It is our pleasure to announce the formation of a new youth leaders network in Northeastern CT! NE CT Youth Leaders Network is committed to reaching Windham County with the good news of Jesus Christ and building each other up by meeting together regularly to encourage each other through prayer and fellowship. Our first event together, Regenerate is a great launching pad for this network along with the matching $1,500 challenge to get the network off the ground.

The Executive Committee is made up of the following members:

• Janiel Caraballo – Network Chairman
• Patrick McCue – Network Coordinator
• Wayne Laflamme – Treasurer
• Sarah Flores – Secretary

The first meeting was attended by a total of 15 leaders from the area and there was a lot of excitement in the air. One leader said, “This is an exciting thing to be a part of because it’s so much bigger than myself.”

This entry was written by Gary Campbell Jr., Director of Student Ministries at Groton Bible Chapel. He writes on behalf of our region:

Proverbs 16:16- “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver!”

Crest or Colegate, khakis or jeans, Monster or Red Bull, life is full of choices. But while these and other choices are trivial, many of the choices you make every day are critical! As someone once said- “our choices form the sum total of who we are today, and will determine who we become tomorrow”.

Read the rest at the GBCYM blog here.

Dear Youth Leaders,

One of my goals for f2fmi and for the community is to see the churches continually grow together in relationship as Jesus prayed in John 17. To accomplish this, I believe it is essential for our leaders to know each other and to be part of the larger community of believers.

However, this is not simply a vision of getting together for the sake of getting together. The gospel is the reason for these relationships. We are united because of the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God and is in fact, God. We believe he died on the cross for the sins of the world and then three days later, rose from the dead. Because of this, we are assured that we will not be left in the grave, but through Jesus, our relationship with the Father is restored and we have the hope of living with God forever in paradise!

To this end, I am cordially inviting you to our 2nd Annual Youth Leaders Pool Party. We will have a cook out and there is a pool and water slide (so bring swimming clothes!). You and your family are invited to join my team and me for lunch. Bring something to share if you wish!

The pool party is at Stan and Barbara Grab’s house from 2-4 p.m. at:

Please join us and bring all your leaders with you. I plan to have Overtime 2010 materials ready for all who attend on site.

Love in Jesus,

Tom & the f2fmi team

PLEASE RSVP by August 15th so I can know how many to plan for!

f2fmi is excited to announce the launch of the Northeastern CT Youth Leaders Network. On August 29, 2010, the network will kick off by launching its first event: “Regenerate.” Here’s Wayne LaFlamme, Event Chairman and Youth Pastor of New Life Assembly of God in Griswold, CT with more about the event:

Attempted Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad boasts “we Muslims are one community.” As a result of this oneness, Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet. Can we Christians make the same boast of unity in the Body of Christ?

Our goal with Regenerate is to help bring unity to the Body of Christ in Northeastern Connecticut and to see the lives of our teenagers transformed by the power of the Gospel. This is more than just a one day event, but an attempt to help leaders connect with each other and start building lasting relationships as one “community. As a result, our teens will see something different – a church without walls.

The individual parts of the human body work in tandum with each other to make what was meant to be a healthy organism. Will you help to make Northeastern CT part of a vibrant, healthy, body?

Here is your chance:

The Willimantic Campground Association along Faith 2 Faith Ministries International and the Northeastern CT Youth Leaders Network will host Regenerate on August 29, 2010 at the Willimantic Camp Meeting Association pavilion. We have been given the opportunity to match up to $1500.00 to help this vision become a reality. Will you help reach our $3,000 goal?

Ways to give:

1. Mail your check to f2fmi P.O. Box 38 Montville, CT 06353 and write, “Regenerate” in the memo line.

2. Give online at www.f2fmi.org. Then send Tom an email at tom@f2fmi.org and let him know what your donation is for.

3. Hand Wayne cash…. er, wait. Don’t do that! But you can hand him a check made out to, “f2fmi” and he will get it to us.

Thanks in advance for your partnership in this time sensitive drive to reach teens in NE CT for Christ.

Every year, volunteers like you donate several hours of time to help us run our fireworks tent. Your help is so necessary in making this a success. Will you help us make a greater impact in this community?

Below is a form to fill out to tell us when you are available to help. Thanks for making all the difference!

For as long as the game of  baseball has been played, hitting the ball has intrigued fans, players, coaches and researchers alike and is considered by many, to be one of the hardest things to learn to do.  After learning the mechanics of hitting, and even becoming one of the few who can hit a baseball, hitters are faced with an even greater and even more illusive task, hitting the curve ball. The curve ball is often something that catches even the best hitters off guard, unprepared and not knowing where the ball is going. Sometimes in my life, it seems like Jesus loves to throw curve balls at me, and throw them when I least expect it.  This past fall, I was thrown a curve ball that was so unexpected, it in some ways, challenged my very faith making it a very trying end to 2009.

