Working Together through Co-vid

Dear CEF friends and family,

We are with you during Co-vid 19 troubles, riots, people being hurt and mistreated, and political turmoil. More importantly, Jesus Christ is with all His people and here to help us trust and believe in Him because we believe His eternal unshakeable word.
Romans 8:35-39 reminds and encourages us:  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And we believe that this message is so important that we must get it out to all, especially to the children and youth. About 1/3 of the planet’s 8 billion people are children. We must do all we can to share the love and the truth of Jesus Christ with them. In Matthew 18: 6 Jesus spoke of little ones who believed in Him. We pray and gently communicate the good news of Jesus Christ, especially with the children.
This is challenging during the Co-vid crisis with social distancing, masks, and zoom fatigue, but we are seeking every way possible to share the good news of Jesus Christ with as many children as possible.  And God is going before us as we seek to obey His command. God has set us to pray for even more workers to go into the harvest (Luke 10:2). We are praying for even more open doors of opportunity (Colossians 4:3). We are praying to reach even more children with the Good news of Jesus Christ and His love. Mark 16: 15 says that we are supposed to reach every creature and that certainly includes the children! We are praying for the people to do the work, the churches to come together, and the resources to provide all that is needed to reach even more of these children and their families as well.

Some exciting things have been happening in our area. Not only are we praying more, but people are calling us to start more groups, to receive more training, and to recruit beyond us. The Word of God is not bound (II Timothy 2: 9) but is going forth throughout the earth with Zoom Bible clubs, Webex Bible clubs, Facebook Bible videos, and more. We are having social distance clubs and backyard Bible clubs. It has been slow. Some churches have been slow to open. Some children’s church programs have not been able to start. Yet God is bringing us not only older clubs that are innovating, but new clubs that want to start! We are setting training dates and cautiously, but with faith in our Lord, moving forward. God is opening doors and sending us new workers and church partners. God is providing more resources to help our staff and our supplies for ministry to catch up with some slower months.
I was so thankful for one donor’s gift and response after a thank you note. He said, “Happy to serve, brother! It is easy to give when you believe in a ministry!” Whether a widow’s mite (Luke 21 : 1 – 4), a church’s support, a regular donor who is able to give a little more, or a Barnabas who actually sold a field and gave the proceeds to the apostles for the work of ministry (Acts 4:34 - 37), each one is serving the Lord and helping us to evangelize the lost and to disciple the children and the workers who help us. During March through August of this year, we were able to have 8 zoom clubs and backyard social distance clubs in the summer with about 40 children (which is low for us but understandable during our co-vid season), and we were able to reach over 17,000 people with videos that we produced and posted on our Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Instagram.  We are eager for all of our clubs to start up, but we know how risky that is to many of our worker’s health status.
Please be praying for the clubs that are starting this fall – for the volunteers, the children, and the club locations. Please keep praying and giving as the Lord allows and directs you!

Dr. Jim Simoneau
Local Director
334-399-1733
CEFofNAL@gmail.com

Kathryn Burleson
Good News Club Coordinator and Teacher Trainer
256-353-3139
cefofnal.gnc@gmail.com

A teacher training over zoom

Recording an object lesson video for our social media