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November 2000 News
What is Footsteps Missions
Footsteps Missions is a nonprofit 501C3 organization whose purpose is to a connection between people here in the United States and partners in third world countries who can use their help. We start by finding the individual and unique needs of the third world partners and their ministries. Next, we provide the administrative framework and training to prepare a group of "short-term missionaries" to go and meet those particular needs. This approach demonstrates to the communities and partners in the third world that we truly care, which in turn provides us with the opportunity to share the love of Christ with them. We value working with local churches. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for churches to have a short-term mission program. We provide quality leaders, training, and administration for a meaningful mission experience. We help local churches work with missionaries or ministries they already support. Our expenses are covered in the cost of the trip. There are no additional charges. To learn more about Footsteps Missions write, call, or e-mail us today.
www.footsteps.org
As we are all aware, the Internet has become a convenient and efficient tool for communication. We hope to take advantage of this in a substantial way. In addition to having online applications for the trips, we continue to enhance the Footsteps web- site to be an effective tool for organizing and administering short-term missions. New areas of interest on the site coming in the next couple of months include:
Trip Memories
This section will have a brief overview of past trips
with pictures from the ministries trip.
Resource Section
We will be starting an online store that will be a portal to
several online retailers providing valuable items for trips.
This feature will be both a resource for people going on
trips and a resource for Footsteps Missions, since Footsteps
will get a small commission from every purchase, which in
turn, lowers the cost of the trips! The commission does not
raise the cost of the item. Another part of the resource
section will be our information center that will have links
to other sites that provide information on culture,
passports, visas, weather, immunizations & medical
recommendations, checklists, how to write a testimony,
writing support letters, and more. One of our more pressing
goals is to begin maintaining our own Web server, so that we
can more easily set up other interactive features for the
website. As you can imagine, all of this takes a lot of time
and effort. We will try to let people know as the new
features go live.
Ripple in the Pond
All it takes is a little pebble dropped in the waters of a pool to cause an effect that changes the whole pond. It is amazing how God has a propensity for doing the same thing in touching lives. See what God did in these lives. Two years ago a hurricane passed over the islands of Roatan, Honduras. It caused mudslides, destroyed homes, carried disease and left people dead or desolate. Friends encouraged me to go to Roatan and see about partnering with a missions organization for disaster relief.
The First Ripple Upon arriving in Roatan, I was taken to meet Marco, a very gracious man with a real heart for God and passion to reach the people of Honduras. He was the pastor of a small local church that had had been hit hard and needed assistance. He would love to have some partners to help him. I told him I would look into the possibility.
The Second Ripple A little over a year later, a small team of seven people went to meet with Marco. Our agenda was to learn all the details necessary for hosting a larger group on a trip during the summer. What we didn't expect was that would be the start of a growing work. Marco said he had just poured cement for a basketball court and was wondering if we would help paint lines for it. Next thing we knew, we had twenty kids from nearby who were helping us with the project, many of who had never even been on the grounds of the church before. By the time we left, we had the opportunity to share about Christ and see five kids accept Christ.
The Third Ripple Finally, the day came for the first group to go help with Marco's church. We were prepared to sing, play, and share evangelistic films. We also had the unusual task of installing lights for the basketball court. It would be the first lighted court on the island. How would God use this? Well, the highlight and shock of the trip occurred when over 250 people came for the first lighted basketball game. Even more wonderful was that these people had the chance to hear the message that Christ loves them.
The Fourth Ripple Throughout our time with Marco, he had mentioned that there was a close pastor friend of his in, Jesus Mejia, another part of Honduras who could also use help. After connecting with Jesus Mejia, we had the opportunity to team with a fantastic group from Peninsula Covenant Church (PCC). The goal was to spend time with both churches in a whirlwind trip to Honduras in August of this year. We expected to go to a few schools in Jesus Mejia's neighborhood of Progresso, doing puppet ministry, sports clinics, and pastoral training. God had other ideas. We went to more than ten schools in three days, had several sports clinics and basketball games, and ended up changing our focus from pastoral training to lay training. The PCC group went with willing hearts and flexible attitudes, and it paid dividends. Over 1,600 students expressed interest in knowing more about a relationship with Christ. To this day, Jesus Mejia's church is following up with them individually. When we returned to Roatan, a basketball league had been established for the island with eight teams in it. We played against several of them and then had a chance to share our testimony and challenge them to follow Christ.
