Verdugo's Ministry in South Africa

A Year of Ministry

2011-12-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

You can tell by how long its been since we last posted on this blog that we have had a very busy year of ministry. At the end of January we left our apartment in LA and spent a few weeks saying good -bye to family before moving to South Africa. As you probably know we left for South Africa in early February and while on route Melissa's little brother Jonathan was killed in an accident. We came back to the States for a few weeks to help with the funeral and be with family. Then at the end of February we continued our move to South Africa.

We have been serving in George, South Africa for over 9 months now. There we where a variety of hats. We have helped to plant discipleship groups, Teen Parent's support groups, a Sunday service, sports ministry, and an educational computer lab. We have expanded income generating projects, and educational programs. Through our ministries we serve about 600 street and at-risk children a month and help counsel 2,000 clients in crisis a year. And personally we have been involved in the presentation of the Gospel to hundreds of which dozens have made a first-time commitment to Jesus. Dozens are personally being discipled by us and many more by our ministry.

Thank you, for your continued prayer and financial support of our ministry. You can view our new 2 minute ministry video here.

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation securely online click here (designation: Verdugo)

Mail your Tax-deductible donations to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

Final Needs Before We Can Move to Africa

2011-01-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

We are in our final week of support raising, Lord willing. We have sold both of our cars, and most of our furniture and things. At the writing of this post we need a remaining $165 in monthly pledges. We need to have all of the remaining pledges for our monthly ministry budget in by Thursday the 20th in order to move to South Africa February 10th where we will be living for 4 years.

What's a monthly pledge? A monthly pledge is you saying that you will give a certain amount of money on a monthly basis for as long as you are able. It is not a contract; it is simply a way for YFC to see that there are people that are willing to be part of this work. If you are no longer able to give at some point you just let us know and we trust that the Lord will provide someone to take your place. We are faith missionaries trusting the Lord that He will meet the needs of the ministry monthly through people like you. Please, email us at verdugoyfc@gmail.com if you want to make a pledge with the amount and your address so that we can get it recorded, and then go to www.yfc.org/give All donations are tax-deductible.

As a reminder our ministry vision is to raise up national leaders and train them in caring and reaching children and youth. We want to multiply our efforts by raising up leaders and helping them plant ministries in new locations throughout Africa. Already there are four locations that we will be helping to expand. Not only do we introduce people to our Lord but we will be caring for orphans and street children, doing HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, abortion prevention, and student evangelism and discipleship. The ministry serves ages infant to young adults. Our desire is to care for the whole person spiritually, physically, and emotionally. You can view a 4 minute video about our ministry by going to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjEM0tQP_xE . If you have questions about our ministry please give us a call at (818) 445-5072.

Will you be the one that completes our monthly budget needs and gets us out serving? Will you be the answer to our prayers and the children’s prayers?

Catching Up

2010-10-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

We have been terrible at blogging so this post is going to attempt to catch up on everything that has been going on. Life has been really busy with Missions deputation. We will be better about blogging, promise.

Fireworks

We received a call just a few days before fireworks season was supposed to start asking us if we would accept a booth. We said yes, knowing that it was from God. We had applied for a booth at least 6 months before but had not been awarded one. Now we had only a few days to try to gather together volunteers and we were not even in LA we were in Sacramento on a support raising trip. We were on our way back to LA one day before our booth was supposed to open when we received another call. They asked us to run another booth. We again said yes, trusting God that He would provide the help to run them both. They were in two different cities about 30 miles apart. Out went the plan to camp out and watch the fireworks. We had to get a 20' truck and volunteers last minute.While we were driving the 400 miles home we prayed a lot and made a ton of phone calls, and stopped to send out emails. God answered our prayers we had 11 amazing volunteers and got the truck! We spent over 100 hours of work in 5 days, and had to unload and load the semi truck full of pop fireworks twice everyday but we survived. It was an awesome answer to prayer and we made $6, 000 for our upfront ministry costs! Praise the Lord!

Missionary Training Institute

We went to Missionary Training Institute for 5 weeks over the Summer in Colorado. We learned a lot! We were in class 40 plus hours a week studying things like: language acquisition, cross-cultural studies, leading teams, how to avoid burn-out. We met with personal coaches that helped us to create goals on language learning and talking about how to best prepare for the field.

