News From Nance
In Mark 10:27 you find the Ohio motto, “With God, all things are possible”. Adopted in 1959, it is also found in Matthew 19:26. That happened to be where I was reading personally as we formulated our Strategic Plan and Budget for 2027. The goals seem impossible and intimidating but, “with God, all things are possible.”
So, for your specific prayers, here are some goals for 2027:
We are so thankful as we approach Thanksgiving for all God did in 2026. It was an amazing year. Thank you for partnering with us. Please pray for us as the 2027 statistical year has already begun. (I know that’s confusing!) But, the most important thing is that the kids we are privileged to meet are not statistics, they are children made in the image of God!
Rachel’s Report
As part of our Child Protection Policy, we make supervisory visits of activities sponsored by Child Evangelism Fellowship®, including Good News Club®. In October, I got to do three of those visits for Good News Clubs. I went to Edison Elementary in Dayton first. Last year, very few children came to the club, and, for part of the year, only one child attended regularly. But the ladies from the adopting church who teach the club kept showing up for that one child. When I visited a few weeks ago, they had 16 children in attendance! It was so wonderful to see that and to meet their class. The second club I visited was at Valley View Elementary in Germantown. This is one of the clubs that is struggling with getting the word out because sending flyers home with each child in the school is not allowed. When I was there to visit, the teachers had four of their young grandchildren there to participate in the club, but no other children attended. During the memory verse game called, “Stump the Teacher,” the kids picked me a few times to try to fill in the blanks of the memory verse, and they were shocked that I knew the answers (it was the same verse as I had heard at Edison the week before, so I had a bit of a head start). The third club I visited was Roosevelt Elementary in Dayton. During snack time, the kids worked on finding a hidden message related to the memory verse they were going to learn. I enjoyed helping a few of the kids with that and watching them realize what it said: “Listen to God’s Word and Do It.” It’s always neat to see how different teams do things and to meet the kids in their club.
In October, I also finished proctoring a student from Columbus who is taking Teaching Children Effectively™, Level 1 online through the Children’s Ministries Institute®. She received the lectures through the online platform and homework feedback from the online instructor, but she and I met in-person for the Memory Verse, Wordless Book, and Bible Lesson Practicums.
Praise the Lord for:
16 kids attending the Edison Elementary GNC™
New people attending teacher training and finding donated material to use in Sunday School
Please pray for:
Good News Clubs to be well-attended, even in schools where advertising is difficult
Connections with daycare centers for ministry after-school or during school breaks