This past week has been such a busy week for our team with a VBS in a trailer park everyday this week, passing out flyers (literally hundreds of them) door to door inviting people to the rallys going on all over town, bagging rice and beans to give out at those rallys, deepening our relationships with the kids from Church of Acts, continuing our treasure hunts at the local mall, 2 hour prayer meetings, worship and ministering to people at a park, awesome worship nights with the team in our chapel at home, and learning many lessons from the Lord. Last night, we had a rally at the Way of the Cross...

Caucasians. African Americans. Mexicans. Puerto Ricans. Chinese. Males. Females. Babies. Children. Teenagers. College-aged students. Adults. Parents. Grandparents. Ex-prisoners, drug addicts, and gang members. Lifelong believers. New believers. Each clean and perfect through the eyes of our Father.  All in ONE room as ONE body in Christ, worshiping ONE holy and perfect God. This is one of the many blessings we’ve received since being in the Valley. We’ve had several times of being able to worship with the local community and have seen our differences...

Well, our humble abode is now shared not only with 9 residents, but also 36-something other residents until the later end of next week. This week has been quite different yet also phenomenal. From Monday to Friday, we have been assisting with Vacation Bible School during the mornings. During the rest of the time, however, we’ve had “treasure hunts” around the mall, a two-hour, straight-up praise and prayer session comparable to the one at the International House of Prayer, acoustic worship sessions in the park during the night (which led to incredible conversations with men...

Friends and Family!! All is well in the Rio Grande Valley. The 2 week Texico team has arrived and adjusted well to our humble abode at Way of the Cross. The 5 week team has been SO welcoming and willing to get to know us.Ministry thus far has been VBS at a nearby church in a “Little Mexico” neighborhood. We also participated in a prayer meeting with Way of the Cross ministries and God showed up big time. Our team unanimously described the night as amazing, allowing them to worship freely. — Jenny and Lisa Here is what God is doing in their own words: Claire: We have only...

Howdy again! Dear parents and friends, thank you for trusting these amazing kids to Kayla and me. We have all grown so close through the love of God in prayer and ministry, cooking and cleaning, incredible conversations, and trust. God at work: We did an hour of prayer a few nights ago for the Church of Acts kids, though it only felt like 15 minutes. The Spirit was moving as I heard and felt our kids praying. I could really feel the presence of God in the room and it pumped me up! We also did a small service at our place of residence and had 20-25 of the C.o.A. kids over (cooking for 35 people...

Mark Van & Kayla Koontz- Howdy! This is our first blog update and we have decided to have each kid answer a different question (that I secretly intentionally specified for each kid- muah haha!) so you readers can gain great perspective on our first week impressions without re-reading the same thing over and over. The next blog update will having them digging deeper to answer whatever questions I am inspired to ask to reveal the mighty work of God in their lives. In the week of us arriving we have attended two rallies, past out six hundred flyers, a few of us have walked the streets searching...