. Straight from our hands to Jesus.

Why do I tell you this story? Because it was someone like you who told my mom how much Jesus loved her. It was church like yours that offered hope and a safe place to a hurting youngster. Because of others like you, Mom met the Savior who was able, through her, to break the cycle of addiction and abuse in her family. And He gave me a mom who taught me to love the same God who first loved her.

And I want to thank you. On behalf of all the kids like my mom who come through the doors of our church, thank you. Please, keep up the work God has given you to do. It counts. It is significant. Sometimes you offer the only safe place some kids have, and the only real security that is to be found, and that’s in Jesus.

You may never know which kids lives were changed because of your ministry. But please, keep loving them, and telling them of the Father who loves them even more. Enough to send His Son. Because someday, the children of those kids will be as grateful as I am that you did.

“Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.” (Matt 18:5)

“It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” (Matt 18:14)

To God be the glory.

 

Isaac

I am finally a grandma!

I had anticipated it for a long time. Everyone told me how wonderful it would be. Looking at the pictures of my friends’ grandchildren only made me long for them even more.

But still, when it finally happened, it was a huge surprise.

That Christmas afternoon our family had just finished opening gifts. My son handed me a card. It was a homemade card, very typical of Stewart and his wife, Annie. The cover showed a nativity scene, with these words handwritten on the front; “for unto us a child is born. For unto us a son—or daughter—is given.”

The words really didn’t register until I opened the card to see a picture of a positive pregnancy test, and “congrats, grandma and grandpa” written below it.

It took me two seconds to burst into tears. I couldn’t even explain to the rest of my family why I was laughing and crying at the same time.

A grandchild! The best Christmas present ever!

Isaac is now 17 months old. Blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned, Isaac is also affectionate, smart, a risk-taker, and a whole lot of fun. There isn’t a lot I would rather do than hang out with him and his brand new 1-month-old brother, Ryder.

But my grandson isn’t perfect. Literally, he’s not.

Stew and Annie went in for a 3-D sonogram when she was about 18 weeks pregnant, the one where they found out they were having a boy. As they begin to rejoice, the technician grew a bit quiet. Immediately alarmed, their joy turned to apprehension.

The technician left the room and brought the doctor back in with her. He examined the screen, then turned to face the anxious parents-to-be.

“Look right here”, he said, pointing at the screen, “your son has a cleft palate. We’ll keep monitoring it for severity, but it’s clearly evident.”

Now, in the overall scheme of birth defects, a cleft palate falls low on the catastrophic list. In fact, it is the most common birth defect. But when it is your baby, and you hear that this creates the need for multiple surgeries in his life, it’s pretty overwhelming. It was a rough pregnancy after this, too, full of dire predictions and equally dire possibilities. Annie grew to hate her doctor visits, because he always gave her something new to worry about.

We all counted the days until Isaac was to be born. Stew and Annie just wanted to hold him, to look at him and reassure each other that all those grim possibilities had failed to materialize.

August 14, 2007 Annie went to the hospital to be induced. Several hours later, Isaac Alfred Montgomery was born by c-section, healthy and squalling. The nurse immediately rolled him towards the nursery in order to run tests to see if he could nurse properly, and to determine how severe the cleft was.

Annie’s dad, Al, spotted the bassinette heading down the hall, and boldly asked if it was his grandson and namesake. We all gathered around, and saw Isaac for the first time.

The cleft was pronounced, but he was amazingly beautiful nonetheless. There was some serious celebrating going on in that hallway!

Each time I saw Isaac after that, I noticed the cleft less and less, until it ceased to register at all. It wasn’t that I ignored it; it was that I just didn’t see it. All I saw was my grandson, and all I knew was how much I loved him. The cleft just didn’t matter.

Isaac had his first surgery when he was only three months old. Annie almost backed out of it. She loved her little boy just the way he was—cleft and all, and certainly struggled with putting him through the kind of pain the surgery would cause him. But she decided that the greater love was the one that allowed him pain, in order to make his life better.

This surgery repaired his cleft lip, and the plastic surgeon who did it was an artist. Looking at Isaac now, you can barely notice where the scar runs. Though there are several more surgeries in his future, we are told that when it’s all finished, there will little evidence of the original defect left.

While it’s hard to think of all that is in store for him—the challenges, the surgeries, and the pain, I am convinced that his suffering will build in him character that he could not acquire any other way; qualities of compassion, empathy, perseverance, and courage.

I have come to the conclusion that that’s how God sees our trials, too. We are His children. He knows our imperfections. He knows we were all born with the birth defect called a sin nature, yet He loves us more than we can possibly imagine. It is not His primary desire to cause us pain, but He yearns to see us stand before Him perfect and without defect.

And God loves us enough to allow us to suffer in order to accomplish that. Our pain is not random. The character we develop as we are shaped by trials cannot be acquired through any other means.

Listen to His voice in these verses:

“Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Eph. 4:22-24

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Cor. 4:17

“We…rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” Romans 5:3-5

God is the master surgeon. His artistry in shaping us is perfect, because He operates with the end result in mind, and knows just what is needed in order to achieve the results He desires. And He does no more than is necessary to accomplish it.

He does it because He loves us, and because He wants to make us more beautiful.

 

 

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