New Small Group for Moms!

Hi Moms,
You probably recognize Mandy and Vanessa in the photo and their newest additions, Samantha and Luke! These are the leaders of New Life's newest small group for moms.
If you've been wanting to get involved in a small group, but haven't been able to find one that works with your schedule, this might be the group for you!
This new small group is a place where moms can come with their young children and not worry about who is watching them because you will be! Our kids will be right here with us snuggling, sleeping, nursing, and sometimes even participating (we have very smart kids!) while we study the Bible together and lift each other up.
We will begin meeting on Friday mornings at 11:00am starting September 19th, 2008 right here at our Corona Hills building.

Come and join us!

For more information, call the church office at 951-736-5433 or send an email to groups@newlifecommunitychurch.net.

Jesus blesses the children!

"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
Mark 10:15-16

On Sunday, we shared the message of forgiveness in Christ with a simple object lesson; using a helium balloon representing people and weights attached to the balloon representing sin that keeps us separated from God. We then explained how all of our balloons have these weights attached and how Jesus' death on the cross releases us from them, which allows our balloon to rise into Heaven.
As a result, 11 children accepted Jesus for the first time.
Please take time to thank God and to pray for the kids. Those who accepted Jesus were:

Kloe Hale
Jeremy Goggins
Jason Sanchez
Molly Halter
Lauren Albrecht
Alex Gomez
McKenzie Gomez
Julia Wagner
Gabby Smith
Ketter Kruse
Jade Edwards

New KidzLife Volunteers

We have 7 new people serving in Kidzlife this session. We want to give a special thanks to….

Barbara Bowling- who is serving at the 9:30 service with the infants/toddlers.
Aaron Hale-11:00am infant/toddlers
Kelli Hale- 11:00am Pre K
Jaime Mulari- 11:00am infant/toddlers
Anna Diekmann- 9:30 infant/toddlers
Connie St George- 11:00am pre s/k
Christy Asbra- 11:00am infants/toddlers

If you would like to find out about serving at Kidzlife contact us at
kidzlife@newlifecommunitychurch.net

No Room At The Inn?

Since we have moved back into this building, we have seen an unusual number of visitors to New Life. This is a huge answer to prayer! Let's take the time to thank God in all our prayers for all the ways He is working in His church.

Speaking of prayers :) .....
Last Sunday, we had to turn away two families from KidzLife because of the large number of children in the infant/toddler ages. We have the room, but couldn't meet the child to adult ratio needed for a safe environment.
Please join us in praying that God will provide all the volunteers we need to respond to the growing number of children coming to our church.

Thanks To Our Volunteers!

Each week, we have a great team of people who commit their time and effort to helping our children learn about Jesus.

On Sunday, take time to say thanks to someone who is serving our Lord by serving our children.

God uses Madame Blueberry!

Here is another example of how God is using KidzLife in the lives of the children of our church. Read the following email I received:

On Saturday we were out shopping and Trevor and Tommy kept asking if we could buy them toys and other things. They were each allowed to get a small item, but when we got back to the car and were about halfway home Trevor calmly said, "I should have remembered what we saw in the video at church on Sunday."
He recited the whole story about Madame Blueberry. Then he told us that he shouldn't be greedy and should be happy with what he has.

Madame Blueberry is no Billy Graham but God has a way of finding the least likely ways to move His people to faith and discipleship. He does this so that there can be no doubt as to who is responsible. All glory to God!!

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
--1Corinthians 1:27-31

Thankfulness

Too often, we underestimate or simply don't see when God is doing a powerful work through the children's ministry. Please join me in thanking God for the way He is moving in our ministry.

I love it when I see that a young child “gets it”!

A very proud mom handed this letter to me. Her 9 year old daughter had a school assignment over the Thanksgiving holiday to write a short paper about what she is thankful for.

Check it out!

This thanksgiving I am thankful for two wonderful things! The first thing I’m thankful for is my loving and caring family. Sometimes, my dad takes me and my sister to the park to play teeball. My mom lets me help her cook good things like cake, cookies, and maybe even pies. The second thing I’m thankful for is Jesus! Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. Jesus is the Son of God and I could never live without Him. All in all, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving and I hope you will be thankful for your things two.

A Lot To Smile About

The largest ministry in the church is getting bigger! We have been praying that God would move the hearts of people to serve in KidzLife and He has. Be sure to welcome the following people to the KidzLife family:

Sarah Webster-11:00 Toddlers

Jeannette Russell-9:30 Nursery/Toddlers

Lindsey Russell-9:30 Nursery/Toddlers

Zac Dunn-Set Up and 1st-4th Grade

Let’s join together in praying for our new volunteers (and the rest of us!) and thank God for them.

