L.I.T. Shaped My Spiritual Life Tremendously! Ketnarly Estimon

As a young girl, L.I.T. shaped my spiritual life tremendously! The key components were identity, leadership, and discipleship. I was taught my identity as a daughter and co-heir of Christ, and this life-transforming truth has made me the woman I am today. Through discipleship, I learned what it meant to live a life of integrity while following Jesus. The discipline of quiet time, or daily fellowship with God, was impressed in my heart. I was encouraged to memorize scriptures that I can recite to this day. One of my favorites is Psalm 119:11—“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” The scriptures and truths I learned in L.I.T. have stuck with me and have been an anchor throughout my life. It is said that leadership is caught, not taught. I am grateful that at a young age, I was not just told that I am a leader, but I was actually given leadership positions through L.I.T. By way of serving, I learned how to lead on my knees while giving God all the glory. This has not been lost on me in my adult life. I have gone on to serve in college ministry, mission trips, and even in my job as a nurse. It is no small thing to give the gift of the gospel to a child and tell them to share it with the world. I am forever grateful that L.I.T. gave me such a gift. May God be glorified!! 

We Are Officing From Home Now

For the past five years, we have had our office in Benbrook, Texas. I loved having the office space and having a quiet place to work. However, due to changes since March, I have worked from home for the majority of the time. The amazing thing we have seen through this is that we have trained more people online than we did at the office in the past five years. So, the Lord is doing a new thing, and we are excited about it. No more commuting. The savings we have from not paying a lease goes directly into the ministry budget. As things change in the future, we will be looking for new office space, possibly in the area where we live in.

New Translation of Leadership Training Handbook in Korean and Portuguese

We are excited to announce that we have now translated our Empowering The Next Generation Leadership Training Handbook into Portuguese and Korean. A special thank you to Gustaeo Viana from St. Paul, Brazil, for his great work on the Portuguese translation. Another special thank you to Enoch Choi who translated the leadership handbook into Korean. We celebrate what the Lord has done and for those who will be impacted by the materials in the future.

Making Disciples of All Nations by Dr. Clint May

I loved reading Ketnarly’s testimony. I have watched her grow in her faith for many years now. This is our passion as a ministry. We have seen the amazing transformation of many children like her throughout these incredible past 18 years. We will highlight stories like hers in the months to come.

Ministry for myself has been a fantastic journey for 30 years now. One of my gifts is child evangelism. The greatest joy of my life has been these last 18 years. I moved from straight evangelism to learning to disciple children and leaders into a life-sustaining faith. I remember what evangelism professor Dr. Roy Fish said: “It is a terrible thing to lead a person to Christ and never disciple or teach them how to walk with Christ daily.” He took part in leading thousands of people to Christ in his lifetime. But he became convinced that discipleship must follow in order to be obedient to Christ’s command to make disciples. As I grew in understanding of discipleship, I understood that Jesus did not call me to make converts but disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). Bill Hull says it well, “Conversion and discipleship, you can’t have one without the other.” I continued to lead children to Christ; however, I became intentional in discipling them and showing how to walk with Christ daily so that they might become disciplemakers themselves. Robby Gallaty shares, “The goal of every D-Group is for the mentee, the one being discipled, to become a mentor; to multiply—make other disciples. In essence, the D-Group is designed for the player to become a coach.”[1] This is what the Lord has taught me over the past 18 years. We have taken part in discipling and equipping thousands of children and students in the U.S. and now internationally. We have seen children become fearless in their faith through our mission trips and through the multitude of churches that have mobilized children in missions. We celebrate that we have trained more than 2,900+ missionaries (preteens), and many have now been on international mission trips through other ministries.

Reaching and Discipling children have been the joy of the journey for me. It is my prayer for the Lord to continue to bless the work of His hands. Thank you again for your continued support and prayers. Together we are making world-changing disciples.

Prayer

Praises:

• For lives that have been changed by the ministry of L.I.T.
• For God’s continued grace and provision

Prayer Requests:

• For wisdom for the many churches we are working with, that they would continue discipling children in the midst of the many challenges they face today
• For all the churches we have trained to embrace a discipleship model for children in the future
• For the 2021 L.I.T. Mission Trip dates. We are praying that the Lord would make it possible to move forward with our plans for the new year.
• For wisdom for Clint as he writes. Pray that the Holy Spirit would lead him in the process.
• For Mark and Dana McCutchen who will be training leaders in Brazil using the Portuguese Leadership Handbook.

[1] Robby Gallaty. Growing Up: How to Be a Disciple Who Makes Disciples (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2013), 13.