Coming into 2010, I came into the year with a fresh outlook and perspective on things, trying not to think about the curve ball I didn’t see coming that ended 2009. As many of you know, I am in the process of raising support to go into full-time missions and I mapped out and planned my year to a tee to try and be full-time by the fall. This schedule and plan was both rigorous and very demanding of my time.

So, when the opportunity to be a part of an NGA evangelistic crusade in early March with not much time to raise the support and plan, it was a bit of a curve ball, but I decided to put it into the hands of the Lord and see if this was a curve ball He might have me try and hit.  Not having a whole lot of time, plus not wanting it to conflict with my full-time support raising, or the people I was planning to approach and ask to join my partnership team, I knew it would have to be the Lord if it was going to happen.  To be honest, I was not optimistic, but I just gave it to the Lord.  After receiving a $1500.00 matching grant from New Life Church in Meriden, CT, I essentially had four days to raise the rest of the money, and the Body of Christ came through!  A week later I would be on a plane leaving from New York headed to Europe.

The plan was to fly from New York to London meet up with the other NGA evangelists, then fly from London to Romania do four days of intense evangelism there, and from there fly to Ukraine do five days of evangelism there, finish out in Poland and head back to the States. We were organized, well planned, fully funded and eager to do the Lord’s work. But sometimes, no matter how well we plan, things turn out in a different way than we expect them to, and in this case, very different.

On Wednesday April 14th I boarded my plane at JFK international airport headed towards London with a layover in Paris. My flight was smooth and I slept for the majority of the 8 hour or so flight to Paris.  My plane landed in Paris, and I walked towards the monitors with the departing flights to see what gate my flight to London was at, and that’s when the curve ball was thrown.  Every flight on the monitors at Charles Degaul airport was canceled.  I knew this couldn’t be good.  What had happened?  Was it a terrorist attack? No, not a terrorist attack but something that would completely change the course of everything we had planned in Europe.

While I was sleeping peacefully on my flight to Paris the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted and sent a cloud of ash into the sky drifting towards Europe’s airspace making it impossible for planes to fly safely.  I was now stuck and stranded in Paris! The next five days were nothing I had planned for, and something that would test me, and ultimately help shape my character.

For the first two days the airline put all the stranded passengers up in a hotel but after it was clear that there was no end in sight they essentially told us all that we had to fend for ourselves. I decided to try and get to Romania via train to fulfill the mission that we were all already late to. After riding various subways to get to the train station and after waiting in line for three plus hours to purchase a train ticket, I realized that my wallet had been pick pocketed!  Now I was stuck in Paris without a wallet, without any money, and without any means to get more!  Talk about a curve ball within a curve ball!

In that moment of immense unforeseen circumstances I began to feel the attacks of the enemy trying to break me down and to be honest, at that point I was feeling the pressure.  In my humanness everything in me wanted to cave into the pressure, but the Holy Spirit in me began to work, and I admitted my weakness to the Lord and asked him to strengthen and empower me.  It’s when we are in our weakened state when we often see the power in the scriptures we feed ourselves with as children of light.  I began to remember the truths from verses like II Timothy 4:5 “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist…” or II Timothy 2:3 “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” and II Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

I prayed a small prayer in the train station and knew that I was going to have to rely on the Lord. After making a few, very expensive phone calls, the Lord came through in an amazing way.  He connected me with an American pastor who has been a missionary to Paris for 29 years.  He took me in, fed me and allowed me to sleep in the church while I worked through the chaos of trying to get to the mission in Eastern Europe.

I spent 3 days with the Ost family and will be forever grateful for the hospitality and true spirit of Christian community.  There were two other elderly gentlemen who were also stranded in Paris that the church took in.  These two elderly men, were still in full-time ministry and traveling the world for the sake of the Gospel.  This deeply encouraged me as they were in their late 70’s and early 80’s!  Through our conversations and fellowship they shared with me their experiences, and also poured into my life and built me up as a young minister of the Gospel. I believe our time together was very fruitful, and it is a time I believe the Lord knew I needed, and that I will cherish.

I was also able to attend a church service while I was there, and it began to turn my stay in Paris into a blessing beyond anything I expected. In a city that seemed to be so full of godlessness, I saw a small but thriving church with many young people hungry for Jesus, and it reminded me of God’s great love for sinful man, and His desire to use tiny, broken, even sinful people to be the voice to reach them.  Resting in that reminder, and in the truth that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, I was now strengthened in the Lord and empowered to endure the cost of doing whatever it would take to get to Eastern Europe to fulfill the mission of sharing the good news with the lost.

