It has been great reminiscing about Kids in Missions and it has brought back many great memories. I am very humbled that God gave me this concept and feel grateful I had the energy and stamina to bring all these kids with me on the outreaches we were blessed to do. From 2003 to 2008 it was a great season for this ministry. God opened a door for us to go to Toccoa, Georgia in August of that year. It would become a new challenge for me. Typically we would go to churches and do children's ministry. On this trip we did something I had never done before. We went into public schools! We partnered with Grace Fellowship Church of Toccoa and we had open doors to go into the local high school as well as after school programs. Going into public schools meant we were not allowed to preach the gospel so we did an anti-drug program. One of my ventriloquist figures the students loved was Cry Baby. (Cry Baby was retired after I left SGT because of many complaints.) It was a very busy week and we actually had to tell our host church there was way too much on our plate. We needed a break! We came home with a new excitement even though we almost didn't go to Toccoa. It was August 2003 and it was at the time we had that massive power outage that affected the entire east coast of the United States. Remember that?
Although our missions board and church tried to encourage us to go on a mission trip every summer, I felt in my heart I wanted to focus more on doing outreaches on Long Island and our surrounding areas. My goal was always to prepare these kids to go to youth group. What I found from day one was that many of our kids were not ready to go to youth group so we created a Leaders in Training (L.I.T.) program. This was a blessing to me but towards the end of my ministry time at SGT it became a huge problem. I'll explain about that in my next blog! I do have to say that in 2003 to 2008 I had a great group of students. Each year I hated to see my students graduate and move on to youth group but I knew they needed to move on. My two oldest children, Jordan and Kaylee began getting involved with the ministry which was very exciting for me. On a personal level I felt as though many things were coming together for me. I was being asked to write curriculum for Charisma Life and their Kids Church program. I also had invitations to teach workshops at the Children's Pastors Conference in Kansas City, MO and Orlando, FL for the International Network of Children's Ministry. I also continued teaching workshops for the New Jersey Christian Ministries at Hawthorne Gospel Church in Hawthorne, NJ. We continued to have so many amazing open doors for ministry and God was blessing our ministry! Now.....in the next blog I'll share with you about my last 5 years. The final chapter!!
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