For several years, Ascension Lutheran Church & Preschool, on the west side of El Paso, has been donating bilingual children’s Bible storybooks to Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM) to send to the mission-churches in Mexico.

See the joy in her smile as she hugs her new bilingual Bible?

Kim Bestian, director of children’s ministry at Ascension, is dedicated to equipping children for ministry. One way children are given opportunities for ministry is through their offerings.

In her book, Blueprints for Children’s Ministry, she points out: “A foundation is laid upon which children can build a life of cheerfully sharing their God-given gifts and experience the joy of giving in response to God’s love (2 Corinthians 9:7). Children are made aware of how their gifts are an act of worship and are used by the church to build God’s kingdom.”

Like the Ethiopian (Acts 8:26-40), this young girl stops in the middle of a sandy lot to read her Arch book

“Our preschool chapel offerings have been dedicated to purchasing the bilingual My First Bible Storybooks for Mexico,” Kim shared.

Their Sunday School offerings for 2019-2020 were also used to purchase 65 Spanish Bible story Arch books. Ascension Lutheran Church celebrated 60 years of ministry in 2020. Kim believed it to be a wonderful way for the children to celebrate this milestone–adding an extra five books to thank God for the next sixty years we pray He will provide.

On the first week of December, the children of Anapra, Mexico, received those Arch books. The bilingual Bibles were distributed to children and adults, as most of adults in Anapra read at a sixth grade level.  It was a beautiful sight to see children and parents looking through their books soon as they received them.

“This is a meaningful way for children to learn how to share Jesus with others,” Luz Soto, member at Ascension and their YLM Missions Facilitator, explained when she brought the books to YLM, “These kids at Ascension will see how kids like themselves are learning about Jesus, and they will know they were part of sharing Jesus with them.”

With a new budding church forming in Cuba, the extra five books, along with bilingual Bibles, will be sent the last weeks of December for the children there.  Kim is excited to see how children on an island will encounter the same Jesus children in the Anapra desert have encountered . . . the same Jesus the children at Ascension learn about and now share through their Sunday School and chapel offerings.