Adopt-a-Club Project

One of my favorite events is our annual Awana Club Adopt-a-Club project in which we raise money to support needy Awana Clubs around the world. For about $240 we can help a club in a foreign country purchase handbooks, game equipment, and needed supplies for a year. Over the years at Faith Bible Fellowship in Lancaster, we have expanded our annual support to 14 adopted clubs. We have just completed our annual project and we raised exactly $5,000 this year. With this we will be able to support our 14 clubs for another year and have additional funds to support additional Awana mission needs. Our clubs are located in Brazil, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, and Venezuela. Now how do we raise the money? First we give each of our five clubs and our support staff a goal. If they reach their goal they get to pie one of their leaders. Over the years we have looked for a new method to use, but the kids respond to this pieing just as enthusiastically as they have for many years. And we continue to have leaders who are willing to do this. (You can see some of the pictures of our pieing on fbfawana.com by going to the Awana News there.) Incidentally, this Wednesday we will have one of our leaders pied by two city boys who come on our van. Both boys were trouble makers last year and I even had to suspend them for a month at one point. But this year these second graders have responded and they just memorized the books of the Old Testament to qualify to do the pieing of their leader. Stories like that touch my heart. The other part of our project is the use of the Kauffman Family puppets which we have used in our ministries for over 30 years. Some years all three of our boys are there to use them - and they are so great with them. They can ad-lib and keep me off balance, and the audience loves that. But we are also now using our grandchildren. Over the past few years our six oldest have all participated. This year only one of our sons could be there each night so we depended upon five of the grandkids to help keep the program going. The puppets are used to report the results for each club, to whip up enthusiasm, and to keep everyone interested and involved. We encourage the clubbers to find ways to earn money to contribute and we do give them a badge for their uniform if they contribute at least $8. And our clubbers do a great job of finding money to donate. However we also get great support from our leaders, families, and friends since the average gift per participant is about $23. So obviously we do get gifts from other folks to make this possible. But it is a great missions project. I admit that I enjoy it because it is a chance to work with my entire family. But, even more so, we are helping boys and girls around the world to know, love and serve the Lord. And that is our mission and the mission of Awana. (P.S. - We will now accept gifts towards next year's goal if you wish to contribute. Just let me know!) I wonder if in heaven we will meet some who came to know the Lord through one of the Awana programs which we adopted and sponsored. Wouldn't that be great!