One of our coaches had lived in South Africa and her husband is South African so she had a lot of great tips. Tips like: Put a bumper sticker on your car with the local soccer and rugby teams so that you will be less likely to get hijacked. Don't bring your wedding band, get plain bands. :( Get an electric mattress pad since the winters are so cold and there is no heat.

There were about 60 missionary families there from all over North America, going all over the world, and from all different missions agencies. We have made amazing friendships! The fellowship was awesome and we were able to glean so much wisdom form the other missionaries. Some of our missionary friends will be living in Sub-Sahara Africa so we hope to get together for holidays as we have now become like family. One of our new friends, Bob, is in Johannesburg which is about 400 miles from where we will be in George. He is from Roseville too; what a small world.


Language Acquisition Class

Churches

We are officially Bel Air Presbyterian and Church of the Redeemer missionaries. We were commissioned in July by Bel Air. We are also being considered by a few other churches. Please, pray that they accept us, and let us know of the amount of their support quickly.

Commissioning at Bel Air

Now

We are done with all of our pre-field training and just need the rest of our monthly support to be pledged so that we can be released to move to the mission field. At the time of this post we need a remaining $1,100 in monthly pledges. We are hoping to move to South Africa in January. Pray for wisdom as we balance our work as property managers with support raising and prep for the field. If you are interested in meeting with us to learn more about our ministry or know someone who might be interested in hearing about it please email us at verdugoyfc@gmail.com .

We must have 100% of our monthly budget raised prior to leaving for the field. At this time we are at about 74% of our monthly budget. Thank you, for those of you have committed to praying for us and supporting this ministry financially. Would you please consider making a monthly commitment to this ministry? All gifts are tax-deductible.
You can give online by going to, scroll to the bottom and enter Verdugo in the search field, mark re-occuring gift to make a monthly pledge:
https://www.yfc.org/give

Send your Tax-deductible gifts to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

Reaching the Lost and Changing Lives

2010-05-19T16:36:00.001-07:00

Our ministry is making a difference. Without you we will not be able to multiply these ministries by training indigenous people throughout Africa. Please, trust God today by giving to His work in changing the lives of thousands of youth in South Africa.

Impact

1000's of youth are reached with the Gospel, discipled, and placed in a local church each year.

Over 70 street children/orphans a day are cared for.

Erased the problem of kids living on the streets in George. Want to repeat in other cities/countries.

Former street children volunteer in ministry to change the lives of other street children.

180 young women receive prenatal care and HIV/AIDS treatment a month. Helping to start 3 new centers.

Only HIV/AIDS prevention program in the province. 28% of women have HIV, highest death rate from AIDS in the world. 1.4 million orphaned in South Africa.

1500 kids a month are mentored to make good decisions, discipled & trained to be leaders who impact their peers for Christ.

We must have 100% of our monthly budget raised prior to leaving for the field. At this time we are at about 50% of our monthly budget. Thank you, for those of you have committed to praying for us and supporting this ministry financially. Would you please consider making a monthly commitment to this ministry? One time gifts are also very much appreciated and will be divided up into our monthly budget. All gifts are tax-deductible.
You can give online by going to, scroll to the bottom and enter Verdugo in the search field, mark reoccuring gift to make a monthly pledge:
https://www.yfcusa.net/give

Send your Tax-deductible gifts to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

Whirlwind Trip

2010-03-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

     We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Sacramento. The Lord blessed us with the opportunity to speak with an old family friend, who is the pastor of Riverpark Bible Church in Fresno, about our ministry. Please, pray that the mission board will approve our ministry to support.
      We also had the opportunity to speak at the church we attended when we were living in Roseville. We spoke at all 3 services and it was a wonderful time to be back at Valley Springs Presbyterian Church. Please, pray that individuals that heard us speak will support our ministry and that the church's funding will grow so that they can support us as missionaries.
       We had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends while we were in Sacramento. Great news Brian's dad is in remission! It is a miracle after having stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma after only 2 rounds of chemo his PET scan back clear! Praise the Lord!
A few months ago we shared how God had impressed upon our hearts to spend an hour a day in prayer and worship. We have been doing this most days and it is the favorite part of our day. What a beautiful thing it is to be able to know our God and to grow closer to Him. He has answered so many prayers. We pray for our supporters, family, friends, other missionaries, whatever prayer requests we know. Please, let us know how we can be praying for you.
We must have 100% of our monthly budget raised prior to leaving for the field. At this time we are at 18% of our monthly budget. Thank you, for those of you have committed to praying for us and supporting this ministry financially. Would you please consider making a monthly commitment to this ministry? One time gifts are also very much appreciated and will be divided up into our monthly budget. All gifts are tax-deductible.
Send your Tax-deductible gifts to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

Options Care Center

2010-01-19T22:31:00.000-08:00

The Options Care Center ministers to HIV/AIDS victims and young women who are experiencing crisis pregnancy.

