We had 15 children the first week of a new inner-city school club. Five children prayed to receive Christ as Savior! That day, I was made aware of children wanting to go to church, but their parents choose not to go to any church.

One of our club volunteers said to me that their family would be willing to bring one little girl and her brother to church. When this volunteer spoke to the mother about it … the little girl said, “Mama, even if you don’t want to go to church, I want to go to church with them!”

In the other family, another club volunteer was talking with the mother of a girl who wanted to go to church. The mother said she has 4 children and this girl is her youngest. She always is talking about God and wanting to go to church. The mother went on to say she doesn’t go to church, but sometimes she lets her little girl go with the grandmother when she is able to go.

Parents have their reasons, but it is sad when children want to go to church. We not only need to reach the children, but we must reach the families. It is our prayer that the ‘adopting churches’ of our school-related clubs will do careful and important follow-up with unchurched children in our clubs.

At that club that day, I had the privilege of counseling an 8 year old girl, I will call her Tajah, for salvation. In the middle of our counseling time, Tajah broke down and wept. She was so overwhelmed by what Jesus did for her on the cross. I began to cry, too, because the Lord reminded me that even though I have been saved for many years, how easy it is ‘to forget’ what a high price was paid by my Savior for my sin.

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I asked Erma Boswell to share her testimony about Good News Clubs. “For me, there are so many testimonies from Good News Club that impacted my life. It all started with a child in my oldest son’s class bullying him, especially on the bus. I heard you speak on WMHR about CEF and Good News Clubs and that’s when I decided to start one in our home. We invited this boy to the club, and he came along with his sister. At that time we weren’t able to do clubs in school. I had 10-12 student’s getting off the bus at my home for GNC. Through GNC this young boy went from being a bully to being a friend.

“Later, we learned that this boy and his sister had been abandoned by their mom and had to move to our area to live with their father. They were new to our community and were hurting from their abandonment. Once schools were open to having GNC, I began meeting at the school. Over the years, we grew from 12 to 36 students weekly in our GNC.

“I learned so much myself as I prepared each weekly lesson. Though I had heard or read many of the Bible lessons myself, I learned so much more as I studied and prepared each lesson. I learned from the students who always had great questions. I came to know the students well enough to anticipate the questions they were probably going to ask, and this in turn helped me in preparing each lesson.

“When I first started a GNC in the school, I was not an employee there. I found that after I became a teacher aide in the school, my connections with the students and families became stronger. Seeing the students throughout the day allowed for them to share their memory verses with me, tell me how much they enjoyed the Bible story, or share a prayer request. I often heard, ‘See you at GNC, Mrs. Boswell!’

“There was a time that we actually had a tornado warning while at school and we all had to move to a certain hallway where it was safe. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder along the walls of the hallway. The kids were scared, and I have to be honest, I was concerned myself. One of the students next to me attended GNC. She told me she was scared. We talked and I asked her what we have learned in GNC. She told me that she learned that God is with her and she can talk to him any time. I encouraged her to pray and that I would do the same. After a few minutes, I asked her how she was feeling. She looked at me and replied, ‘Just a minute, Mrs. Boswell, I’m still talking to God.’ The storm passed and we were all fine. I will never forget our time in the hallway and how God used what we had learned in GNC to help that student and me.”

Connie shares a testimony from her club, “On Mondays at the school where I help with after school ministry, this year the attendance was lower than usual. Our program is not a traditional Good News Club as we run after school care from 3:30 to 5:15 for one age group on Mondays and another age group on Thursdays. The kids who sign up can choose to stay in the cafeteria to work on homework, do board games, a craft, or they can choose to play games in the gym.

“Another option for them is that they can choose to go hear a Bible story with “Miss Connie” in one of the kindergarten rooms. They pick an activity for 20 minutes and then can either stay or switch to a new activity while they are with us.

“We have a few teenage helpers from a city work program who help us by leading activity time in the gym. Because we have not had that many kids this year, there have been weeks when no kids went to the gym. There were several weeks in this last semester when that happened, so two of the teens from the city work program came to my room to help “supervise” the kids for the Bible lesson.”

“One of the teen helpers was mostly on his phone, but the other listened intently to the lesson when I taught. The series I taught through in February and early March before Covid was on Queen Esther. This young man had not heard this story from the Bible before and he was glued to the plot and the cliff- hangers that end each week’s lesson.”

