Spotlight on 2017 Accomplishments

11 Dec Spotlight on 2017 Accomplishments

Brigades
This year, thanks to the 325 short term mission team participants we were able to touch more people than ever before. 6500 people in remote villages benefited from general medical consults and free medications, vision checks and dental care, thanks to medical brigades. 3000 school age children were taught about Jesus through our VBS brigades. Those same teams served over 600 bowls of hot homemade chicken soup at the local hospital. And, numerous teams helped us advance the construction of group cabins at the Moses Project, along with other important projects on our working farm.

A highlight for us this year was hosting our first ever surgical brigade where 55 surgeries were performed. We hope this is the beginning of a new outreach into our community, providing much need surgeries for people who might otherwise never receive what they desperately need. We already have 2 surgical brigades scheduled for 2018.

Celebrate with us these great works done in the name of Jesus, advancing the Kingdom here in a country that so desperately needs the hope that only God can bring.

Church Planting
How can an entire generation be transformed? In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul writes, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”. Here at Mission UpReach, we firmly believe that true transformation only comes through a decision to place Christ as Lord and Master in one’s life. God’s established tool for bringing others into a relationship with him is the Church: a body of believers united in their service to God. Everything that Mission UpReach does is focused on planting churches and training leaders.

Towards that goal, MUR is doing a wide range of activities. The DESEO program, Moses Project, and Summer Brigade program often get large amounts of attention from our supporters in the States, while the Church Planting team is sometimes overlooked. However, the Church Planting team is at the center of the goals and vision of Mission UpReach. Each year, the team tirelessly strives to spread the kingdom of God just as Christ.

In 2017, the Church Planting team accomplished some incredible things. Over the course of the year, the team hosted 8, one-week CREO bootcamps, totaling 217 participants, with 48 of those participating for the first time. At this year’s graduation, 19 individuals were recognized and completed the program. The mini bootcamps continue, and this year 7 people graduated. The CRESCO program continues to grow and expand, with 12 people completing the program this year and a satellite school opening in El Salvador.

Two of the Church Planting team members (both of whom are CREO and CRESCO graduates) will be going to Baxter Institute in Tegucigalpa to further their training. Their journey exemplifies what the Church Planting team, and MUR, values, and that is biblical knowledge with an end of teaching others about Christ. The full impact of the Church Planting team cannot be quantified, but a generation is being transformed and they are leading the way.

DESEO
2017 has been another successful year for DESEO. With over 2500 kids in 15 different schools, our DESEO team was able to teach lessons on morals and values from a faithbased perspective. During our three after-school programs, we were able to reach almost 200 kids who were involved in either basketball, tutoring, or choir. This year was the first year that we implemented a children’s choir into the DESEO outreach and it went better than we could have imagined. With the first two concerts under their belts, the kids were invited to participate in a holiday musical titled, “The Best Christmas Ever”.

This was also the first year for ESPERO, our school for the Deaf. Deaf in Honduras do not have the same opportunities as they do in the US. Until now, there has been no way for a deaf Honduran to receive even an elementary education. However, this year with ESPERO, nine adult students graduated from the first grade. We are so blessed to have a talented group of people working together to change an entire generation. The plans for 2018 are to add another group of first graders and the graduated first graders will complete the second and third grade this next year.

DESEO was created because of the realization that we needed to start upstream in order to address the problems we see every day. What DESEO has since become makes us even more excited for the future of this program.