"Suffer the little children..."

Jesus made it clear that He loved children, and wanted them to be able to approach Him and learn of Him. And so at Chapel on the Hill, we want to be like Him in that way.

Recently we renewed our long-standing prayer program entitled "Faith Family." The idea of our Faith Family is for adults in church to volunteer to pray daily for one of the children of our church. We match up Faith Family prayer partners, and it's exciting to see young people seeking out their "Faith Family" and to greet them each week.


As each adult committed before the Lord to pray daily for one special child, we trusted God to continue to guard, protect, and 'grow' them in Him.



This Sunday at Chapel, we'll extend that concern beyond our walls. It's "Shoebox Sunday," the day we bring in shoeboxes we've filled with gifts for boys and girls around the world, for Operation Christmas Child. This ministry of Samaritan's Purse shares God's love this way around the globe. Last year, 7.6 million shoeboxes were collected and distributed in many different countries. One of those countries was Zimbabwe.

Johnny, a seventh grader at Chapel, received a letter from the boy who received his gift box.


The letter read,

"Hi John. My name is Kida. I am 11 years old. I like to play hockey, cricket and rugby. I am in sixth grade. I really enjoyed the things in the box. I was born on the 25th of September 1995...I also enjoy reading books. Thank you. Please write back and we can be friends or pen pals."

As we send out these boxes, we pray for those who receive them - that they will be introduced to the love of Christ, and that many will come to know Him through the follow-up discipleship program.

This past weekend was the Missions Conference at Chapel. We sat and ate together, listened to presentations from some of our missionary family, and prayed over what we could give in this coming year to support our missionaries and missionary endeavors.



Our focus was on Dick and Kathy Page's ministry to orphans and needy children in Russia (the Pages are seen here speaking to some of the kids at Chapel),


David Virkler's evangelism ministry, the Camp Elim ministry in Haiti, a ministry to People With AIDS in Greenwich Village, Bible translation work in the Philippines, a church plant in the Yukon Territory, ministry to those displaced in the Sudan, and more...

And God is calling us to go even beyond this - especially for the lost children of the world. Pastor Anderson's heart has been moved to action, as he's learned of children in some of the darkest places of the earth. He is writing a book, "Habitations of Cruelty," about young girls trapped in sexual slavery in Cambodia, young boys turned into murderers as child soldiers in Uganda, and children living in the streets in Peru.

Pastor's message from Sunday is here, on Oneplace. His passion is to see these forgotten, invisible children reached with the transforming, rehabilitating power of the Holy Spirit. We look forward as a church family to doing all we can to share the love of Jesus Christ to these young ones trapped in these "Habitations of Cruelty."

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. We want to be part of seeing that happen, by asking God to use us however He can - through praying for our own children at Chapel, through sending out a simple shoebox gift somewhere in the world, and through setting up a ministry of financial and prayer support for those who are fearlessly and faithfully working in these dark places.

Jesus laid His hands on those little children, way back in Bible times. And He's still doing it today. We want to be His vehicles, His vessels...His hands, for the children's sake.