I thank my God every time I remember you. in all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel…
--Philippians 1:3-5a

Heroes of Harvest Festival

Isn’t it interesting how we see the same faces at church event after church event helping to make it all possible.

(If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of those faces!)

However, once in a while I notice faces that aren’t the usual ones I’m used to seeing. This Sunday was a case like that. Seven people got together to transport Harvest Festival supplies from a storage unit in Riverside to the church facility on Sampson. Three of them were new to our church. In fact, you could count the number of times they had come to our church on two hands and have fingers to spare.
One of the mottos for the Heroes television show is “Some people were meant for something more.”

I agree!

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10

God works in the lives of children

Hi Everyone,

I was fortunate enough to travel to Mexico and visit the orphanage that we support as a church. Gwen Edwards and Emily Wagner from KidzLife also came and had a great time hanging out with the kids there. In the next couple of blog posts I will share some more pictures and stories about what we experienced there. First, though, I want to share the story of Lupita, who you see pictured between NLCC member Dave Bourbinay and his son, Jonah.



Lupita was found going from truck stop to truck stop in Baja California when she was 7 years old. She was brought to the Casa Hogar orphanage by the authorities. This is the orphanage that we help support as a church.

Devon and Cindy Dickinson, former members of New Life Community Church, began to work with Casa Hogar in 1998; around the same time Lupita arrived there. Devon had a friend who was in medical school at the time and thought it would be a great idea to bring him down to Mexico to perform some minor health check ups. When he got to Lupita, he noticed she had a heart "murmur" of sorts. He believed it to be unique enough that it warranted further investigation. Mexican physicians confirmed that Lupita had a hole in her heart.

Lupita, being extremely young, said that she remembered having surgery at an earlier age, but couldn't provide any more information than that. Devon and his friend were able to get travel papers for Lupita to be seen by a heart specialist at Loma Linda University.
Her condition was so serious that the doctor said he couldn't explain why she was still living and breathing. The good news was that Lupita's serious condition was operable. The bad news was that, even with Loma Linda's kindness and generosity, the surgery would still cost around $50,000.

A group of concerned members from our church sprang into action and started to "shop" heart surgery rates.
God provided. The pediatric heart specialist team at Cedars Sinai was able to provide the surgery for $20,000. The funds were raised and Lupita had the surgery.

As a testament to the toughness of this young girl, she had open-heart surgery on a Wednesday and was released on a Sunday evening .........that's one tough 12 year old!

During the next year and a half, Lupita stayed with different NLCC families while commuting back and forth from the orphanage in Mexico so she could see her doctors for follow up.

Lupita just celebrated her Quincenerra Fiesta for a Mexican girl's 16th birthday. She has a strong faith in our Lord and has personal, first hand experience of His grace and healing. She has made strong ties to friends on both sides of the border.

God truly provided “New Life” to this young girl. Lupita's story is awesome and inspirational, but not rare. Each one of the 90+ children and adolescents at the orphanage have unique and amazing stories to share. God says He will neither leave us nor forsake us. When we are dealing with our own difficult times, let us all remember the strength, courage, and faith that these children have shown us.

God's purposes through His servants

I want to share two verses and a story with you:

Acts 2:47 ...and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
1Corinthians 3:5-8 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers...


Sara Clark serves in our nursery and her daughter, Josie attends the "Sharktank" on Sunday mornings and is in second grade. God has touched her through the faithful service of His "fellow workers". Thank you to those "workers" and Praise God!

(Following is a portion of the email Sara sent me today)

I wanted to share with you the happenings of this morning. As I was driving Josie to school she asked me "What does it mean to give your life to God?". I explained to her that God gives us the ability to make choices in our lives. We could choose to do what is not right/easier, or we could choose to do what is pleasing to God. And that when we give our life to God that means we are choosing to do things that are pleasing to him even when they might be hard. Anyways, I asked her if she had given her life to God and she said "no". So I asked her if she wanted to give her life to God and she said "yes." So in our car in the school parking lot we prayed and Josie told God that she wanted to give her life to him.
When you are having a bad day I hope you will remember that good things are happening in the children's ministry and our church. Jeremy and I are so thankful for the changes that God has made in our lives because of New Life, and now for the growth in Josie's life too! God is good!~sara

Letter To God

One of the things I like most about KidzLife is being a witness to the impact God is having on the kids that are attending. Here is a letter that one of the children wrote in May. You’ll notice the spelling. I typed it just as I saw it on paper!