C4C Mission: Peru Trip Update 2014!

Hello Team! We hope you guys are having a great summer so far.

Rachel and I have certainly had a pretty busy summer. We actually just got back from the Philippines not too long ago. With that, we’re working on getting caught up on post-trip things.

Enough of what we’ve been doing since we’ve been back, though. I’m guessing you’d rather hear about the trips...but the Philippines trip will have to wait for the next update. I still need to update everyone on the Climbing for Christ Peru trip from back in May.

Well, the trip was amazing! It was an absolute success! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place more ready for the harvest! It was so encouraging!

Unfortunately, my wife wasn’t able to make it on the trip with me. I’m hoping next year, Lord willing, she’ll be able to make the trip.

Our team started out in Lima ministering to a family who C4C had met on past trips. Before we left, we were able to pray over the family and the serious health issues they were suffering from.

From Lima, we headed up into the Cordillera Blanca. There, we handed out Bibles around a village and shared the Gospel with every door God opened. It was a great time of ministry that saw souls come to salvation!

There was a 15 year-old kid, named Angel, who had just become a believer a month before. He came out with us because he wanted to share his testimony with people. Seeing him share his testimony was certainly one of the highlights of the trip.

Later during our time in the village, we were able to put on a church service for the locals in a field across the street from the church C4C is building for ministry in the area. That night, we worshipped with the local believers and prayed over the sick.

In attendance was a lady who a year before, had to be carried to the church service because she couldn’t walk. After being prayed over at that service, she got up and walked home. This year, she walked to the church service under her own power. Praise the Lord!

From the Cordillera Blanca, we headed into the Cordillera Huayhuash. After setting up camp that night in the new mountain range, we went out to meet the locals. The first lady we met didn’t have a Bible so we gave her and her family members Bibles.

She asked us then to put on a church service later that night for everyone in the area. So with that, we set out to invite everyone we could before the sun went down. We invited probably 25 people and had around 20 show up later that night. We were able to give out Bibles to those who did not have them and prayed over the sick.

The next day, we headed to a village that was a little bigger. We set up camp and went out to evangelize. We only made it 10 feet before we gave out all of the Bibles we were carrying with us. We went back and got more. We made it 20 feet this time before we ran out.

We returned that night after a day of evangelism to 40 kids playing around our camp. We played “keep away” with a volleyball for 2 hours and then shared the Gospel with them. It was a great day.

From there, our team split up. Part of our team would continue ministering in the villages. My group would head further and deeper into the high Andes mountains to reach the unreached...those beyond the reach of missionaries and pastors, those too far from any church.

We found plenty who had never been visited. We were able to encourage them that God had not forgotten them. Jesus had sent us to remind them of His great love!

Quick Mission Trip Update

So I'm back from an extremely successful and fruitful mission trip to Peru!  God is working big time down there!  I was blessed to be able to be a part of that!

So now that I'm back, it's time to turn around and head off to the Philippines with Rachel and one of our students.

When we get back, I'll get out updates and put some videos together of both trips.

Keep our team in your prayers while we are in the Philippines and be praying for the places we'll be ministering!  Thank you so much!  We appreciate your prayers more than you'll ever know!

Cheers and God Bless,
Mike

Early May Mission Trips Update 2014!

Hello Team! We hope this update finds you well!

Rachel and I are just putting the finishing touches on our upcoming mission trips. Our Peru trip is May 10th-25th. The Philippines mission trip is June 4th-20th.

We wanted to give you a quick update on the trip and some bio’s on our students who are joining us.

We are absolutely stoked to be able to take these students to the ends of the earth to serve alongside their brothers and sisters in Christ from other nations in order to reach villages in the high mountains of Peru and the Philippines with the Gospel.

For Peru, our team of 9 will head into the Huayhuash Mountains between 9,000-16,000 ft. in elevation visiting high mountain villages as we go. We’ll share the Gospel, give out Bibles, and show the Jesus Film with the unreached people in the region.

For the Philippines, our team of around 15 will spend most of our time immersing and sharing the Gospel in the village of Badeo which we will have to spend a full day backpacking to. With us, we will carry Bibles in the local language, discipleship materials, medical supplies, and school supplies.

For more info on the trips and the bios on each team member, you can click on the following links.

