 of God, a son or daughter of the most high God. And we're so glad they're joining us this Tuesday on Hope Today. I am here with Anna and Tom, and Tom tell us about our guest that is coming up because it all has to do with the little people. That's right, well we are all little people. We're all children of God, right? Well, we wanna see our children and our grandchildren reach with the gospel, don't we? We wanna see young people coming to the Lord. I think every one of us wants that. Well, coming up in just a moment, we're gonna have a conversation with Moses Estevez of Child Evangelism Fellowship and he's gonna share with us about the amazing things that are happening among young people right here in America guys and around the world. They've had some amazing things go on and some amazing open doors of opportunity. It's gonna be great. Absolutely, I have to say too, we had an amazing live prayer and worship event here last night at 8 p.m. We hope that you got a chance to tune in and just experience the power and presence of God that was the celebration of our 21 days of prayer and for all of you who came out to be in our live audience, what a blessing it was to welcome you into this studio and have you be a part of the evening. So yay God, good things. He is doing some new things and I think in this season it is so important for us to be in tune with Holy Spirit. I mean there's so many things happening in the world but there's something beautiful when you can just get into the presence of the Lord, when you can stand on His word, when we're able to come together in faith. Because I truly believe, as we just see things that are happening and shaking in our world, that now more than ever it is time for the body of Christ, the ecclesia, the called out ones to arise and shine for our light is in Christ, our light is in Yeshua, our time has come and so just wanna encourage you during these days. I know we just walked into a new Hebrew year of 5784. Right now we're in the 10 days of awe. We're coming up on Yom Kippur. It's a time of repentance. We just wanna encourage you just to seek the heart of the Father in this season. Seek God, be like, what are you calling me to do? And as we're gonna talk about young people, I mean even ask God like, how am I supposed to go out and be a bridge builder and to love on the children? Well, speaking of the children, we are gonna have us stump the host addiction with Children of the Bible. Pray for us, y'all. Here we go. Okay, Doki, here's the first question. Who is the first child mentioned in the Bible? Cain, right? It's a big Cain. I think it's got to be Cain, right? We're gonna go with Cain. Yes. It's our financier, Cain. All right. Isn't it interesting what Cain ended up doing? The very first person born. Wow, not exactly a great start for the human race there, but all right, here we go. Now we haven't seen these, so you can play along with us. When Sammy was called by the Lord as a child, who did he think was calling? Wasn't he think his dad or his mom? He was with the priest. Yeah, Eli. Eli. He was thinking Eli was calling. You guys good with that? Eli, final answer. All right, yay. Yeah, he kept getting up and like going, hey, here I am and Eli's like, go back to bed. Yeah, so we're on a roll. Here's our last one. So what was the name of the city where Elijah raised the widow's son back to life? Zarefa? Zarefa. Isn't it Zarefa? Zarefa. Sounds right. We're going to go with Zarefa. Oh, yeah. Thanks for three. Thanks for three. I just want to thank the Holy Spirit on that one, because I just came out to thank you, Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit hotline. We know about the children of the Bible. That's right. Well, hey, that was fun. But you know what? To reach 100 million children with the gospel. That is the goal of our next guest, Moses Estevez, who's the executive vice president for Child Evangelism Fellowship. CEF has made it their highest priority to present the gospel. So the children around the world may be saved and discipled in God's word. I don't know what could be better. Moses, it's so good to have you with us on Hope Today. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. Well, let me ask you about the vision. Maybe some of our audience is not familiar with CEF, Child Evangelism Fellowship. Tell us a little bit about what is the vision of your organization? Well, ministry started in the early 20s. Mr. Jesse Overholzer, it's an amazing story. God touched his heart and he had a passion to bring the gospel to children. And the ministry actually got organized in 1937. And by the time he died in about 1955, he already had the ministry started in 60 countries with a great passion, a great fervor for God to bring the gospel to children around the world. Today, we have the work of CEF organized in 400 offices in the USA. And in most of the nations of the world, we have about 3,700 staff. And just like our founder, they're very passionate about teaching God's word to children. The Lord so commanded in the scriptures and we're very serious about helping the body of Christ bring the gospel to the next generation. Yeah, I mean, just to hear some of the things that you're doing, it amazes me. In fact, just I wanna read it and make sure I get it right. Approximately 26 and a half million children are being reached by CEF just this year. So before COVID-2019, we reached 25.5, 25 and a half million children. Of course, because we're a face-to-face ministry, you can imagine that COVID slowed things down quite a bit as it really shut down the ministry for long periods of time in certain countries. But this past year, we reached 19 and a half million children and everything is on target to reach this year, 23, 26 and a half million children. And our goal is to get to 100 million children a year within 10 to 12 years. So we're very excited about that. We're working very energetically. We're all set up to do that. We have staff all over the world. We have the programs in place. We're just using different accelerators because there is a greater urgency to bring the gospel to children while they're children. They grow up pretty quickly. Right, exactly. What a worthy thing to reach them at the age before they've gotten into some of the things of the world. But let me just ask you, how do you do this? What is your strategy? What is your training? How do you get your people? How is this accomplished? Sure, so we work closely with churches. That's where the believers are around the world. And we have an extensive training program. Last ministry year, we trained over 400,000 believers in ministering to children and in a variety of training. Some are as short as half a day and others as long as three months. And then we also have extensive curriculum that we have written to teach the children all through the Bible that they will hear and learn about God. And then we have amazing programs, many programs. For example, one of the best known ones is our weekly Good News Club. We have about 80,000 around the world right here in the USA. Just this month and next month, we're starting about 3000 Good News Clubs in public schools. And it's very exciting as the kids come to learn about the Lord. The Good News Club includes a Bible Lessons, songs, games, memory verse, mission story, teaching about prayer. It's a very packed hour, hour and 15 minutes of excitement. And the kids go home excited about learning about the Lord. I just got heard recently a story of two twins, two girls that started coming to Good News Club. They got saved. Of course, the power of Christ began to work in their hearts. All they talk, they go back home, all they talk to the parents is about what they're learning in Good News Club about the Lord. The parents didn't know the Lord. Eventually, the parents also start going to church. The father was a whole alcoholic. He gave up alcoholism and it was a beautiful, I saw a video with a beautiful shot of mom, dad and the girls being baptized all in the same time. And because of the power of gospel, starting with a child and then bringing that gospel home to the parents. Wow, I mean, Paul said he's not ashamed of the power of the gospel, but it's the power of God for salvation. Let me ask you about, there's some things you said there. I don't want to just have our viewers miss. One is the files of 3,000 or more that you recently trained. And also the public schools. Tell me about the public schools because all of us go, when you say, there's Bible clubs, the Good News Clubs and public schools, I think we all go, what's he talking about there? Is that really how able to happen? Yes, so in 2001, we won a case in the United States Supreme Court and it was a vote six to three that it was constitutional for us to have Good News Clubs in public schools, meaning the schools could not discriminate against our activity because of our religious content. That was settled by the Supreme Court decision. So the schools opened up wide. And so today we continue to have this open door. And so we're constantly inviting believers, churches to put forth a team and then we will provide everything that's needed from training to curriculum to insurance, to legal help, whatever it's needed to establish that Good News Club in the public school near the church. And that's a wonderful opportunity to really have a lighthouse for the gospel right in the middle of the heart of the community. And so many children are impacted. And also as I mentioned earlier, many parents are also impacted. And so we're very excited what God is doing while this door is still open in the US. Well, yeah, absolutely. What a great thing that's going on right there. Now you're also around the world. Tell me about the recent Brazilian outreach. I heard some really good things about that and I just love to hear what God is doing there. Yeah, around the world, our teams, they have the regular ministry but they're always doing missions trips to areas where there's no ministry because they're trying to bring the gospel to all the children. And recently Brazil did a mission strip into an island in Brazil. And they had the opportunity to preach the gospel to many, many children and