Praise & Prayer
We are very excited about the partners that God has provided for ministry in several areas of the globe including Progresso, Honduras; Roatan, Honduras; San Jose, Costa Rica; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Tijuana, Mexico; Ensenada, Mexico; and Malaga, Spain. Many of these partnerships are in the formative stages, so please pray for guidance and wisdom as we work to prepare groups and find effective ways to help our partners reach their communities with the gospel of Christ. We praise God for the teams that went to Roatan and Progresso, Honduras this summer. The first team comprised people from a number of churches, provided sports clinics, musical outreach, crafts for the kids and some construction/electrical work. Basketball hoops were installed, lights were hung for the church, music was shared throughout the island, and the first lighted court on the island was constructed. The second team was comprised of members from Peninsula Covenant Church. This group ministered to both Progresso and Roatan through puppet shows, sports clinics, basketball games, and teaching from several pastors and lay people. The group was divided into two teams to more effectively cover the townand share with more students and schools. Thousands of leaflets were handed out, and over 1600 of the leaflets were returned filled out with names and addresses. Our partners are continuing to individually minister to each person who returned a leaflet Both teams did a wonderful job of serving and being focused on meeting th eneeds expressed by the local churches ineach town. What is next for Footsteps Missions? We will be conducting a least nine trips next year in a variety of countries and places with different opportunities for ministry. We hope to make it possible for Daryl Smithgall to assume a full-time status starting in January. We are praying the financial support for this position will be provided (our goal is to raise about$40,000). Please pray that we can continue to develop quality partnerships, that God will provide the resources to enable the hiring of a full-time worker, and that local churches and individuals with servant's hearts will be prepared to go and serve together for God's glory.
Connecting
Footsteps Missions is a new organization that believes that the battles in life are best fought with a team. Many of the quality partnerships that we have developed in the countries we are working with have been because people have referred a missionary a local church, or an organization that they felt would be a mutually beneficial partnership. If you know of other possible partners, especially in Latin America, we would appreciate your input. Another area in which we hope to team up is in our relationship with churches that are likeminded in wanting to serve in third world countries. Our goal is to help churches by providing support in developing training and administrating short-term rnissions programs. We want to make reaching out as effective and easy as possible. There is no cost to the church for the services that we provide, and we are happy to talk to any that might be interested in our help. We are also excited about helping churches team with their own missionaries or ministry groups. If you know of churches that might be interested in our help, feel free to pass on this information or let us know about them
Footsteps Classified
The classified section of Footsteps Missions is a little different than those you encounter in your local newspaper Items are not being sold. Instead, we are looking for items that will either help increase our effectiveness in bringing volunteers to the mission field or would be of great value in helping our foreign partners reach their local population. All donations are tax deductible.
- Mac or PC Desktop Computer to be used as server (if Mac need minimum of G3 or if PC need minimum of Pentium 2 or Pentium 3)
- PC Laptop to be used for e-mail exchanges by volunteers on field
- High Resolution Digital Camera
- Small sound system needed for small church in Oakridge, Honduras
- Soccer balls, basketballs, volleyballs, frisbees for use with sports ministries
- Puppets (Preferably 12" or larger) for outreach events
- Musical instruments (guitars, cases, rhythm instruments, keyboards)
Ministry Trips
We have different ministry approach in the way we work with our partners in other countries . Since we truly want to go as servants, we directly ask them about their individual needs, and then we prepare our groups to meet those needs. As a result, the best skill one can offer is an attitude of service. Here are some of the details of our upcoming trips. Check our website regularly for all the vital information (www.footsteps.or
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Roatan, Honduras |
Construction, Music, Sports |
February 16-24th |
F, O |
$1350 |
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Progresso, Honduras |
Sports, Children, TBA |
April |
F, O |
TBA |
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Roatan, Honduras |
Construction, Sports,TBA |
June 22-30th |
F, O,Y |
$1350 |
Peninsula Covenant Church |
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Tijuana, Mexico |
Construction, DVBS,Women |
July 7-13th |
F, O,Y |
$900 |
Valley Alliance Church |
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Progresso, Honduras |
Sports, Children, TBA |
Late July |
F, O |
TBA |
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San Jose, Costa Rica |
Construction, Children, Language |
August |
F,O |
TBA |
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Guatemala |
Construction, Sports, Children |
September |
O |
TBA |
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Israel & Egypt |
Educational & Children |
November 3-20th |
O |
$3600 |
Peninsula Covenant Church |
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TBA - To be announced |
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F=Family Friendly O=Open Y=Youth Oriented (High
School Aged) |
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Advisory Board for Footsteps Missions
Rich Budke
VK Jones
John Madden
Sid Newcomb
Shaun Sheahen
Daryl Smithgall
Dan Wilkens
Footsteps Newsletter
The head office and editorial desk of Footsteps Newsletter is located over the garage in the spacious 1000 square foot home of Daryl Smithgall who can be reached at 1827 Valdez Avenue, Belmont, CA 94002, or if you are inclined to call try 1-650-596-9768 where he will usually answer the phone and most certainly will return calls within the next millenium. If you prefer the non-personal touch or prefer simply not to hear his voice you may choose from one of the many "I just want to send a message" methods such as: fax Footsteps at 1-650-596-9713, e-mail them at smithgalld@aol.com. or search the Web at www.footstepsmissions.org. There are certainly other ways to reach us but none are guaranteed successful, but you may also prefer standing at your door and yelling at the top of your lungs, dropping leaflets from a hot air balloon, Western Union, a very loud speaker, courier, Fed Ex (ex what'? I don't understand?), Pony Express (do they still exist?), Morris Code, smoke signals (neither of which we understand and how can we understand without an interpreter. Whatever, we want to hear from you.
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PO Box 51744, Palo Alto, CA 94303-9998 |
