by DeAnn Noyles, Horizon Christian Fellowship, Littleton, Colorado

We implemented the L.I.T. program in May of 2019, and we have seen God answer many long-awaited prayers! We had been seeking God for years with the burdens of equipping families to better disciple their children in the Lord, equipping kids to serve God now in their youth, and reaching kids in our community. God has used L.I.T. to answer all of these and more.

At our church, our Wednesday night service has transitioned from being extremely anemic to full of life! Our children’s ministry grew from one family in attendance and one teacher pouring into them to 13 adults and 17 or so children attending regularly! We had no midweek program for Jr. High students, and now we have 100% participating in L.I.T. with their own discipleship group. We have integrated them into our ministry teams as well, and two of those young ladies are DG leaders themselves.

We have seen men in our fellowship step forward to lead discipleship groups…men for whom we have prayed for years to be connected to our fellowship and grow in their walk with God. As they began leading young boys in God’s Word, He began transforming them, their homes, and their marriages.

God has shown us how to connect with parents and equip them to disciple their kids at home through the leaders making phone calls to students each week and through our L.I.T. parent orientation. There have been considerably serious circumstances in some of our students’ lives that we have been able to pray about for them and their families and offer support as the Church because of those parent/discipler relationships!

We are seeing a depth of prayer from our students that we have not witnessed before.

Kids are learning to serve in new ministry opportunities because of the ministry team trainings in L.I.T. They participated in a partially kid-run children’s church service on Sundays this fall. Eleven of our students just participated in a skit designed to share the gospel with children and families who attended a Christmas outreach at our church.

Thank You to Our Publication Team

This past year has been full of challenges. From January 2019-2020, our publication team has been working tirelessly to update and add two additional translations to our discipleship resources (New King James Version and King James Version). We moved from 24 publications for 1st-6th grades in the New International Version to more than 60 publications. I want to say a special thank you to our team Amy McMullin (Senior Editor), Richard Cervantes (Graphic Artist and Assistant Director of L.I.T. Mission Trips), and Selah McMullin (Assistant Editor) worked on changing Bible verses and references to the different translations. They are very close to completing the project. If you would like to make a donation towards the completion of this work, please click here.

L.I.T. Growth in Tanzania

We are seeing great success in training leaders in Tanzania. Paul Mamba led the first training in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which resulted in training 36 leaders. The second training was held in Kibaha with 26 leaders and 118 children in attendance. They just completed the third training in llaya with 29 leaders trained. We have now trained 91 leaders. Paul tells us that each leader will impact between 25-50 children in their city. Pray continually for these leaders as they disciple and equip children in the churches and cities. (Picture of leader explaining the L.I.T. Cross)

Great Results from our Training in Sand Springs, Oklahoma

We completed our first training of 2020 in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. We changed the format of our training to include four major areas of ministry: Family, Discipleship, Ministry Involvement, and Missions. This was the best training we have had yet. Our trainers included Mike Lehew, Keri Meek, Sean Crevier, Jamie Brown, and Clint May. Each person helped cast a bigger vision of children serving in the church and on mission today. The leaders from five churches left inspired and ready to implement what they learned in their church.

A Major Loss for L.I.T. Last Year

Last year during our Waxahachie Mission Trip, our high definition video camera was dropped. After looking into repairing it, we were told that it was not repairable. This was a major loss for L.I.T. Along with the camera loss, our wireless mic for the camera went out. This video camera has allowed us to capture our story and the story of children being used by the Lord in ministry and missions. We have also used it to film our training conferences, which have been offered free online to 300+ churches worldwide. Our insurance company gave us $1,300 towards the replacement. However, the replacement cost of the camera is over $3,500. Would you please join us in prayer for the replacement of our video camera? If you would like to help us replace the video camera click here. 

Praises and Prayer Requests

Praises:

• For the Lord’s blessings and provision for the past five years

• For what the Lord is doing internationally through our leadership there

• For the large number of leaders who are catching the vision of L.I.T. in the U.S. and internationally

Prayer Requests:

• For God’s provision for 2020. We are praying for additional ministry partners.

• For God’s provision of a new HD video camera to record our training events and testimonies from our churches and mission trips

• For the 2020 Mission Trips, for churches to catch the vision and get excited about taking part in our mission trips

• For our next training in Willow Park, Texas, January 27-29

• For L.I.T. churches that have lost their children’s pastors, for God to provide ministers who will continue the vision of discipling and empowering kids for ministry