HIV/AIDS RATES

South Africa has the highest death rate from HIV/AIDS in the world. With an estimated 350,000 people dying from AIDS in 2007 alone. There are 5.7 million living with AIDS in South Africa, and 28% of South African women have HIV/AIDS. Many of these women contracted HIV/AIDS by being raped, and 1 in 4 South African men have admitted to rape. The incredibly sad part is that there are 1.4 million orphans created by HIV/AIDS in South Africa, the highest rate in the world.

How do you lower the rate of HIV/AIDS in South Africa? You prevent it. Options along with G.O.L.D. peer education has HIV/AIDS prevention in 12 high schools. The program consists not only of HIV/AIDS awareness but in abstinence education. Options tests and counsels victims of HIV/AIDS. For World AIDS day we had an open house to let people know what we offer at Options.

ABORTION

There are an estimated 85,000 abortions in South Africa every year. It is estimated that 1 in 3 teens in South Africa experience pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy is also associated with an increased rate of HIV/AIDS.

Options counsels young women and provides resources in order to prevent abortions. The program at Options is very similar to the program Melissa volunteers with, Westside Pregnancy Clinic, in Los Angeles. Options is lowering the rate of abortions through our programs, and the rate of teenage pregnancy through abstinence education and counseling.

INCOME MAKING

Being able to support themselves is often difficult for HIV/AIDS victims and for those who are in crisis pregnancy. Options provides income making opportunities through greeting card making and jewelry making. These programs allow the participants to be able to put food on their table.

For more information on South Africa check out:
CIA Factbook on South Africa
We must have 100% of our monthly budget raised prior to leaving for the field. At this time we are at 15% of our monthly budget. Thank you, for those of you have committed to praying for us and supporting this ministry financially. Would you please consider making a monthly commitment to this ministry? One time gifts are also very much appreciated and will be divided up into our monthly budget. All gifts are tax-deductible.
To send your tax-deductible donation by:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

International Prayer Summit

2010-01-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

What a tremendous blessing it was to worship with our Arabic brothers and sisters in Christ at the International Prayer Summit on Saturday at Bel Air Presbyterian church. The Pastor of Kasr El Dobara Evangelical Church in Cairo, Egypt taught on prayer (largest church in Egypt).

It was a beautiful time to worship with God's people from around the world. We spent hours praying and worshiping God and you could feel His presence. What indescribable joy and peace there is when God is in your midst!

The International Prayer Summit was in English and Arabic. We were challenged to pray for God's will as it is outlined in the Bible and to not always come to God with a list of things we want Him to do. We were also challenged to spend a minimum of one hour in prayer a day as Jesus spoke about to His disciple in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Matthew 26:40) What was truly amazing is that this was the second time we had heard to pray for a minimum of one hour in less than 24 hours. Friday night our Bible Study was on the exact same passage! Could God be telling us something?( LOL) We are committing to pray one hour a day and are excited to see how God moves. How about you?

Go Green, Help Street Kids, Save on Taxes

2010-01-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

Making New Year's resolutions? Want to make a difference in the world this year? You can. There are a lot of problems in the world, but we can make a difference for street children in George, South Africa.
Go Green
Make the Earth a little greener by recycling your aluminum cans and plastic and glass bottles. Instead of putting the cans into a bin take them to a recycle center to redeem the cans to donate to make a difference for street kids. Does your apartment building recycle? Does your place of employment recycle? How about your church?
Help Street Kids
You can make a difference in the lives of street children in George, South Africa with your donations from the recyclables donations. YFC feeds street children, houses and educates them.
Save Taxes
All donations are tax-deductible, saving you money. All funds are audited by the ECFA.

You can make an online donation by clicking on the following link, enter Verdugo in the search field at the bottom in order to designate your donation to this ministry: Tax-Deductible Donations
To send your tax-deductible donation by mail to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry. You will receive a tax-deductible receipt from YFC in the mail.

