Ditch the Gingerbread House

Dear Friends,

It's an unconventional way to spend the holidays.Think two-man tents instead of gingerbread houses.Think mountain villages instead of bustling malls.Think dirt and grime instead of brightly colored packages.And yet...think of the first Christmas. It looked much like where we are going.I’m getting ready to head to Ecuador with the last Global Encounters mission team of 2015. What better way to spend Christmas time than sharing Jesus with a bunch of kids in the Andes Mountains?   This will also be an awesome way to finish off a year of incredible growth and ministry for Global Encounters. This year we sent out 85 team members who reached over 3000 people with the gospel. But we all know it takes more than 85 team members to make this possible. It takes people at home who are willing and able to be senders. Senders are as vital to ministry as those who go.Would you be a sender this year? Would you help enable things like:

• Working with refugees in northern Myanmar - We had planned to work in a refugee camp. Mysteriously, it was decided right before we arrived that our team would not be allowed into the area. A church heard about the situation and offered to host a week-long camp for the kids, bringing the refugees to us since we couldn’t go to them. As long as they were hosting the kids from one location, why not invite a few others? We ended up with 400 young people from five refugee camps, an orphanage, and several churches. They were from multiple ethnicities and spoke four or five different languages, but we had complete peace and were able to share the gospel with all of them.
• Kids getting saved at camp in Ecuador - We usually have a few children get saved at camp, but this year there was an unusually high number of kids responding to the gospel. Many of these are kids we have been investing in for years and it was exciting to see a time of reaping where there has been a lot of sowing in the past.
• Medical team answer to prayer - The first day for the med team looked like it would be rough. They were down two team members due to illness and their main doctor wasn’t able to make it. Those of us in the office decided to make it our mission to pray for the team intensely for 24 hours. What should have been a crazy day ended up being one of the calmest. Not only that, every single patient who came through the clinic either prayed to receive salvation or talked about how God was at work in their life and they were rededicating their life to him. That just doesn’t happen in Chiapas!

There have been so many answers to prayer to this year! Additionally, we have seen tremendous growth in our team members themselves. About 20% of our former team members are either working in full or part-time ministry or training in that direction. Global Encounters has also grown this year, adding three new teams and one new country (Guatemala), for an additional 1100 children reached this year.Many of you have been a big part of this work to disciple children and teens around the world - either as team members, donors, or prayer partners. We are so grateful for your partnership! Without you, these results would not have been possible. Would you consider partnering with us again? We have two major funding needs for the next year.

1. We will use about $9,000 in children’s ministry supplies for the camps, VBS’s, and school programs which will reach approximately 3500 young people. So far we have raised $2,286.
2. We need $68,000 to cover our staff salaries. This includes one full-time staff member and eight part-time staff members. This is a slightly higher amount than our staff funding needs in 2015. By increasing the hours for which we are able to pay our staff, we will be able to add two new teams and reach an additional 700 children. So far, we have $43,640 either given or pledged for next year.

Adding these two areas together, this means we are hoping to raise another $31,074. Here’s how you can help:

Thank you so much for working with Global Encounters to share about the Savior with children around the world! May you have an amazing Christmas celebrating His birth.

- Elizabeth Fox, Executive Director