Peru: http://climbingforchrist.org/Expeditions/Peru/Peru2014.aspx

Philippines: http://climbingforchrist.org/Expeditions/Philippines/Philippines2014.aspx

Thank you so much for your support! Keep on praying! -M & R



FLC Team Bios:

Rachel Horton is originally from Kendall, Kansas. She’ll be on the Peru mission trip. She is an adventure education major spending most of her semesters outdoors. God raised her full support for the mission trip in just one night through a silent auction her family put on for her. For more info on Rachel, feel free to check out the following link: http://climbingforchrist.org/Articles/tabid/545/ID/968/Rachel-Horton.aspx

Jessica Vose is a Fort Lewis College graduate. She will be on the Peru mission trip. She now works at Mercury System Payments in Durango. During her time at FLC, she spent a lot of it studying abroad. Despite her experience traveling overseas, this will be her first out of country mission trip. For more info on Jessica, feel free to check out the following link: http://climbingforchrist.org/Articles/tabid/545/ID/963/Jessica-Vose.aspx

Sarah Mellberg is from the Colorado Springs area. She’ll be on our Philippines mission trip. This past year, she was the roommate of Meagan Prins who went to the Philippines with us last year. Guess, the excitement Meagan had after getting back rubbed off on Sarah. Fun fact: This will be her first time on an airplane. For more info on Sarah, feel free to check out the following link: http://climbingforchrist.org/Articles/tabid/545/ID/1012/Sarah-Mellberg.aspx




Prayer Requests:

-That God would open doors for the Gospel to be received and understood.

-That the Holy Spirit would be working on the hearts of the local villagers.

-That God would keep our teams safe and healthy.

-That God would give us strength and keep us in good spirits despite a possible lack of sleep.

Peru Dispatches Link

Just wanted to put a link up where you can follow the Peru team's daily updates through the dispatches we will post online.  They will start May 10th, the day the trip heads out for Peru.

http://climbingforchrist.org/Articles/tabid/545/ID/1069/DISPATCHES-Peru-2014.aspx

End of the School Year Christian Challenge Update 2014!

Dear Family & Friends,

It’s been an amazing semester that has now come to an end. Looking back, there is plenty to praise God for. Christian Challenge continues to grow. As a staff, we are discipling right around 30 students one-on-one. It was an encouraging semester as students who had disappeared for awhile got plugged back into discipleship.

Our dinner and discussions went great as well. I think my favorite topic was when we discussed the persecuted church around the world. We turned the lights out, read scripture by candlelight and could only whisper to communicate. It gave the students a new perspective on what some Christians around the world have to live daily. Makes us realize how blessed we are.

Continuing on, finals week is now over. Graduation has passed. We’ve since had our end of the year local staff retreat and our state director meetings in Colorado Springs to plan for the next year.

We’re now back from that and gearing up for the summer mission trips we’re taking students on. Those occur May 10th-25th and June 4th-20th. Getting back after those, we have some student weddings. We’ll be heading up to Denver at some point as I have some doctor’s appointments up there.

Rachel and I will fill in the rest of our summer support raising wherever God opens doors for us. We might even make our way down to Louisiana. Thank you all for making these past two semesters possible with your prayer and financial support! Keep praying for FLC!

Love you guys, Mike and Rachel

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:

"L": He probably would have fallen somewhere between atheist and agnostic when we met him. He was a student who was investigating and searching. We met him after he was invited to Christian Challenge by a group of our girls. Since then, he has become really involved with the ministry coming to almost everything we do. With that, we’ve been able to have great spiritual discussions with him and work through many of the questions he has.

"M": We met her at the beginning of the year on the whitewater rafting and inflatable kayaking trip we put together. Rachel tried to follow up but never heard anything back until students returned after the Christmas break. Since then, Rachel has been able to start discipling her, and she has really been growing.

PRAYER NEEDS:

-Praise: We now have our monthly living expenses raised! Still need to raise our ministry fund but we’re excited with what God has brought in!

-Pray that we find some rest and recovery time this summer between support raising, the mission trips, and continuing to meet with students.

-For our students, that they continue to grow in Christ and make good choices over the summer.

-Pray for safety on our mission trips and that they would be fruitful.

Upcoming Summer Missions 2014

Dear friends & family,

We hope this letter finds you well! When Rachel and I began leading collegiate ministry full-time with Christian Challenge, a goal of ours was to energize our students to partake in summer missions. We’d hoped to provide opportunities for students to put their faith into action across the world.

Last June, the Lord opened the door for us to take students to the Philippines with Climbing for Christ. This year, the Lord has opened even more doors.

