The First Ever Missions World Cup Challenge
In
April of this year, Maritime Ministries led a team of 16 people to Long
Island, Bahamas for a 4 day children's event. This event included children
from the whole island between the ages of 5-18. The focus of the jamboree
was to teach the kids about missions and to let them know that God wants
to use them to help fulfill the Great Commission! We named the event
"Missions World Cup Challenge" because we were challenging the
kids to understand God's call to missions and to begin taking steps to see
how God was speaking to them. We believe that Long Island is a Door to
the Nations and that God wants to raise up young people from this
island to reach out to the unreached areas of the world.
Our team arrived safely on April 8th and spent 2 days
preparing for the outreach. The MWCC started on the 11th and went through
the 14th. Except for Wednesday, which was a half day, we started at 9:00am
and went until 3:00pm. We split the kids into 2 groups: ages 5-10 and ages
11-18. Half of the team focused on one age group while half focused on the
other. They used two separate programs which were designed to
appropriately target the two groups. It was
amazing to see over 160 out-island kids learning about God's love
and His Commission to them!
Julie Patterson was the team leader for the 5-10 year
olds. Her group learned about God's
love, heard real missions stories where kids were
the ones who God used to do His work, and they learned songs set to
creative movement. Hannah Healy did a wonderful job of leading games and
activities for this group. In some of the activities, the children prayed
for each other and some saw "pictures" while they were praying. They
learned the THUMB concept (Tribal, Hindue, Un-religious/Chinese, Muslims
& Buddhists) and learned about the Great Commission. In the 11-18 year
old bracket, we had up to 93 youth which we broke up into 10 teams. 
They
were competing for a trophy and medals. Brian Mason was the leader for
this group, and he masterfully wove the concepts of the gospel and giving
our lives in service to Jesus through fun games. Those who exemplified the
fruits of the spirit and other Christ-like qualities were the surprise
winners of the individual medals. Each person received a beautiful
certificate of completion. real missions stories where kids were
the ones who God used to do His work, and they learned songs set to
creative movement. Hannah Healy did a wonderful job of leading games and
activities for this group. In some of the activities, the children prayed
for each other and some saw "pictures" while they were praying.
They learned the THUMB concept ( Tribal, Hindue, Un-religious/Chinese,
Muslims & Buddhists) and learned about the Great Commission. In the
11-18 year old bracket, we had up to 93 youth which we broke up into 10
teams. They were competing for a trophy and medals. Brian Mason was the
leader for this group, and he masterfully wove the concepts of the gospel
and giving our lives in service to Jesus through fun games. Those who
exemplified the fruits of the Spirit and other Christ-like qualities were
the surprise winners of the individual medals. Each person received a
beautiful certificate of completion.
On the last day, Brian gave a call for those who wanted
to accept Christ to pray with some of the team members. There were 5 young
people who came forward. He then asked if there were any who wanted to
have a stronger walk with the Lord. Three came up. The last was a call for
those who felt the Lord speaking to them about getting involved in short
term missions. Four came forward. After we prayed with them, we asked them
to pray for each other and themselves. They prayed the most amazing
prayers we have ever heard young people pray here. They kept praying and
praying! They were short but powerful prayers. When one would finish a
prayer, another would immediately start another prayer as if they would
burst if they could not get it out. It was like electricity. Later, we had
4 more youth come up to us and say they were too scared to stand up in
front of everyone, but they did want to be involved in missions too.
It is exciting to see God using Maritime Ministries to
teach and equip young people in missions on Long Island.
