I hope you are all doing well and enjoying God's goodness. Summer is winding down. God has been keeping us quite busy. Here are some the of things we've been up to...
Awards Celebrations
It was such a blessing to finish Awana's club year attending many awards celebration nights. So much fun to see these clubbers receiving recognition for their achievements the past club year.
Camp!!
I had the opportunity again to attend West Coast Honor Camp. WCHC is an "Awana Style Honors Camp" held at Lassen Pines every summer. What a joy to spend a week with teenagers and leaders from Northern CA and Nevada who reached a level of achievement by completing their books. These teens spend the week developing a closer relationship with Jesus, building friendships, and serving God during various missions projects. My role at camp is to mingle with these teens and leaders celebrating their achievements and thanking them for their service. Many lifelong friendships have been formed at camp.
Family Time
Great to take a little time off every now and then and spend time with family. Definitely recharges my batteries.
Jack graduated High School
Baseball game with my dad
A couple days in Long Beach, CA for Jack's Power Lifting Competition
Reno Aces game with the boys
Utah
As you recall, part of my role is serving as Team Leader for a group of wonderful Awana missionaries. I had the opportunity to take a train to Utah for a few days to work with the Awana missionary their. We spent that time meeting with pastors and other church leaders to help and encourage them in their ministries. We met the Executive Director for the Utah/ Idaho Baptist convention and he invited us to attend and set up a display at the UT/ ID Annual State meeting in Idaho Falls later this fall. This will be a great time to connect with pastors from Utah and Idaho. Praise God!
4th of July
Every year my home church enters a float in the Truckee 4th of July parade. Fun times and great community outreach!! Thank you to all the volunteers who helped put this together.
Awana Ministry Director Online Leadership Training
We continued on with our online Awana Ministry Director Trainings. The key to any successful ministry is leaders. As I tell our AMD's, "Great ministries don't build themselves, great leaders build great ministries. So if you want to have a great ministry invest in leadership". Working with other missionaries from around the country, and using modern technology, we had the opportunity to invest in Awana Ministry Directors from Nevada, California, Arizona, Texas, and Alabama. So much fun to invest in these folks as they lead their ministries to reach more kids with the love of Jesus.
Summer Trainings
Every summer we get the opportunity to spend time either training new clubs or helping existing clubs refine their ministry.
New Club Training at Hope Church- Boulder City, NV. Hope Church started Awana this year, and I was blessed to train their leaders on starting Awana. There registration night yielded 54 registrations. Praise God for how He is working in Boulder City.
Leader Training at Southern Hills Baptist in Las Vegas.
Summer Outreach-
Over the summer, we try to spend time reaching out to smaller communities in the hope of developing ministry in these areas. Here are some of the places either we or our teams have gone to.
Parkside Bible Fellowship from Fallon, NV sent a team on our behalf to Wells Baptist for a 2 day outreach including a movie night and a 1 day "Awana Kidscamp". We are hoping this will develop into a long term ministry at some point down the road. Please be praying for Wells.
Mesquite, NV
Crescent Valley, NV
That's if for now. Thank you again to everyone who prays, supports, encourages, gives, serves, laughs and seeks after God. TOGETHER, we are reaching children with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ...what a wonderful ministry God has allowed us to be a part of. I thank God for you and the work He is doing in and through you. See you again sometime down the road.
If you'd like to financially support our efforts to reach children, you can send donations to:
Jeff Gilpin
P.O. Box 697
Truckee, CA. 96160
** All checks should be made out to Awana with a note on the memo of the check "Gilpin Support/ Acct 319"
you can donate online at:
awana.org/ missionary/gilpin