“When wicked Haman had to bring Mordecai through the streets on the King’s horse with royal robes declaring how great Mordecai was, this young teen helper was stunned saying, “NO WAY!!” and laughed out loud at the twist of fate.”

“Of course because it is CEF material, the opportunity to present the gospel is given in every lesson. Though this young man did not make a profession of faith during the time he was with me, he had repeated opportunities to see and hear the gospel presented several times this last semester.

“One week, during prayer request time he asked me to put a prayer request into the “God Can” that we use for the kids’ requests. He was having a job interview that week and asked me please to pray. The next week when I came in to the school as soon as he saw me, he got a HUGE smile on his face. I took one look at him and said, “You got it -didn’t you!?”

“He said, “I didn’t get just one job, I got TWO job offers!! Thank you for praying for me!!!” We high-fived and the kids there asked what we were talking about. It gave me an opportunity to talk about how God hears us when we pray to Him and that sometimes the answer is “yes”, sometimes it’s “no”, and sometimes it’s a “wait”… but that GOD always knows what is best for us. This time we could rejoice with this young man that God had answered with a yes, and we could all give God the glory for answering our prayers for him.

“When I show up each week at this school, it’s to teach the kids, but God has in mind exactly who He intends to be there for the lessons. I don’t know this teen’s heart or whether he is even a believer yet, but I am praying that the gospel messages that he heard repeatedly, hearing the way God used Esther to shine for Him, “at such a time as this,” and seeing God answer his prayer for a job will go a long way in building his faith and trust in God!”

It all began with a simple invitation to come to Good News Club. He appeared the day of club and asked what we were doing. I told him it was a Bible club, asked, “Would you like to come?” Then handed him a registration form, waited, and prayed… and Isaiah came! One of things he shared with us is that he didn’t know how to find out things about Jesus in the Bible. What a joy to be able to help him with that.

At the end of club that day, after hearing a clear presentation of the gospel when the invitation was given, Isaiah raised his hand and wanted to be saved! Since that day, he has been coming regularly, eagerly wanting to know more about JESUS and growing in his faith.

As Good News Club teachers, we were teaching the Wordless Book to the children, sharing the gospel points using the 5 colors. GOLD that reminds us of God; the DARK color represents sin; RED, Jesus’ blood and what HE accomplished on the cross for our sin; the CLEAN color represents how we can be cleaned up from our sin; and GREEN represents growth, ways we need to grow in God’s family.

At our last club, Isaiah repeated back to us the entire teaching of the Wordless Book. Tammy, one of our club teachers, pretended to be someone who didn’t know the Lord and needed Jesus. Isaiah showed her the colors of the Wordless Book and explained each gospel point. Tammy decided she would see how he might respond in a ‘challenging’ situation. So when Isaiah was reviewing the teaching on the DARK page, Tammy said to him, “I’m no sinner,” to which he quickly replied, “Oh, yes, you are … the Bible tells us, ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!’” Even though she insisted she wasn’t a sinner, Isaiah stood his ground on the truth of God’s Word (and this with hardly any prompting on our part)!

Isaiah was given a little Bible. He told me he never had a Bible before. We also gave him a devotional page to work on. He is quite intent on learning more about the Bible and Jesus. I praise God how HE is at work in Isaiah’s life … and it all began with a simple invitation, “Would you like to come to Good News Club?”

There aren’t too many of us that like to wait…

We approached a local Syracuse school with the desire of having an after-school Good News Club at the school. We had meeting after meeting with school staff just to be told we needed to ‘wait.’ We needed to come back at another time. This went on for at least 2 years. Many were praying. A number of us decided to do a prayer walk around the school.

It was a Saturday morning, the sun was shining… we had a good number of people show up for the prayer walk. As we were nearing the end of our prayer walk, one of the club coordinators received a text from the vice principal … “Come to the school, we are ready for the Good News Club!” We were done with the wait!

WOW! All of us on that prayer walk were speechless. GOD showed up as a result of prayer. In that next meeting, the vice principal shared with us, “Thank you for your patience!” Our waiting had paid off!

It is stories like these that remind us that prayer makes a difference! God is good and is faithful to answer our prayers when we call to him! If you are interested in serving with a Good News Club, check out our Good News Club page or visit www.cefonline.com for more information.

