'Tis The Season

Well, it's official. Starbucks has declared that Christmas season is upon us, so here we go again!

Looking to do something meaningful this holiday season? I know I always am! The culture we live in has definitely high-jacked the true meaning of Christmas so I am constantly on the prowl for ways to remind my kids (AND myself!) what Christmas is all about.

Here are two great opportunities that your family may want to consider incorporating into your Christmas traditions this year:

Compassion International is an amazing ministry that Andy & I wholeheartedly support and believe in. Their mission is to "release children from poverty in Jesus name."

They have put together a Christmas gift catalog that allows us to donate various amounts of money toward a wide range of different projects. Some of the opportunities include:

• safe water for life for a child and family- $79
• equip a family with livestock- $280
• care for a babies medical needs for a year- $55
• provide garden seeds for an African family- $10
• give a child access to a safe playground- $35

There are a ton of different gifts available and you can even donate in honor of someone. That would be a really special present for one of your loved ones to open on Christmas morning...knowing that they were apart of helping a child in poverty! 

Click here to learn more and to give!

This one always sneaks up on me because the deadline is so early. Collection week for the boxes is November 12-19, so if you'd like to participate you gotta get a move on it! :-)

Operation Christmas Child is a wonderful program that provides a shoebox full of Christmas gifts to boys and girls living in poverty in 100 different countries. Samaritan's Purse is a Christian relief organization that shares the love of Jesus in tangible ways to people around the world in desperate need.

This is a really fun project where you can get your kids involved. I like to do a box for each of my children so, for example, Caedmon will help me pack a box for a 5-9 year old boy and Sammy will help me pack a box for a 2-4 year old boy. Then, we can follow our box online through the Samaritan's Purse website to see where our boxes end up!

Don't have time to go shopping, fill a box, and drop it off? No problem. They've also provided the option to build-a-box online!

Click here to learn more about Operation Christmas Child. Click here to find a drop-off location near you. 

'Tis the season...

...to LOVE like Jesus!

Prayers for Ethiopia

This past Saturday, 16 people boarded an international flight and launched South Bay Church's first official mission trip. This week they will be serving in Nazaret, Ethiopia with our partnership church, Nazaret Emmanuel United Church. We were able to develop this partnership through a ministry of Compassion International called Church-to-Church (C2C).

Nazaret Emmanuel is an amazing church and we have plenty to learn from them! This church was originally started about 15 or 20 years ago by 10 college aged guys. These guys started a Bible study at the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is the predominant religion in Ethiopia. The Coptic church is similar to Catholicism in that it has it's roots in Christianity but tends toward religious tradition and hollow rituals. This Bible study that they started began to experience a fresh movement of the Spirit of God. It grew and grew and grew, which caused much concern to the leaders of the Coptic Church.

Finally these men decided to branch out to start a different church, but it was not without intense persecution. A couple of the men were actually martyred for their faith. Over the last 15-20 years, Nazaret Emmanuel has been apart of launching nearly 100 churches and have somewhere around 30,000 people connected in their network of churches.

When Andy got home from visiting there last summer, he said that worshiping with them at their Sunday service was like nothing he'd ever experienced. They start their worship service with about 45 minutes of intense prayer with everyone praying a loud at the same time.

Nazaret also has a Compassion program where they serve over 200 kids similar to an after school program here. But this program provides food, medical care, funding for school, and spiritual training.

Our team will be doing a variety of things, but one of the coolest parts is that they will be able to meet / play with a lot of the kids that people in our church sponsor through Compassion! I may or may not have snuck in a little present for them to deliver to our child!

I can hardly wait for the day that Caedmon and Sammy are old enough to take on this trip. What a special experience that will be to take Sammy back to his country of origin to love, serve, bless, and learn from them.

Will you join me in praying for our mission team this week?

Compassion Sunday

Compassion Sunday may very well be my favorite Sunday of the year. Well, maybe 2nd in line after Easter. It is when we see the body of Christ in action. When we can become the hands and feet of Jesus. When we take our eyes off our own needs and choose to look beyond ourselves into the rest of the world. It's when we remind ourselves that there is a great big world out there...much of whom lives in poverty. We take time to remember, as Andy said in his sermon, that Jesus is not American. He does not have blonde hair and blue eyes, He's not a republican, and He does not live in the good ol' U.S. of A. He is a global God.

This video was made from the footage of Andy & Filipe's trip to Ethiopia to begin a partnership with a Nazeret Emmanuel United Church through Compassion International. WARNING: If you are at all like me, this video will inevitably bring tears to your eyes and may leave with with a strong urge to get over there as quickly as possible.


South Bay had info packets for 67 kids from Nazeret available for sponsorship on Sunday. All 67 kids now have a sponsor and we have a waiting list of 15 more families that would like to sponsor as soon as more come available. I love our people!

YOU can sponsor a child too! $38 per month provides spiritual, educational, nutritional, and medical development and assistance for these beautiful children. Simply click here and follow the instructions for how to sponsor a child. YOU could be a part of freeing a child from the bondage of poverty!