Since 1980, God’s Helping Hands has been reaching out to children and delivering to them the beautiful message of truth and love that Jesus offers all people: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV) Although Jesus makes this statement to all people, GHH has heard as its particular mission the call to deliver the truth of God’s Word to children.
But how is that to be done? At the very inception of the ministry, God pointed out these words from Colossians 4:3 to our founders, Bob and Shirley Friedl: “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ….”
They prayed it, and He opened it.
From that time to this, the God who loves children has opened up many doors that are extremely unique and consistently effective. Delivering the gospel through the wonder of black light chalk art, full-stage puppetry, dramatic storytelling, ventriloquism and music as well as in churches, camps and communities and individual discipleship by mail has kept the missionary staff of God’s Helping Hands on their toes — and knees (both figuratively and literally!) all year, every year for decades.
But now there’s more.
Knowing the limitations of a ministry that works in “live” settings, the GHH staff began to seek new doors that God may open. And He did! A weekly online audio podcast designed for children and a classroom curriculum line called Simple Lesson Solutions complete with video introductions by our puppets were two doors that God has opened up in the last decade.
But there’s more.
As everyone knows, the internet is a vast, almost limitless resource beckoning exploration. We know that children indeed DO explore it. What will they find? How can we multiply the outreach of God’s Helping Hands to previously unknown bounds while providing solid, Biblical truths that are delivered in a way that is both challenging and engaging?
We think we found a way. It’s called the Reach More Campaign.
The Reach More Campaign is a double-headed effort to greatly expand the outreach of God’s Helping Hands while maintaining the ministry outreach opportunities we already have. The twin peaks of the mountainous endeavor are as follows:
Ministry Expansion: Children who have encountered God’s Helping Hands want one thing. More. They love the puppets and learning through their relatable antics and want a steady stream of video presentations that they can watch and learn from over and over again. We believe we can give them just that through the new and continual production of puppet-driven videos jam packed with God’s Word. To do that, we will be building a permanent film studio designed specifically for our puppets. These videos will then be made available online so that parents can download safe, theologically sound and Biblically solid teaching entertainment for their family.
Building Expansion: Even before the inception of a film studio, God’s Helping Hands had run out of space in our ministry facility. The Reach More Campaign is designed, in part, to remedy that problem while simultaneously providing a new, beautiful space adjoining our current space in which to house not only our new film studio, but some other needful things as well.
Already, at the time of this writing, we have seen God work through His people to lay the financial foundation of this campaign. God’s Helping Hands stands eagerly waiting the fulfillment of this dream, a dream that will see the good news of God’s love and salvation spread even further into the very homes of boys and girls and their families.
Do you want to be a part of reaching more for Christ? Pray for this project and give as generously as God leads. Let’s reach more for Christ!
I appreciate your efforts to reach children for Christ, but as one who was once "that child", who "got saved" at the age of 4, I can tell you that scaring kids into accepting Jesus (as hell is the alternative), hurts kids more than it helps them, and I personally was not "born again" until the age of 40. Kids are almost always too young and naive to make a lifetime commitment to Jesus. You should keep your focus on God's eternal love and forgiveness, and accept the reality that none of us really knows what happens to us after we die.