What do you do when things seem to be at a stand still? You pray to the one that never stands still! God!

Several years ago, as we were developing our after-school Good News Clubs, a group of ladies were interested in starting a club at a local elementary school. The lady I was working with, Ruth, had a particular school in mind. Her church was ready to ‘adopt’ the school club, and volunteers were ready. When Ruth called the school and spoke with the principal, the principal responded, “Not in my school!” Ruth was ‘taken back’ by the response. What to do?

PRAYER! The church family prayed; there was a prayer walk around the school; CEF prayer partners were praying.
After about a month of prayer, Ruth felt led to approach the principal again. When she called the office, the secretary talked with the principal and an appointment was made for Ruth.

Ruth called me and asked if I would go with her to that meeting. I met with Ruth before our appointment with the principal. We prayed together. Both of us were a bit anxious. We prayed again in the school parking lot.

We went into the school and made our way to the main office. Ruth told the secretary who we were and we waited a few minutes for the principal. When she came, her first words to us were …”Now, about this Good News Club what can I do to make it happen?” I am sure Ruth was as shocked as I was to hear these words!

After our meeting, all Ruth and I could do was to praise God for this change of heart! Truly, this was a God-thing. We believe God moved in answer to His people’s prayers! As a result of this first club in that school district, we now have 4 after-school Good News Clubs in that district! Praise God!

Recently at our Good News Club, we began teaching CEF’s Wordless Book curriculum. We gave the children wordless book bracelets and are training them to use them to share the love of Christ with their friends and family – it is wonderful!

The week we started on lesson one, we began teaching the Gold Page which is about Heaven. One of the illustrated pages contains pictures of ‘things that will be in Heaven.’ The lesson also highlights the teaching of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

One of our little girls, Alicia, grade 2, was listening so intently to the teaching. When I said that each person who has placed their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins will have their name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, Alicia smiled to think her name was in the Lamb’s Book of Life since she had made that decision. She frowned and then raised her hand.

When I called on her, she said she was very sad because she just knew that her name would not be spelled correctly in the Book. Apparently, this has been an ongoing problem for Alicia, and she had tears in her eyes and a quivering little lip as she told us all about it. After reassuring her that Jesus knew how to spell her name and giving her a hug, we moved on, but she seemed unconvinced.

After the lesson was over, we moved on to the review game provided with the lesson. Around question #7, I called on Alicia to answer a question and she got it right. This entitled her to pick a special card from a stack, at random, and to say whether the picture on the card would be something that would be in heaven or would not be in heaven ….a correct answer meant another 1,000 points for her team! Alicia leaned over to pick a card from my hand, turned it over, and was staring at a picture of the Lamb’s Book of Life! She proudly announced the correct answer and then called out in disbelief, “Look! My name is in the Book and it is SPELLED RIGHT!” Sure enough, I looked and there was her name, “Alicia,” along with a list of other names on the pre-printed card from the publisher!

What an incredible gift God gave to that little girl that day in club. We were all so happy and rejoicing with her over this small miracle! Truly, God is in the details of our lives, every day, all the time! Praise God!

Would you believe there are some children today that still have never seen or heard of the Bible?

Juli, who has taught Good News Clubs®, had the opportunity recently to be a part of her church’s outreach ministry on the northside of Syracuse. She and a preteen helper were asked to watch/entertain over 40 kids for an hour while their refugee parents worked on job preparation and things.

Juli said she planned a few games and she had a small lesson to go with one of the games about the love of God.

She said to the children, “Do you know what this is?” (holding the Bible) and only two kids raised their hands.  I called on one of them and he said, “That’s a book!'”  It wasn’t as a joke, it wasn’t to be silly, and it wasn’t to make the other children laugh …they just simply had never seen a Bible before and when I said, ‘You’re right! This is God’s Word! This is His letter to us!’  A few of the kids had never even HEARD of God! Praise God that Juli was able to share with these precious children about GOD.

Juli went on to say that this was a one-time outreach for the church to get into the homes of nonbelievers. I don’t believe the elders were ever invited back.  But I know that the children that day learned about God’s Word, His love for them, and were given a special invitation to have a personal relationship with Him!

You can be a part of Good News Clubs to join in this important work of sharing the gospel with the children of Central New York who may not hear it from anyone else! Check out more about Good News Clubs by clicking here.