After seeing how well our trip last year went, we were asked to bring students not only to the Philippines this summer but also to Peru. So this summer, we will be in Peru May 10th-25th. The Philippines trip will be tentatively June 6th-19th. We are extremely excited for what God is going to do on each trip!

With the Peru mission trip, we will be working with a local missionary already on the ground. C4C has been working with him for the past few years. We will take our team up into the Huayhuash mountains around 14,000 feet in elevation and possibly even up to 18,000 feet traveling on foot from village to village.

This is a region C4C has never made it into, where there are many unreached peoples. On this trip, we will distribute Bibles, show the Jesus Film, and share the Gospel with the mountain people.

The Philippines trip will be much like the one last year. We will team with Filipinos and backpack into villages not accessible by roads in order to bring in Bibles in the local language, medical supplies, and school supplies deep into the mountainous jungles.

This year, plans have changed slightly in that we will not be making it to Tacadang and Les-eng which we backpacked to last year. Instead, we will be visiting the village of Badeo. It’s exciting because we will spend less time traveling and have much more time to share with the villagers.

Our team will be teaching on the importance of the Bible, and sharing the Gospel with those who have not yet heard.

We will focus our ministry efforts with a medical outreach, a children’s outreach, women’s outreach, and the Bible outreach.

At the moment, our Peru trip is full. We’re pretty excited about that. As for the Philippines trip, we still have a couple of spots open. There are some other students who have expressed interest but are praying for direction. We should have things finalized here pretty soon. When we do, we’ll get you names and bios on the team we’re taking so that you can be praying for them specifically.

We will certainly keep you up-to-date as the trip gets closer. Thank you for teaming up and partnering with us! We love you guys!

Prayer Needs:

-Pray that the Holy Spirit would be preparing for the Gospel the hearts of the Peruvian and Filipino people in the mountain villages.

-Pray for our safety.

-Pray for our students as they prepare for the trips and raise support.

-Pray that our funding for the trips would come in as well. With time closing in, we still have a lot of ground to cover.

Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel

Christian Challenge March 2014 Update!

Hey team! Hope everyone is doing well! Looks like it’s already time for another update.

Things are going well here...other than me being a tad bit sick with strep or tonsillitis. We are on the tail end of spring break so I guess this is a good time to deal with it and rest up.

With it being spring break, we were able to send out mission teams to two different locations which is exciting. Josh and Jennifer took a team to Juarez to work at a school there and share the Gospel with the kids. Randi took a team down to the Dallas area to work with a ministry there sharing the Gospel in some of the poorer areas of the city. From all accounts, it sounds like both trips have shaped up to be pretty awesome and everyone made it back safely. We praise God for that!

With FCA, we’ve been going through a DVD which follows four college students as they break away from Christian culture and head to Europe. Their goal is to is to find out how the Bible says a Christian should live, not how our Christian culture says we should live. So far, we’ve covered topics like identity in Christ, materialism, and relationships.

With Christian Challenge, we’re still growing, still meeting new people. It’s been exciting to see. What’s also been exciting is seeing how many people our ministry is discipling one-on-one. We’re up to around 20-25. With a campus like Fort Lewis, I’m pretty stoked by the numbers God has brought us to disciple.

One of the nights at CC, we did a pretty interesting icebreaker. We had everyone do a personality test. It turned out that about 90% of our students were introverts. This was awesome to see. It still makes me laugh that God can bring that many introverts together in a group setting.

As a ministry, we’ve always tried to be different and minister to different people than the other ministries on campus. We’ve tried to provide a place for those who don’t feel comfortable in other ministries, the misfits, the introverts, those who see the world differently, the square pegs in the round holes. (Yes, I know that probably sounds a lot like a Steve Jobs quote.)

As the Body of Christ, we can’t ignore or discard them...because God doesn’t. God has a plan for those people too, and we want to help them get there and fulfill that plan!

Prayer Requests:

-Praise: One of the students I’ve been discipling, the one who had scarlet fever over the summer, lost contact with me. I tried contacting him all semester with no answer. Turns out, he got a new phone number over Christmas. After praying, I was finally able to get a hold of him. We’ll start meeting again when he gets back from spring break. Stoked for that!

-Keep praying that God would bring us student-leaders that would be willing to build the ministry with us.

-Keep praying that God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.

-For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially, to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis. If the Lord is leading you to give, please go to: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html

Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel