Celebrating Children's Day

The month of June gives us the special celebration of Children’s Day.

We are blessed to see many of our mission leaders have their sons and daughters working with them. This is a work that can’t be created with concrete blocks. God speaking to our children and their children is the greatest joy for a Christian parent.

On Children’s Day in 1961, I was playing the organ at the Medford Assembly of God. It was two weeks before my due date for my first pregnancy. Our Sunday School Superintendent was timing my contractions. Experiencing a first pregnancy, what did I know? That day, George, Jr. was born. As a mother, I can remember saying, “It’s okay if he grows up to be a garbage collector, as long as he follows God.” My son George now blesses thousands of children with a day camp ministry—in the same state not too far from where he was born.

Children are my calling. Before I turned 12 years old, I gave my life to Jesus and my desire was to open an orphanage in Italy! God trusted me with one Italian orphan, George John DeTellis, my boyfriend at 15 and husband at 18. But God’s blessings are not seen in a day but in a lifetime. And sometimes we leave this life in faith that “the blessing” will come to our children and their children.

I am blessed to know New Missions has fed and spiritually nurtured thousands and thousands of children in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Some of these children are scattered all over the world following Jesus; in South America, Europe, Canada, and in the USA. For me, to see the face of a child is to see God’s perfect love. The blessing of God is to your children, their children, and their children’s children. Presently, New Missions schools are reaching about 9,000 students in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

In our early days in Haiti, mothers were losing many children before they reached five years of age. They often hoped to get an empty wooden fish box from the mission to bury a child. After one year of mission ministry, we heard the village people talking about how no one in our area died from starvation. The Haitian name given to a child who reaches the age of five is, “Ti Chape,” translated “rescued.” We remember God’s blessing to the children, and we celebrate with a birthday party when they reach five years old.

This month, I had the amazing blessing to meet a former student, Alix Hilaire of Neply, Haiti. When he heard about Jesus at school at the age of 10, Alix promised God he would obey Him if God would help him “chape” (escape) from Haiti. At the age of 16, his father brought him to the United States. Alix Hilaire accepted Christ, graduated from Bible School, and he is now pastoring an English and Haitian speaking church in Mt. Dora, Florida. That’s the blessing! Pastor Hilaire is a “gro chape” (big escaper). You never know when you love a child through sponsorship where that child will reach in God’s plan and purpose. The greatest blessing in sponsorship is seeing children accept Jesus and many receiving a call to serve God in ministry. ~Jeanne DeTellis Loudon