Mexico TTC Teens Heed the Call!
PDF Scan — Basic Training Handbook, pages 215-217.
Mexico TTC Teens Heed the Call!
From Paul Papers:
We received the Folks' very exciting news with regards to the more than 30 teens from the States being able to head out to Latin America approving our proposal, & the even further counsel with regards to the teens themselves really having to take the responsibility for their personal decisions. We went ahead & gave a class on finding God's Will including "The 7 Ways to Know God's Will Letter as well as excerpts on finding God's will from "Stop. Look & Listen' it selected MOP quotes. This had really gone together well with the previous afternoon's class, which was given by Juan, based upon your talk, "Teens, It's Tine To Take Responsibility", in which he added excerpts from Dad out of GN 206, the Teen Issue.
We gave them Friday afternoon off to pray desperately about their individual situations in their bungalows.
The teens realised that if they went to the field, it should be with the vision that it's pretty much for the rest of their lives as fulltime missionaries. We gave them forms & on the back of each form we photocopied a synopsis of the counsel we had received from you to date with regard to the general boundaries & guidelines the teens should base their decisions around.
We went ahead & designed a phone message for the parents in which the various blanks could be filled in as to their teens' name, where they had been invited to, & under what overseer they would work. We sent that phone message out to the different areas Saturday morning & asked for a response back from them by Sunday.
By this time we were trying to figure out as well, based upon these possibilities, how much money was going to be needed to supplement the funds the teens already had to get them to these fields, & so we came up with a basic figure, & lo & behold, not long after that we got a call from Lima & the brethren there just happened to offer us the proceeds of the Lima 'common pot", as they said, "We really don't have any need for it i wondered if perhaps you do!" Needless to say, it was timely, as we had just hours before figured out the amount we needed to transact this whole thing, & we didn't have enough money to purchase the tickets. Then right after that we get a call that they've got all the money that we needed.
It was certainly not just a formality to have the teens get down in prayer because as I just mentioned, not only did it confirm about what we had originally proposed as far as the number of teens that would be ready & want to go to the field directly, but the verses & confirmations many of them got from the Lord were without a doubt straight from Him! Various teens quoted passages out of obscure Books like 2 Chronicles or Jeremiah, etc., verses which we're almost certain they had no knowledge of & then applied them amazingly, such as "an unplanted field", being what the Lord used to show them that they needed to go on to a new field, rather than one like the States which had already been so heavily sowed, etc., & many other verses & applications that were just one more confirmation of how the Lord is raising up these Endtime teens! PTL!
We also were praying for the parents because we knew that there was no way that we could present to them how much the Lord had done in the lives of their kids! In just two months they had been through a miraculous transformation & we knew, Being parents ourselves, that of course it cones as quite a shock at the time that your teen actually stands up on his own & states that he wants to go to the mission field 4 is no longer the Tittle boy in knee pants or little girl in the cute pink dress that you had taken out witnessing just a few years before!
Well, by Sunday we began getting a lot of responses back from the
parents, & TTL, it seemed that we were batting close to a thousand as
far as responses from the parents, who were all real overjoyed to see
their kids have a place of service on the mission field & continue their
training. Some scenes of course were very touching, as for example,
Daniel & Abigail (Keros & Rae) who are now in Chicago, were in tears as
their 13-year-old Jesse had made a decision to go to Brazil. Not tears
of remorse, but tears of just wanting to know for sure that this was the
Lord's plan for him & that they might not ever see him again until Jesus
comes back.
Jesse's Dad, Daniel, was saying, "Son, we dedicated you to the Lord when you were born, & knew that one day you'd be on your own, but it was just surprising when it did come." To which Jesse replied, I know, Dad, it was a surprise to me too, but we know that when the Lord tells us to do southing, that that's the only way we'll be truly happy & fulfilled, is when we do it. I really love you, Dad, & appreciate all the sacrifice that you've made for us to help us to get to this point."
There is another couple, John & Heaven in Dallas, who had actually been excommunicated when we had visited Texas at the tine of the Searchers' meetings & they had really responded, & as a result of S & S also being there, had gotten re-instated & now have become LASs in the Dallas area. But they have five teens here (based on a couple of different marriages), & because some of the teens' passports had expired, when we presented the possibility to then of their teens going to different field hones throughout Latin America, they responded real avidly & offered to fly down the sane day to renew their passports! GBT!
We can see the possibility of not only getting the teens to the field, but their entire families through the teens! What has happened is that of Willing's (TSC) two sons. Jason, had decided to go back hone to the USA while his other son, Hark, wanted to go directly to the field. So when we called to ask for their permission for Hark & to inform then that Jason was returning, Willing reacted strongly & said, "Why?! What's Jason doing coming back to the States?" He then asked to talk to Jason & while on the phone asked him to please pray & reconsider his decision, as they wanted him to go to the field! The boys' other set of parents, Obi & Crystal, added that Mark & Jason's decision was going to help then go to the field as soon as possible, as having them on the field would be a much greater incentive for them to get out of the USA as soon as possible so as to join them! TYJ!
All the kids prayed about the field of His choice. It was a real reward to us to see these kids totally make these decisions on their own by the guidance of 6od's Word & hearing from Him in prayer, & then be able to stand strong in their conviction & talk to their parents & believe that it was God's will & their parents rejoiced together with them, both of then shedding tears of joy.
