January 2014

Vol. 7, No. 1

We have a lot to give thanks for in this New Year. One dramatically obvious blessing that we want to thank God for is the success of our year end capital funds campaign. As of the date of this writing we have continued to receive donations ear marked towards this campaign to the point that we have raised over $407,000. What a blessing. We are grateful to God and to all of those who have given so generously to make this goal a reality.

May God bless you in your endeavors as you begin this new year and may He continue to provide you with health, success, joy and happiness as you seek to serve Him.

Dios bendiga,

Phil and Donna Waldron

Mission UpReach

www.missionupreach.com

Capital Funds Campaign Success

What a wonderful surprise for us to open a few emails on Sunday morning the 5th of January and realize that we had reached our goal. We began working towards this goal of $400,000 in cash in pledges back in June of 2013. Reaching the goal is the result of 100's of man-hours of work and dozens and dozens of generous donations by supporters of Mission UpReach.

These funds have a number of programmed uses that include, among other things, the beefing up of operational reserve funds, the purchase of land to build a camp on that will be used for planting churches in remote areas not accessible by car, and debt liquidation, just to mention a few. Words cannot adequately express how grateful we are to God for His blessing this effort. First and foremost we are grateful to Him for providing for this success. Our second wave of gratitude is for the many, many people that participated in this effort through their prayers and donations.

Thank you for giving to this effort and thank you for trusting us to steward these resources in the Kingdom work that MUR is doing here in the western highlands of Honduras.

Boot Camp University and High-School Students.

In addition to six Boot Camp Leadership Training seminars for working men that are held during the year we hold two special Boot Camps during December and January for high school and college students.

This past December we held another and had 25 young men in attendance. These young men came from all over the western region of Honduras. They reflect a growing enthusiasm among congregations where our Boot Camp graduates are members.

Among these congregations there is a recognition of the fact that the Boot Camp Leadership Training series is something that has real value.

Scott Galloway-UPWARD Basketball Camp

During the month of December Scott Galloway, from Atlanta, Georgia came once again to conduct a one-week intensive basketball camp for our youth basketball league.

The mornings were spent training the trainer. These trainers are our DESEO staff and a group of hand selected youth from the DESEO program that work as mentors and trainers for younger kids. This program is very effective in extending the influence of our DESEO ministry team with dozens of kids in this public school outreach program.

We are grateful to Scott Galloway, Bobby McVey, Steve Ware and Ray Hamm who all came to put this training on. Scott Galloway and Ray Hamm were instrumental in helping us begin the UPWARD outreach ministry.

A Note from Donna

As I write this column, we are in Puerto Cortes, Honduras with a group from the LaVergne, TN church of Christ where I grew up. Two of the participants are people I grew up with and it seems amazing to me that some 35 years later I am working alongside them on a mission trip.

We are conducting a medical clinic in the local church, seeing about 300 patients a day. The local church members are meeting and interacting with these people as well as setting up personal Bible studies. We are excited to have this opportunity to plan, organize and implement a medical brigade outside of our Santa Rosa region.

It is also exciting to help a church impact their community with medical services in the name of Jesus Christ. We will have photos and more to report on this brigade next month.

As we kick off 2014, we eagerly anticipate all that God has in store for us. Our calendar is already full and we believe our team is stronger than ever.

As we put together our 2014 plans, we are thrilled to see how each of our separate ministries are working towards integrating each ministry's efforts with the others, making it more feasible to accomplish our goal of planting one church in each village in this generation.

Thank you for your support in this effort!

Seminar for Equipping Sunday School Teachers

Our DESEO team presented a Sunday School training workshop for more than 20 participants this past month. Almost all of these participants were ladies from the new congregations that we have planted this year.

This is part of our overall strategy to build solid, self-directed and self-supporting congregations in the area. One of the guiding principles that we use to govern our efforts is that an effective Sunday School ministry is both an outreach tool for bringing children and their families into the Kingdom as well as a necessary training tool for growing young children into committed, disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Barna Group has an article that you can read at: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/196-evangelism-is-most-effective-among-kids

The statistics, according to Barna, show that evangelism is most effective among children and preadolescents. To us here at Mission UpReach this means that without neglecting our efforts towards evangelizing and teaching adults we must at the same time increase our efforts and the quality of those efforts towards children, pre-teens, teens and university students. This is really a stewardship issue.

Where can we invest the money that we have available to produce the greatest impact? The statistics indicate that it is in Sunday School and other efforts directed towards children and young teens.

We teach the leaders of our newly planted churches that a church with a strong emphasis on a Sunday School ministry is a church that will have greater impact.

All across Honduras often the standard practice for many churches is to send the kids back into the back room and let someone teach a class, which is really little more than babysitting. We here at MUR are committed to training a generation of teachers and supplying them with a curriculum that will allow them to do more than babysitting.

Often the best leaders in the church come from these children that have been trained in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and other classes that the church holds throughout their growing up years.

Would you consider becoming a regular donor to Mission UpReach? Or, would you be willing to give a one time donation? We appreciate you stepping out in faith with us and watching what God does with your investment!
Consider giving today and share in what God is doing to transform lives in western Honduras! You can donate online by clicking the button below or mail your donation to Mission UpReach, 196 Alps Road, Suite 2-395, Athens, GA 30606.