Welcome to our Passport Adventure Club! As the name implies, we’re going to go on an adventure! What kind of adventure? Well, we’re going to travel somewhere! Wondering where? Hold on! I’ll tell you that in just a minute. First, let me tell you what we hope to accomplish in our travels? Primarily, we hope to do two things: EXPOSE & INSPIRE
EXPOSE
Expose means to have an experience with something. So we hope to give you an experience with the people, the culture, the geography, and the needs of the nations.
INSPIRE
And then we hope you’ll be inspired. Inspired means to have the urge or motivation to do something. But inspired to do what? – It is our hope that through the adventures you will have in Passport, God will inspire you to go to the different people and nations of the world.
Throughout the various years of Passport, we will visit exotic places and meet boys and girls from all around the world. We will learn about their culture and the things that make up their way of life. We will taste their food, try on their clothes, sing their music, find out where they live, and learn what they believe about God. We will find that in some cultures, these boys and girls may be very similar to us in the way they look, live, and believe; but in other cultures, we will find that they may be very different in the way they look, live and believe. In either case, our responsibility is to love them and share the great Gospel story with them.
So, are you ready to begin the adventure of traveling around the world?
As we journey through the nations, we will learn that God is Creator of the nations (Genesis 1:1) and that He created ALL people and cultures and made them all unique. His creation displays His glory (Psalm 19) and we will see what a glorious and majestic God He is as we learn about the people, animals, and places He created.
We will also learn that God is Provider for the nations. God takes care of His creation by providing food, clothes, and shelter through natural resources that are available. However, God sometimes provides for His people through the church. We will learn how God might use us to provide others. Most importantly, however, we will learn that God ultimately provided for man’s greatest need – his sin (John 3:16). Though many may suffer hunger, pain and persecution on this earth, if they will accept God’s provision for their sin, they will experience abundant life for eternity (John 10:10).
God is the ultimate Ruler over the nations. We will learn that some people worship false gods, some people worship many gods, some worship no gods, and some worship the ONE true God. We will learn about different religious beliefs and how they compare to the Gospel and the Word of God. But no matter which gods people worship (if any), we will ultimately learn that God is still THE King of Kings and Lord of Lords and one day ALL people everywhere will bow down and worship Him. (Revelation 7:9-10)
God is Savior to the nations. We will learn that many witnesses have gone before us to many nations to share the Good News of the Savior. But we will also learn that this is the responsibility and privilege before every believer. However, Acts 1:8 reminds us that we will not be alone in this task: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We can trust His Spirit to empower and enable us to be His witness at home and around the world.
Finally, through the Passport Adventure Club experience, we hope you will be inspired by God to see yourself as being “on mission”. It is our hope that as you see the needs of the world, you will see yourself, through Christ, as one to help meet those needs.
But what are some of the needs of children in the world? Let’s stop for a minute and think about some of the basic needs that every child has?
Water
It’s hard for most of us to imagine, because we have so much good, clean water to drink, but much of the world either does not have water they can access, or the water they do have is not clean and safe to drink.
Like this.
Food
Again, living in a society where we have an overabundance of food available to us………
It’s hard for us to imagine a world where people are eating contaminated food or are starving to death because of a lack of food.
Clothing
Most of us reading this have closets and drawers full of clothes. But many don’t….
Shelter
Most of us have beyond adequate housing. We can’t imagine a life where we’ve been run out of our home and had to leave everything behind due to persecution or war.
Education
Good educational choices are the norm for so many of us. Public school, private school, homeschool.
But for some kids living on the city dump, they don’t go to school because they don’t want to miss the truck that would dump something……anything that could satisfy a hungry belly.
And then there are the issues of adequate medical care, safety. The list goes on and on.
Ultimately, however, their greatest need is to hear that these temporary struggles and afflictions are not the biggest problem. And it is our joy to be able to share with them God’s solution and plan for them to spend eternity with Him free from sin, struggle, fear, hunger. They can spend their lives knowing Him and enjoying Him.
So as we continue through the year, we will look for ways to be on mission together.
As we learn about the people and places of the world and learn about their needs, we will look for ways to be used by God to help meet the needs of the world. Let’s pray that God might be glorified and others might be blessed by our efforts.
Now, I don’t know if you know this, but every person who desires to travel outside of their own country has to have a very special document. Does anyone know what this document is? That’s right! It’s a passport. So I have a passport here that is going to tell us where we are all going this year!
So this year we are going to travel to Africa! It’s going to be a great adventure!
Finally, let’s end with prayer:.
“God, we praise you and thank you that we can call you Father. We’re grateful we can come to you unhindered. Thank you that Christ has bridged the gap between us through his sacrificial death on the cross. Lord, we dedicate this year to you. We dedicate our studies to you. Help us learn. But Lord, help the learning in our minds make the long journey to our hearts. Change us. Fill our hearts with love for the people of Africa. Lord, we ask you to raise up a generation of courageous kids that have a heart for the nations and want to serve the nations with their lives. As Pastor David Platt says, ‘Lord, give us the nations, and do it in such a way that only You get the glory.’ Amen!”