Krista Otto - Day 7

We are back in the recording studio today at the AMED ministry.  AMED is a ministry that the Kims work with to produce VBS and Sunday school material for Spanish speaking children.  While the Kims were working in the shantytowns, like the ones we have been ministering in, they discovered that the church workers lacked the material to help them teach the children.  Through the past 11 years, the AMED ministry has really grown.  They have their own office and studio where they can record music, film videos for the motions to go along with the music, and create animation and drama.  They do all this with four full time employees!  They have an administrator, graphic designer, sound technician and secretary.  They also have many volunteers to help!  Most recently, some of these volunteers have been working to redesigning their website.  After four long months of hard work, the website went live yesterday and it was so fun to be here to celebrate with them.  The website has so many great features.  An example of some things they offer are bible stories, music with motions, advertisements for your event, banners, and decoration ideas.  These are available for the church leaders to use with a simple click of the mouse.   The most amazing part is that they provide all this valuable information and resources for free on their website!   I am truly amazed how God is using this ministry and humbled that they would like for us to participate in recording our VBS songs and Bible story.  It’s amazing to think how we have such an abundance of teaching resources in the US and yet there is such a need for them here.  I wish I had better skills to offer them.  It’s amazing to think that it’s difficult to make a name for yourself in the US in production, sound, and writing curriculum, yet if you have those skills you could use them now to create materials to share the gospel with millions of children around the world as the Kims and their ministry is doing!

This afternoon we went to another shantytown to minister to the kids.  It was the first time that the Kims had been brought a mission team there.  What a great time we had again.  Near the end of our time, I was approached by two ladies.  One lady works for Compassion International.  I hear so much about this ministry each time I am at a concert or Christian event and it was so interesting to actually meet someone who works with the kids instead of just hearing about the kids.  She has 200 children in that area that she works with that are sponsored children.  Some of them were there at our meeting!  Wow, again it was so neat to see these children and be encouraged how their life is different because of Compassion.  The other lady I met is actually a missionary with her husband and they work mainly with children’s ministry.  She really enjoyed our VBS time with the children so much and wished that we could come back again.  She talked with Pastor Kim after our conversation and together they discussed her desire to have help starting a church farther up the hill into the poorer portion of the shantytown.  It’s exciting and humbling to think it’s possible a new church plant will start because of our ministry today.

Krista