What was really touching was having the parents talk to their sons & daughters & all of them "lowing as they went", so to speak, both knowing that it was God's will that they part company if necessary for these next years to each serve the Lord in their own capacity. Of course we tried to reassure then that in the case that parents do reach the point where they're actually enroute to the Eastern mission field, that it would be quite possible through the common pot for their teens to join them there, (Besides the Lima common pot which I earlier referred to, the Brazil area was able to raise all the funds for 16 people to get round trips tickets to Mexico in a 15-day united push!--Not to speak of the miracles He did to have their friend actually bump other people off already-booked flights in high season in order to give our folks passage on the flight!)
Thursday was the day we had chosen to invite all the local Hones out for a day of appreciation, since they had been working hard not only with provisioning & receiving phone calls, coordinating things, etc., but this is also where the carpenters & seamstresses & others that had benefitted the Camp lived, so we invited then out at lunch-time & they got to see the video of the TIC & then participate in the afternoon's class, which was one on appreciation & credit where credit is due, given by Juan.
On Friday the 12th we had our farewell talk & read the condensation of "Bigger Jobs' prior to the teen graduation, & then handed out diploma bookmarkers to all of the teens. All of us sat on stage as each of the teens cane forward by teams & it was just so encouraging to see all that they had gone through & the beautiful progress that had been made in each & every one of their lives. We went over the goals the teens cant up with during the first week that we were together & it was just amazing to see that we had been able to cover each & every one of then & the teens really have learned then. The Lord really did it & they all did go out new creatures, which we're just so so thankful for. We also had given then a little pep talk about being real soldiers & not falling apart at the seams crying, as a way to manifest their love or how much they were going to miss each other, as that would only make it harder on all of us, so that we agreed together to try & forego the tears in order to help all of us stand strong & make it easy for us to be good.
At lunchtime a little musical ditty had been prepared by Paul & some of the boys to help the kids remember the emergency telephone numbers & addresses that you had suggested we share with then. After an afternoon off, we had dinner & we presented to all of the Room Shepherds & adult staff their diplomas for having made it through the course too, & then had a farewell dance which proved to be a really sweet tine to bid their goodbyes, since the first team was scheduled to leave the next morning.
That afternoon they had taken off to pack up & we also handed out the
cassette to everyone of the 'Teens of the End Are On Their Way' which
was highlights of various inspirations held during the two months. (Not
all of the makeshift recording came out that well, so this facilitated
the choice of which songs to use on this one hour-tape!) As well,
everyone was given a copy of the Camp Log, "Tales From Teen Town". With
this they also got a three-month reading course, a Mini-Pubdex Study
(included in this book),
All in all, over the next three days, Saturday, Sunday & Monday morning, teams to 17 various locations got off, & TTL it wasn't as hard as we had anticipated it to be. Nevertheless, especially on the first few loads, all of us were really fighting to hold back the tears & weren't entirely successful, but we were certainly proud of our Teen Soldiers going off to war for the greatest cause there is!
A couple of touching instances from the airport, included Zack Attack sitting there i suddenly being touched by this one former teen terror, Jason from Texas, who is now on bis way to Peru a changed man, forsaking all to follow Jesus into all the Earth. Zack was reminiscing of all the things he went through at 16 years of age when he was leaving home on his own, & now saw in front of him Jason, only 12 years old, about to partake of that same journey! Zack started weeping & said, "The Lord has gotten through to me on the lessons that you were trying to teach me all along at the TTC about having a broken heart for the sheep" & he asked Juan there if he could be considered to help shepherd these precious teens. Another moving instance was when 13-year-old Mark, whose Family had just rejoined at the Searchers' Meeting in Houston & who had been given one of the Spanish Language New Testaments that we had provisioned, was sitting there studiously already memorising John 3: 16 in Spanish, asking what each & every word meant, with a determined look on his face like he was going to start witnessing as soon as he stepped off the plane in S. America! GBH!
In fact Juan, who accompanied many of these teams to the airport, told us that when the teens went marching by, there was something so powerful about them that people just stood back in their wake & even the airline people gave them all top priority, allowing the teens to board the plane first in each case, even sending out a special bus to take them on to the tarmac ahead of all the other passengers! Real first class service for the Lord's children!
Well, besides the training that all these precious teens got during these two months here 4 being drawn close to the heart of David & having a personal realisation of what the Family was all about, perhaps the icing on the cake & one of our greatest rewards was to behold how many of these teens were able to go on to the field directly from here. In fact, out of the 52 teens which came to the TTC here from mainland U. S. & Canada, only 19 went back to be with their parents, in order to encourage them to get out of the States (plus four others who had been on their own in Mexico), which of course means that 33 of the teens that we originally met during our Searchers' meetings in N. A. that were living with their parents have now gone on to full time service for the Lord in Latin America! PTL!
Plus, of the 19 teens that did return to try to encourage their folks to leave the States, at least 5 have pretty much booked their flights to leave for various fields with their parents in these next few weeks, including India, the Philippines, & Japan, & we're sure that if, for some reason, some of the other parents aren't able to make it out of the States fairly soon, that the remaining teens are going to want to shove off to one of the new Teen Combos in Latin America as soon as possible. PTL!
In fact, even some of the teens being here in Mexico inspired some of their parents to have already made the move in this direction themselves. So, PTL, the Teen Turbine is already churning out the power!
