The Clock Keeps Ticking

Time has been flying by. It seems like only a few days ago we were in the middle of Thanksgiving Retreat! In reality, that was a month ago. The memories of retreat are still fresh in our minds. Jon Susa did an amazing job of sharing the Word of God.  His encouragement to follow the dreams God has given us was invigorating. The facilities were incredible. The campus layout was perfect for our MKs to enjoy themselves and the meals were delicious. We were even told by one MK that the meals were the best she had had in her life. Overall, it was a phenomenal retreat! We are very grateful to those who helped make it possible. 

One of our greatest delights is spending time with the MKs. The new year is shaping up to be quite exciting in this regard. We will be at the South Africa Retreat in early January. After that, we are off to visit MKs across the United States. If you are ever in Springfield, MO, please feel free to stop by our office. We love it when MKs visit us! 

Christmas is just 4 days away and the start of 2012 is only 10 days away. We pray that your holidays are filled with family, new memories and tasty meals. Enjoy a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

October

October has come and is almost gone. This month has been a full one. It started off with a trip to Costa Rica to visit MKs and teach those attending Cincel, a Spanish language school, about ministering to MKs. Next was Fall Candidate Orientation. We had the privilege to meet with future missionaries. It was incredible to see families start the steps towards missions. Plus, we were lucky to meet a new baby MK! As the month comes to a close, we look back to reflect on how much we have accomplished for our upcoming Thanksgiving Retreat. The MKs are registered, tickets are purchased, rooms are assigned, handbooks are ordered, and the volunteer staff is ready to go. All we have left is a few office duties, packing, shopping, and heading out to Colorado for yet another amazing retreat. We cannot to wait!

Please be praying with us as we enter the next month. Thanksgiving Retreat is our main focus. Our prayer is that our college age MKs will have an awesome time at retreat, walking away with a solid Christ identity.

Changes

As autumn is right around the corner, temperatures are cooling down and the trees are about to show their fall colors. The turn of seasons bring about change. The MK Office is no exception to this rule. After 5 years of dedicated service to ISMK, we must bid farewell to Kristi Arnold as she departs for a new adventure in Texas. She and her husband, Joe, will be serving in the administration offices of the Parkcrest Children’s Home in Fairfield, TX. She has been a valuable asset to the ISMK team and we will miss her more than she knows.

iDiscipleship is well underway and growing every day. Our MKs are reading the Bible and communicating with MKs from other mission agencies and youth groups around the globe. It is exciting!

ISMK has various upcoming events, including dinners, fun activities and impacting retreats. We are excited to be interacting face-to-face with our MKs. It is always such a delight to see them.

Please pray for Kristi as she takes this next step and for us as we are ministering to our MKs!

August Rush

August is about half way through and has already been full of incredible happenings. This year, General Council and Fine Arts Festival took place in Phoenix, AZ. Even though there were many interactive exhibit booths and tons of people to visit with, the greatest highlight for us was the MK dinner! We had over 105 attend, spanning from very young MKs to an MK born in the 1940s. It was awesome seeing MKs from several generations unite over a meal!  And of course we enjoyed being able to see many MKs perform in the Fine Arts Festival. Our MK family has many very talented people. 

Our focus for the rest of August will be working through the final details for the iDiscipleship launch, which is just a few weeks away. If you haven’t signed already, we welcome you to sign up at www.ismk.org!

Like always, we are excited about the future. Please continue to pray for our MKs and for us. We know the Lord has great things in store!  

Life in the MK Office

It seems like Fall should already be here, but that is how it feels every year after summer program. We start planning for events like Thanksgiving Retreat in late July. It gives us the false belief that summertime is over. However, we still have many weeks left of this season and praise the Lord for it! There is still so much to do before autumn arrives. We are continually preparing for the launch of iDiscipleship September 1^st in hopes that it will radically impact MKs and youth groups globally. Our Thanksgiving Retreat registrations goes live on August 1^st, which means we will soon be putting on the hat of travel agent for 150 people. Fall dinners are right around the corner and are a great time to catch up with our MKs.

Each event or program takes many hours of preparation and tweaking. As a team, we enjoy working together to ensure that our goal is accomplished to equip, engage, and enable MKs in Christ.

Summer Program

It is hard to believe that our summer program is almost over. Even though the weeks have flown by, it feels like we just started.We've had close to 250 MKs pass through our doors, and have witnessed amazing things happen in each one of them. The Lord is good! Our hope is that every MK leaves knowing who they are in Christ and how valuable they are to us. 

 

Please pray us as our MKs depart on Friday, and we start packing 60 pallets of ISMK items to store away for next summer.

The Past Few Months

The past few months have been full of activity and exciting developments!

After 22 years at Beaver Village, Thanksgiving Retreat has found a new home at Young Life-Crooked Creek Conference Center. We announced that  Fired Up is becoming iDiscipleship (www.idiscipleship.com) in September to be more inclusive.  Our website (www.ismk.org) had a major makeover and is designed to show off our MKs! Preparations for summer program are well under way. Summer staff has been hired, notebooks have been assembled, activities have been booked, reservations have been placed, and we are about to move the MK Office over to Central Bible College for the summer.

We know that the past can predict the future, and at the rate we are going, the future looks amazing!

Candidate Orientation Spring 2011

This week is Candidate Orientation, where missionary hopefuls travel to Springfield, MO to find out where and how they can serve across the world. This tends to be a time filled with anticipation and excitement. Seeing people passionate to reach others with the love of Christ is invigorating.

During this week, the MK Office has the privilege of meeting with parents of future MKs. Schooling options and cultural transitions are just a few topics discussed when introducing the MK program. Our goal is to equip, engage and enable the parents and their MKs. Our hope is to see parents head home knowing we are on their team.