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Ministry to Children is a top priority of Hope for the Future. In 1998 Gary Short saw the need while conducting a pastor conference. He felt challenged by the Lord to minister to the children and 35 made genuine commitments to Christ. Today 20,000 plus children have made commitments to Christ
Under the supervision of Safeharbor children’s pastor Karen Grubbs all of our churches in Kaji Kegi County have at least Children’s Church and a few are leading school assemblies for evangelism and spiritual growth in the local schools. Teaching our children’s workers and leaders how to use The Children’s Ministry Resource Bible as the main source of lessons for our children’s ministry we are conducting. Children’s Ministry Workshops twice a year with leaders being equipped confidently to teach lessons, minister and pray for children.
With reports from the UN saying 59% of those returning are between the ages of 5 and 17 the need to continue to develop children’s leaders is growing. Karen has been training two young leaders who have taken on the vision leading others of ministering to the children. They have lead thousands of children to make decisions for Christ through children’s church, bible clubs, along with heading our school assemblies team, travel to our other churches to help train their children’s church leaders and run the children’s ministry on the film and crusade teams.
After years of telling our leaders the children are the Hope and Future of their country, our pastors have caught the vision and are excited to minister to children; and will tell you the how great the need is to reach the kids. They themselves are attending the children’s ministry workshops to ensure their churches are ministering to the children. To assist our pastors and leaders in developing children’s ministries Karen Grubbs has develop a Children’s Ministry Training Manual.
We have come a long ways from 2002 when Mark Warkentin and Karen Grubbs first whet to South Sudan on a short term Hope For The Future team to minister in the schools. Today some of those kids that were reached by that team are our now our young leaders. Mark trained children’s workers in 2003 with Karen returning to do school assemblies. In 2005 Karen took on the full vision of ministering to the children and raising up leaders for the children as Mark’s duties in South Sudan grew in other areas.
