East Coast International Church

A few weeks ago, we had the awesome privilege to work with the Pastors of East Coast International Church (ECIC) from Lynn, MA. For those of you who don't know, the lead pastor there, Pastor Kurt Lange, is my (Kendra) brother. He, along with his wife Jen and daughter Kyla, came and served selflessly and had an awesome week of ministry, as we reached out to the children in Granada and San Matías.

One of ECIC’s ministries is an inner-city kids ministry called "Metro kids." This is where they take the gospel to the streets, ministering to the kids, right where they are. For a few years now, ECIC has been bringing their program here to Granada, a colonial city in Nicaragua. They have brought a number of teams from their church down to help reach the children and also to physically help build a local church that the kids can attend and bring their families to.

Between their family of three, our family of five and the Pastor in Granada and his wife, we had a great little team. We were able to put on the “Metro Kids” program at 2 different sites each day and we are believing that God will continue to work in the lives of those children that were touched by Him that week. Our prayer is that they, along with their families, will continue to come and be a part of that local church. There is an incredible need in the city of Granada. This beautiful, colonial city has seen a rise in tourism, which has been great for the economy in such a poor community. However, the tourism has also caused a significant rise in violence and child prostitution.

During this week, Pastor Kurt and Jen made it a priority to visit this certain, little orphanage. ECIC has grown very close to 16 young girls who reside at this local orphanage. To the orphanage’s surprise, ECIC had purchased beautiful, small gifts for all the girls and also blessed the orphanage with enough money to pay for one month of the girls schooling. This was a current need and ECIC was able to share God’s love in a very practical way by helping. We also read to the girls and listened to them practice their English. These girls are so precious and have so much love to give! We had a wonderful time at the orphanage as we spent time just being with the girls, loving on them, and just talking with them. One young girl was just taken in off the streets, from being sold for prostitution. We thank God for people and places like this that are available and are willing to take in these precious children. We thank God for this little Nicaraguan run orphanage.

This is not an orphanage run by a group of Americans or foreigners that have funding from the States. These ladies live by faith, literally believing in God on a daily basis for their food and financial needs of the day. Pray with us that God would protect these young girls and continue to bless the ladies that run it and provide for their every need.

Lastly, we went to the feeding program that we continue to help with in Acahualinca every Friday. This is soon to be the home of a Children's Center, which is the project of our fellow missionaries, Jon and Wilma Hall. The Children’s Center will be used to reach out to the homeless, hungry, hurting and lost children of Acahualinca and the city dump "La Chureca". The children were excited to say the least, to see some new American faces and practice the few words in English they have learned.

ECIC also hosts teams at their Boston Dream Center in Lynn, MA. We personally lead 3 teams to work with ECIC and the Boston Dream Center while we were Youth Pastor's in Michigan. If you would like more info about this inner-city ministry, their upcoming church plants, taking a team to minister or partnering with their ministry in any way, here is a link to their website. East Coast International Church

We thank God for an awesome week of ministry and the love that ECIC has for the people of Lynn, MA and Nicaragua. We look forward to working with the entire ECIC team in 2010!