Mission UpReach Newsletter - March 2016

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Page 2 www.missionupreach.org Basketball leagues score for DESEO program Another component of the DESEO program is the Upward Basketball Leagues and tutoring project. In 2012, DESEO began inviting the children we were instructing to join us as we launched a basketball league. The program was started to create a doorway to the families through the children. The DESEO team organizes several leagues with children from the different schools and for various ages. Each league lasts several months with the last few weeks including personal visits to the homes of the participants in order to meet and involve their families. The tutoring component began last year, and runs in parallel with the basketball leagues. The boys and girls alternate daily between learning basketball and receiving tutoring in mathematics and Spanish. English classes are also provided by the native English speakers. Tutoring has been effectively used as an incentive to encourage the children to work toward better grades, with the reward of participating in a basketball league. Although playing basketball and becoming better students is important, our central hope is that these relationships will build a bond with the children and their families to engage them in attending church and learning more about Christ. Spotlight on two of our DESEO heroes Yulema Reyes has been serving with DESEO for over 5 years, and recently became the administrator of our DESEO team. Yulema first learned of MUR from friends she had studied with in Guatemala. After attending a youth retreat and a basketball camp, she accepted a MUR position in 2011. She arrived with a strong desire to mentor children in a Christian organization. As the administrator, Yulema must collaborate closely with the public school system - scheduling classes, working to assure that supplies are available, and designing the biblical component of instruction. DESEO’s goal is to demonstrate the love of Christ to the children in our region, but it is just as often that the team experiences the reciprocal love from the children and sees Christ in them. DESEO, through people like Yulema, is planting seeds that are growing throughout the families who are touched by the program. The children share with their families, families share with their neighbors, and neighbors share with their communities. Christ is being spread all around the city through the work of DESEO. Yulema emphasizes that the DESEO program is important because no one else in the country has shown such a focused interest in the children. Education at this age on values like safety, hygiene, respect, and faith is necessary to create a more responsible, stable, and Christcentered society. Meet Carlos Vasquez. Carlos is a vital part of our DESEO team and has been working with us for about three years. Carlos’s story is unique because he is a product of the DESEO program. Carlos first encountered Mission UpReach a few years ago at his high school where two of our DESEO team members invited him and his classmates to join a basketball league. Carlos joined and later began regularly attending the church. A position at MUR became available and Carlos didn’t hesitate to accept. Carlos is one of our 12 team members who travels to schools to teach. After a morning of teaching, Carlos heads up the basketball league and coaches one of the teams. The basketball leagues provide an effective method to engage the students in extracurricular activities at the local church building. When asked what he enjoyed most about his job with DESEO, he responded, “The children! I work with kids for one simple reason, they are the future of our country.” This statement exemplifies what MUR knows to be true. Children are the future of their communities, but more importantly, they are the future of the church.
www.missionupreach.org Page 3 DESEO School Sponsorship Program to be rolled out later this year DESEO exists to teach values like honesty, integrity, respect for authority, hygiene, and courtesy to school-aged children. DESEO is fully coordinated by Mission UpReach and our staff teach Bible-based classes in local public schools during the normal day’s classes. In Spanish “deseo” means “a wish.” Our program demonstrates to these students that life does not have to be the way it has always been and that they can realize big dreams in their lives. They are learning that their families can be transformed through Christ and that they “may have life and have it to the full,” John 10:10 (NIV). We are in nine schools and have a staff of 13 full-time teachers. Since its inception, the program has provided weekly instruction to more than 5,000 school children. As we expand to more schools and age groups, our staffing needs continue to grow. MUR will be introducing the DESEO School Sponsorship Program during 2016 to help us manage this growth. These sponsorships are an opportunity for individual families, perhaps working together through a congregation, to have a direct impact on and interaction with one of our DESEO schools. As a sponsor, you will collaborate with from four to ten other families and will focus on your chosen school. Your sponsorship team Brigade highlights On February 27, we welcomed our first brigade of the year to Santa Rosa! Tusculum Church of Christ based out of Nashville, Tennessee arrived with 15 members to lead a medical brigade. They worked in the community of El Derrumbo, which is 20 minutes outside of Santa Rosa. During their time in the village, they served over 700 people, allowing them to receive free medical care. Many people in Honduras, do not have affordable medical care, so their health issues go untreated. Our medical brigades offer medication and doctors’ consults that would not be available in any other way. These brigades provide opportunities for us to begin discussions about Christ to the people in these villages, allowing our church planting teams to follow up with will help us develop meaningful programs and activities that are appropriate for your school and for the program in general. When you visit Honduras, we will provide opportunities for you to interact directly with the students and staff of your sponsored school. Our hope, our “deseo,” is that this program would grow to be active in dozens of schools throughout Honduras. Your sponsorship will help us release funds to continue to replicate and expand the program into many other schools and communities! More details about the DESEO School Sponsorship Program will be communicated soon. Contact us if you have a specific interest. biblical studies. We are grateful for the contributions of the Tusculum brigade as they touched many lives in Western Honduras. Thank you to Tusculum for their hard work! The Pine Tree Church of Christ, from Longview, Texas, provided our first VBS brigade of the year. Their team included a 13-member youth group. The teens and young adults collaborated with our DESEO team and assisted them in spreading the good news of Christ to children all across the city. The brigade taught the kids, through skits and other activities, about the wise and foolish builders as described in Matthew 7. Most importantly, the brigade demonstrated to the participants the love of Christ by simply spending personal time with the children. Thank you to Pine Tree Church of Christ for your time and the effort spent spreading Christ in Western Honduras! The work of our brigades is one of the greatest use of resources directed at expanding Christ’s kingdom in our area. It is a blessing to observe these groups demonstrate to everyone they encounter the love of Christ. Brigades are a key component to our ability to meet our goal of 1010 new congregations in our region in this generation.
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Mission UpReach Newsletter - March 2016

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