End-of the-Year Tax-Deductible Donations

2009-12-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

We are hoping to reach 100% of our ministry budget needs in time to be in South Africa in September 2010. We will be working with street children, HIV/AIDS awareness education and treatment of victims, teens in crisis pregnancy and mentoring at-risk teens in George, South Africa.Please, consider making an end-of-the-year tax deductible donation to Youth for Christ. You can make an online donation by clicking on the following link, enter Verdugo in the search field at the bottom in order to designate your donation to this ministry: Tax-Deductible Donations
To send your tax-deductible donation by mail to:
Youth for Christ USA World Outreach
PO BOX 4478
Englewood, Co 80155-4478
Put our account number 25358 in the memo line on the check to designate it to our ministry.

Happy New Year!

Life on the Street

2009-12-27T18:33:00.000-08:00

Life on the Street
Imagine being ten years old living alone on the streets of South Africa. Now imagine one of the only ways to survive is to pick through other people’s garbage to try to find something you can eat or sell. Feel the fear as you worry that you may be forced into slavery. This slavery could be forced labor or forced prostitution. Feel the anxiety that you might be trafficked to another country as a slave. Feel the desire to have adults in your lives that care about you. Feel the need to have a warm bed to sleep in and to know that you will not go hungry tomorrow. Feel the hope that you could go to school and escape a life of poverty and violence. Now, imagine that someone tells you that there is a God that loves you that has come “. . . to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10

Hope for the Hopeless

This is the story of an estimated 400,000 children in forced child labor in South Africa, 40,000 in child prostitution. You can make a difference in the lives of street children of George, South Africa. Kidstop changes the lives of street children. It is a place to find a warm bed and a warm meal. It is a place of refuge and a place of hope. At Kidstop children are safe from being enslaved and are educated so that they can find a brighter future. The greatest gift that a child receives at Kidstop is the opportunity to hear about how God came to Earth to save people like them.

Pick Through Garbage so Kids Don't Have to
We are asking you to give hope to children in George, South Africa this Christmas season. We are asking you to give us the opportunity to serve the Lord and care for these children by sending us to George, South Africa. Together we can change the lives of street children one life at a time. Please, join us as we pick through our own garbage so they don’t have to. Instead of putting our recyclables in the bin we take our recyclables in to receive cash that we donate to this ministry. We have put a bin in our apartment building to get others involved in caring for the children of South Africa. Who can you ask to join us in recycling for these street children?

Thank you, for those of you who have who have pledged to pray and give financially to the Lord’s ministry in George, South Africa. We are at 13% of the monthly pledges and 19% of the launch costs. If you have not already made a commitment to a tax-deductible monthly pledge, please consider doing so. When we reach 100% of the monthly pledges and launch costs than we can go to South Africa. Please, also consider giving a year-end tax-deductible gift.

Pray for South Africa

2009-12-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

Many of you are probably familiar with Operation World an awesome organization that gives detailed information about every country in the world. They give background info for the country and than detailed prayer requests on how to pray for the country. Please, join us as we pray for South Africa.
Just click on the link:
Operation World South Africa

Going to South Africa!

2009-11-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

We are very excited to be going to South Africa as missionaries with Youth for Christ! We will be working an learning three main ministries with Youth for Christ. We will than multiply these successful ministries in other nations.

Kidstop-Ministering to Street children and needy children through housing, feeding programs, education, life skills training,and teaching the Bible,.
Options-Ministering to HIV/AIDS patients and women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy through evangelism and discipleship,counseling,programs that help create income for patients, and treatment.
GOLD Peer Education-Ministering in 12 high schools to thousands of teens, raising up young leaders to be role models. Programs include HIV/AIDS prevention, life skills, evangelism and discipleship.

We can't wait to be part of these ministries in George, South Africa where Youth for Christ is making an impact for the Kingdom of God. We will be learning the ministries in South Africa in order to help start similar ministries in other countries in the future. The plan is to leave for South Africa in Fall 2010.

We must have 100% of our monthly budget raised prior to leaving for the field. At this time we are at 10% of our monthly budget. Thank you, for those of you have committed to praying for us and supporting this ministry financially. Would you please consider making a monthly commitment to this ministry? One time gifts are also very much appreciated and will be divided up into our monthly budget. All gifts are tax-deductible.

If you’d like to find out more please email us at verdugoyfc@gmail.com

Privacy Policy

2009-11-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

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