Raising up Leaders One Song at a Time

Written by Megan McDermott, Latino Children's Ministry Director

Have you ever met someone that after knowing them for only five minutes, reminded you of the absolute joy found in Christ?  When Janoy first came to Mission Adelante, he brought an infectious energy and a passion for Christ that has continued to inspire everyone around him.  He is a man that does everything with 100% of his heart and this became even more obvious as he began to emerge as a potential leader in our house church.

One of his greatest gifts is leading others in worshiping the Lord with his voice. When a church has a worship leader that loves to praise the Lord whole-heartedly, it allows the church body to pursue the Lord in a really intimate way. One of the greatest desires at the heart of Mission Adelante is that we are dedicated to reproducing and equipping Indigenous leaders for ministry.   Therefore, it seemed only natural to encourage and empower Janoy to step into leading the Latino worship team. 

The majority of the worship team is composed of teenagers that are hungry to learn and play music.  However, because they are still learning how to play the instruments and they struggle with self-confidence, they often experience a great deal of frustration when trying to learn a new song.  It has been so incredible to watch as Janoy, one Indigenous leader, reaches out to help raise up other Indigenous leaders!  Wouldn’t it be incredible if one day the teens themselves were mentoring the future worship leaders of our community, teaching what they learned from Janoy?

It is a blessing to walk alongside my brother, Janoy, as the Lord encourages and challenges him to lead others.  His passion for Christ is cultivating the melody of the song that the Lord desires to love His children with.

In other news:

• We have been busy planning for our summer ESL classes. Bhutanese students will learn useful English words for gardening, food packaging, and road signs. We will even have a workshop for moms and their preschoolers. It’s going to be a great summer!
• Cindy Green from Senator Jerry Moran’s office came to visit our ministry last week and learn about how we are serving and connecting with immigrants and refugees in our community.
• Director of Community Development, Kristen Allen, attended the Christian Community Health Fellowship’s annual conference in Atlanta last weekend to continue networking and developing our vision for a community-based medical clinic for immigrants and refugees.

Prayer needs:

• We are visiting 8 Latino teens this week with the hope they will move forward in applying for our summer internship.  Pray for these teens to catch a vision for how God wants’ to use them.
• Please pray for emerging partnerships in our neighborhood with refugee groups from Burma.
• Please pray for ongoing renewal and rest, deepening passion, and relational unity for our staff and missional community as we serve in a sometimes difficult urban context.

Current needs:

• A set or two of 5-7 baby board books for our “mommy & me” Bhutanese ESL workshop. Please contact Lauren at laurent@missionadelante.org if you can help purchase one or more books.
• Volunteers to join the Transportation Team for the Bhutanese Outreach. There are positions available on Tuesday evenings for the summer, as well as Tuesday - Thursday evenings in the month of June. For more information, contact Drew Hammond at drewh@missionadelante.org.

Important dates:

• Volunteer Orientation & Training: Saturday, May 18, 9:00-12:30 All volunteers should attend this training once at the beginning of serving with Mission Adelante. It's also a great way for someone to become familiar with Mission Adelante's ministry. If you or someone you know is interested in finding out more about what we do, and about our volunteer opportunities, please plan to attend/encourage him or her to attend this informative training. 
• All Volunteer Huddle & Dessert: Monday, May 20, 6:30 p.m. We encourage everyone that will be volunteering with us during our summer trimester to attend so we can prepare for a great launch. 
• Summer trimester programs launch: Week of May 27