Escape 22 Team is back from Panama!

A team of high school students spent the past week in Panama with the Embera people...

• working on building projects
• helping with kids camp during the day
• celebrating God during Youth nights with the teenagers of the village each evening

The team leaders were able to train the adults:

• in inductive Bible study
• parenting skills
• in understanding a biblical model of marriage

And to wrap up their time, the students were invited into the homes of the villagers to celebrate a meal together.

Pray that the skills, truth and lives shared will continue to bear fruit among the Embera!

Summer Planting

Fruit is anticipated through...

• a return trip to Rosebud - incoming high school freshmen ministered to the Native Americans this last week. One Native American woman said that "if a Cornerstone Church existed on the reservation, I would be a part of it."
• D6 - as the children's ministry kicked off a week of VBS in parks at a big celebration at Cornerstone on Sunday night
• Escape - the Cornerstone high school ministry will be sending one group of students to Minneapolis to reach out through a prison ministry, to the Somali refugee community, and other inner city missions. Another group of students will be heading to Panama to serve and share the gospel.

Pray that God will multiply His fruit through each of these ministries!

Youth Teams Return

God's work in Rosebud...

• Escape 22 took 18 students to the Rosebud Reservation with a goal of each student making one long lasting contact with a Rosebud teenager.
• 28 Rosebud teenagers are connected! They will be discipled via email and Facebook on a longterm basis, and followed up personally when Cornerstone again travels to Rosebud.
• This is a vital ministry at a critical time in their lives - the average age that children begin to consume alcohol on the reservation is 11 years old. Pray for God's work in these 28.
• Westwind also sent a team that shared at a rehab center in Rosebud. One of the men on the Westwind team, thinking he had come to help build with a hammer in hand, was used by God to instill hope at the rehab center as he shared his own story of God's deliverance from alcohol and drugs. Hope is a precious commodity at Rosebud. Pray that the God of all Hope will invade their lives.

180 Student Life Campers...

• 50 junior high students from Cornerstone went to the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri to grow in their walk with God.
• the camp speaker, an Iranian Christian, shared on the cost of following Christ, and what it means to walk in authenticity and unity as believers.
• 9 students gave their lives to Christ!
• pray that the students will continue to live out the reality of their faith in authenticity and unity for His glory.

A Global Church...

Take a look at how God is working globally through Cornerstone:

• Jeff Dodge is in Zambia, having just returned from 4 days away from the Hope Center. Check out the latest on the Hope Center blog: http://hopechildrenscenter.blogspot.com/ .
• Tim Lubinus has just returned from Central Asia where he has been networking with believing nationals from other Central Asian countries who can more easily penetrate the culture of these unreached groups with the gospel.
• Cornerstone is in a series of meetings with the leadership of the International Mission Board to discuss ways to more effectively reach the nations for Christ.
• Pray for God's continued blessing in each of these areas!

Good News Proclaimed

On Easter weekend...

• over 2,800 people heard the story of the Ragman, the One who will exchange our filthy rags for linen, bright and clean
• the Salt Company's freshman group heard the gospel presented using a coconut, a method that believers in India shared with Lance
• Internationals celebrated with a dance on Saturday because...

HE'S ALIVE!!!

The Fusion of Internationals

The International Friendship Connection (IFC) met for Fusion ...

• There were more IFC Leaders at Fusion this year than all the internationals that were at Fusion last year
• The entire group viewed the Passion clip of the crucifixion
• Tim Gartin shared the miracle of Christ's resurrection from the Word
• A believer from Malaysia led another international to the Lord!

Leading by Serving

In Turkey, a team made up of fathers and sons prayed "lead us"...

• they were able to hand out 30 gospel packets to interested individuals
• encourage Cornerstoners serving in Istanbul
• and randomly "ran into" the Cornerstone semester team!

On the home front...

• High school men served a banquet to the high school women to bless and honor them and then presented a drama and music program to make them laugh!
• 190 came to the TSC Parents' Banquet and heard Troy share the vision of Salt Company to believers and non-believers alike

Spring Fruit

The 70 who went out from The Salt Company have returned from Tyler Texas...

• Having cleared timber, dug canals and completed several months of work for the camp
• Exercised the opportunity to have their mouths and hearts line up with the work of their hands
• And grown into a close knit family.

The TSC students who went to Jamaica...

• spent every day sharing in the public schools, beginning with morning devotions
• 2,000 students heard the gospel clearly presented

International Friendship Connection...

• took several internationals to Tennessee on a road trip
• the time on the road was filled with opportunities for spiritual conversations
• the wife of one of the Chinese grad students arrived in the U.S. in January and just received Christ as her Lord and Savior last week!

Spring Break Outreach

Pray for Cornerstoners...

• The Salt Company has a group of 70 students heading to Tyler, Texas to work at Pine Cove Christian Camp during the day while being equipped at night.
• Another group of Salt students have gone to Jamaica to share the gospel verbally and through acts of service
• A small group is in Turkey, sharing gospel literature in areas that have few if any believers in their communities.
• A leadership team is heading to Zambia to prayerfully and strategically plan how to best utilize the newly constructed buildings of the Hope Children's Center in the coming months.
• God is bringing redemption and restoration in many lives as sin is exposed, confessed and true repentance is evidenced.

Pray for God's glory to shine out as the Good News is spread and His Church is purified!

Daring to Share

180, Cornerstone's Junior High Ministry is on the move...

• 46 students and adult leaders went to the youth conference "Dare to Share" in Lincoln, NE
• many shared the gospel as they went door to door asking for canned goods for the poor
• one of the adult leaders had the privilege of leading someone to Christ
• 60 6th graders spent Friday night at a Cornerstone "lock in"

Stan Hayek, The Salt Company Freshman Group Director, and 8 TSC students...

• led at a highschool retreat at Twin Lakes Conference center
• 52 students were challenged to commit or re-commit their lives to Christ
• many responded boldly, confessing their faith before their peers for the first time

D6 Ministry is training new parents...

• Scott and Joy Andrews are leading 40-45 adults in a Wednesday night class
• These parents are learning for the first time what it means to raise children in a God-centered home with consistent, appropriate discipline

May God continue to grow us from the cradle to the grave!

The Beginning of a "God Story"

On Friday...
a young woman walked into Cornerstone's foyer,
following a "weird" impulse to stop after driving by for weeks.
She had been pushed onto the streets at 13 by her parents.
She had never been inside a church, but she was spiritually hungry.

On Sunday...
after a phone call from Jill, she texted that she would come to the 11:00a service.
She was greeted with a hug, and walked into "church" for the first time.
She experienced worship, saw people stepping into the waters of baptism,
and the Word was spoken in a a way that she had never heard before.

I can't wait until next week...

Across the nations

IFC Ministry had a retreat last weekend...

• attendance doubled from previous years to 50!
• a Chinese believer shared that she had heard these truths from her grandmother in China. She called her that very hour (2:00am in China) to tell her that she had found people here who believe the same. Can you imagine the reaction of the Chinese grandmother who so faithfully taught the Truth to her granddaughter as she raised her in an atheistic culture?
• another international believer sat in her small group and shared the bridge diagram to explain the way to salvation to the other internationals in her group.
• God is at work!