Celebrating God's Movement in 2011!

Written by Jarrett Meek

On Tuesday our staff sat around the table in our small conference room reflecting on all the highlights and milestones that our Lord provided for us in 2011.  It was a celebratory atmosphere with caramel popped-corn, caramel-filled chocolate cookies, and pizzelles, all homemade.  We celebrated and wrote down a list, a HUGE list, a too-long-to-share-it-all-here list, of blessings that God bestowed on our ministry this year.  I would like to include a few of the most exciting ones here.

Latino Outreach Highlights

Brooke Coon with Latino Teens

• Celebrating new life in Christ on our Soccer field: Several Baptisms in an inflatable pool!
• Teens Adelante TAKES OFF under the leadership of new staff member Brooke Coon, in many ways setting pace for the rest of our ministry in the area of relational disciple-making and leader development.  
• One of our English Classes became a Discovery Bible study when the students graduated!
• We launched 3 House Churches and involved many more immigrants in leadership roles on the church side of our ministry.

Bhutanese Outreach Highlights

Kristen Maxwell with Bhutanese Kids

• Bhutanese Teens kept coming to Kids Club, so we launched a Teens Outreach in partnership with Mill Creek.  Forty teens are involved!
• Nine of our Bhutanese friends were baptized this year and many more are investigating Jesus.
• God birthed two House Churches for the Bhutanese in our neighborhood.
• New staff are joining/have joined our team...Kristen Maxwell (raising funds to join as Kids Club Director), and Lauren Timberlake (Bhutanese ESL Director).

Resource Center

• Launched Canasta Básica, an exciting initiative to provide basic food staples to immigrant families in need.  
• Immigrants are helping lead the Resource Center Team
• Provided backpacks, schools supplies and coats for over 200 kids and teen

Jarrett Meek and the RAICES team

RAICES (Discipling Ministry in Q-ba)

• Discipleship Vision planted deeply in their home church
• Experimenting with a Micro-Finance ministry to help start new businesses in the community
• Prepared to multiply their ministry to another community through relationships with emerging leaders there.

Leadership and Administration

Summer Interns ROCK!!

• Hired Marla Hansen as Operations Director.  Marla spent the year revamping our internal systems and positioned us to take advantage of future opportunities that God may bring our way!
• Greatly improved our Summer Internship.  Hosted and equipped six interns this summer!
• Staff training trips to Cuba (Latino Team) and Nepal (Bhutanese Team) this year!
• Our Staff attended the Christian Community Development Association annual conference.