Finally after 5 days I boarded a train headed towards Brussels where I finally met up with the other NGA evangelists Dr. Tim Robnett and Gibson Sylvestere. From there we took a train to Frankfurt Germany. After that we rented a car and drove through Germany, Poland and finally into Ukraine!  After about 24 hours of travel we arrived just 1 hour before our first evangelical dinner in Lutsk, Ukraine.

The next four days would be painfully exhausting but such a powerful time of seeing God move people to a place of repentance and into the knowledge of a full and true relationship with Jesus! The outreaches were structured as dinners at some of the nicest restaurants in Lutsk.  This was such a blessing because going out to eat at a restaurant for most Ukrainians is something that happens only on special occasions. So with the dinners being completely paid for by NGA, the idea was to bless people with an amazing meal and great time out, and then bless them with the greatest message they would ever hear. Each dinner was geared towards a different people group and the outreach and our messages were geared towards that group of people.  We had dinners for teachers, the disabled, businessmen, married couples, teenagers, and college aged adults just to name a few.

We shared the Gospel with over 500 unbelievers and about half of them professed to have made a decision to repent and make Jesus the Lord of their lives! ! I have been told during this last week that is the highest number NGA has ever had doing this sort of outreach in Europe!  I am not normally a numbers guy, but know from a numbers or stats standpoint, you have to view that as a home run!

So why does Jesus seem to allow these curve balls to happen in our lives? I believe like any good coach, or any good father, He does it so when you’re standing at the plate expecting to hit the fast ball coming at you at 95 miles per hour and then you get startled by the curve ball you can still follow through and hit the ball. He wants us to remember that curve balls are still meant to be hit, and that He will help us hit it if we trust Him and rely on Him when that curve ball is thrown. After all we are playing in His game, and we’re on His team. Last time I checked the final box score, Him and His team wins the game.

June 21-July 4th marks our 4th Annual TNT Fireworks Fundraiser. As we prepare, there are many needs that could allow us to raise even more money if we can cut our expenses down. Here’s the list so far:

1. A generator (biggest need)
2. gas for the generator (or gas cards)
3. bottled water
4. snacks
5. tarps to cover the fireworks (in case it rains!)
6. garbage bags
7. cotton twine to bunt the sides
8. packing tape
9. razor box cutters (2 or 3)

If you can let use or give us any of these items, it will help tremendously as we prepare for our mission in the fall. Please email us: info@f2fmi.org if you can help in any way. We will also be looking for volunteers soon to help us run the tent. More info soon, so watch this space!

Every Friday night on WCSE (100.1 in Groton Area, 94.9 in Montville/Norwich, 107.3 in East Lyme/Saybrook, 93.3 in South Hampton, Long Island & 93.9 in Montauk, Long Island) our new radio program, Mission and Music hits the airwaves at 7:00 p.m. EST!

Mission and Music is a fresh new look at evangelism – exploring how f2fmi and its alliance ministries reach students for Jesus, while calling the body of Christ together to proclaim Him with one voice. Hosted by Tom the Bomb and Just John, each episode features the best in Christian music from across the US and UK, special guest interviews and an inside look at youth culture.

In addition to Mission and Music, Tom and the team have put together a line up of other youth programs that will encourage and equip young people to live for God. Here is a description of our offering:

theshowwithnoname (brought to you by Crossrhythms Radio)
Join chipK, front man for thebandwithnoname, as he brings his own blend of in-your-face message and on-the-edge music. Laugh, dance, be amazed and respond! [more]

Girls Night In (brought to you by Crossrhythms Radio)
GIRLS’ NIGHT IN is a weekly programme particularly relevant to any young girls. Presented by ex tbc member and now solo artist and writer, Shell Perris, the show is fun and lively, with loads of girly mayhem and make-up moments! There’s the agony aunt slot where you can ‘tell Shell’ about your stories and experiences and ‘hot topics’ such as self image, eating disorders, faith, forgiveness and loads more will really give you something to think about. Every week Shell is joined by a special guest, which so far have included… Nat from tbc, Gayle Wells, Benni J and Cross Rhythm’s very own Heather Bellamy… [more]

Crossrhythms Top 10 (brought to you by Crossrhythms Radio)
Chris Mountford presents the top 10 Christian music songs in the UK. [more]

Reality Zone
An exciting Auzzie show that with interviews and cool music. [more]

Summary:
7:00 – Mission and Music with Tom the Bomb and Just John
8:00 – theshowwithnoname with chipK
9:00 – Girls Night In with Shell Perris
10:00 – UK Chart Show
11:00 – Reality Zone

To listen online or for more info, visit http://www.wcse.org.

See my final albums from the UK: Week 2 | Final Days

Check out these pics from my first week in the UK!