Prayer Requests for Inner-City Kids’ Bible Club

Dear praying friends,

As you know, Open Air Campaigners has an amazing opportunity to teach a weekly Kids’ Bible Club right in the heart of Boston. It’s fantastic!

We are teaching the children the Scriptures from Creation through Christ, chronologically showing God’s redemptive plan all through the Scriptures. What a privilege!

But there have been some challenges of late and I’d like to share two prayer requests please.

I’m asking for prayer regarding the weekly Bible Club we run in Boston. It is obvious God is doing great work in the hearts of the children, but there are also some challenges.

Literally across the street is an impressive building that McDonalds donated to the Salvation Army. The Kroc Center has an indoor water park, indoor climbing walls, basketball courts, fitness equipment, and more. About a half dozen of our kids have stopped coming to our club in order to attend the programs at the Kroc center.

Please understand, I’m not interested in “competing” to see which after-school program can get more kids. I’m concerned about kids leaving our club because I know they learn the Word of God at our club. This is so sad because as wonderful as indoor water parks and climbing walls are, what these kids NEED is the gospel of Jesus Christ!

God may have already answered this prayer! In the last few weeks, some of the kids have been coming back to our club. Apparently there was an incident at the Kroc center with some of the kids, but it’s been hard to get details. It has been good to see some of the kids come back! 🙂

Also, please pray for the kids’ attitudes. They are a VERY DISTRACTED group. It only takes one or two to be disrespectful, and it spreads quickly.

My partner, Eric, has been running Kids’ Clubs like these for over 25 years, and he says this Club is the worst-behaved one he has ever worked with! That’s quite a statement.

Despite the kids’ quickness to be distracted, or rude, I just love them so much and consider it a joy and privilege to work with them and teach them about Jesus. Please, please pray for their attitudes, and for Eric, myself, and the volunteers who run this club, that God will give us wisdom in dealing with the discipline issues with the children.

I want to share this story about Anaya, a 10-year-old girl who comes every week. Her Mom decided to take her and her brother Anthony out of our club, and put them into the club at the Kroc Center. This 10-year-old girl wrote me the nicest note letting me know that she’ll miss me and that she loves me too. Notes like these make me think I have the best job in the world!

I wrote Anaya back and have seen her and Anthony a few times since she left. Please pray that she and Anthony will stay in the Word and will grow in Christ.

I find it interesting that from a human point of view, these kids and I have little in common. I’m an upper-middle-class overweight white guy who doesn’t know a thing about their music, doesn’t wear skinny jeans, doesn’t know their tv shows, but they’ll listen to me teach them about Jesus because they know that I love them.

It’s a powerful thing to share the gospel of Jesus Christ when love pours through you by God’s Holy Spirit!

Please enjoy the following photos of this amazing club with these wonderful kids.

https://picasaweb.google.com/113832164166152309192/201402KidsClubUpdate

Thank you for your prayers, notes of encouragement, and financial support. Without all of those, we could not be reaching the lost for Jesus Christ!

Please feel free to share this with others you think would be encouraged by it!

all for Jesus,

Mark (and family)