moms and dads as well, including in that particular area are what they called quilombo. Quilombo is many years ago when there were slaves in Brazil. Sometimes the slaves would flee their masters and so they would run to the Amazon to have freedom and they would come together and form these villages. And for many years the government didn't even know where these villages were located. Today the government knows about the presence of about half of the villages. The other half are still unknown to location. These are quilombo, that's the name of their group. And what a blessing to bring the gospel to them, to tell the children of the love of God and the forgiveness found in Christ. And so it was a great mission strip and of course they continue to do in many other locations as well. Moses, can you tell us a little bit about where your passion comes from for children and why you have decided to devote your career and your life to investing in teaching children the gospel? Well, in my case, I was born in Portugal and at age nine, I didn't go to church, but at age nine somehow I found my way going to a Christian camp as a child and there I heard the gospel and I received Christ as my savior. Came back home, still didn't go to church, but God made a way for us to start going to church when I was 15. At age 17 I had a calling for ministry in a conference in Portugal and it's a long story how in 93 God brought us, I was a businessman in Portugal and God brought us to the US to work with CEF. I started serving the Lord in Vermont for four or five years and then moved to the headquarters in Missouri. But the passion that CEF workers have to minister to children come from the word of God. It was the Lord himself that said, let the children come unto me, do not block them, do not impede them from coming into me, for of such is the kingdom of God. The Lord also said that in Psalm 78.4 that he challenges us to bring the gospel or to the knowledge of God to the next generation. Think about it. Someone told us about Christ and it's now our responsibility to pass that gospel baton to the next generation. Barnard did a study in which he said that the biggest probability of salvation happens between five and 12 years old. 32%, 4% if you're a teenager, 6% if you're an adult, but if you're a child, the probability of salvation is 32%. That's the conclusion of his research. And so there's a great openness that children have and so, but they grow up quickly. So there's a window for us to minister to them. And so we're compelled to preach the gospel to as many children as we can. We're launching even right now our effort. We have a big ministry called Children's Party Clubs and we're launching that effort right now, teaching the children the true meaning of Christmas around the world. We have extensive trainings and preparing believers to do that ministry. It's a wonderful thing. Listen, kids love Christmas, kids love parties and you invite them to a Christmas party, they'll be there and they will learn about that this little baby came to earth to be the savior of the world and can be their personal savior. So our goal is to reach 10 million children in about a two month period in November and December. So in some countries spills over into January. So there's great work to be done. There's an urgency because this is an urgent matter for the heart of God according to the Bible. Moses, what a great report. And let me ask you, if someone's watching right now and they're saying, Hey, this is what our community needs is what my church needs to be involved in. How do they get involved? They can go to our website is cefonline.com. So cefonline.com. And there they can find what we call a chapter finder. They put in their zip code and they will find the closest CF office to them. They can contact that local CF office. And if they wanna visit a club or if they want to figure out what it's gonna take to put a club in my public school, the local worker will help them to do that. So it's a great opportunity. As I said, the doors are open. That's fantastic. And we'll have a link to that as well on our website. It is just a fantastic thing. Annie, you have a story about that, don't you? Yeah, I'm so excited. I was excited to hear that we were talking with you today, Moses, and that we were highlighting CF because one of my friend's daughters applied and was trained this past summer to be a missionary with CEF. And all along her journey, I was hearing about her training. And then as she got to work with the children and what she was experiencing. And I got a quick testimony from Paige. Here's what she said about. She's a freshman in high school. She said, being a summer missionary was so much more fun than what I thought it was going to be. It's honesty right there. I became so much closer to God and I saw how He can work miracles even in the darkest of times. Singing the songs and teaching the lessons were one of my many amazing experiences. Also at my first club, we had a girl believe in Jesus. And that is when I knew this was going to be an amazing experience. And so here at CTVN, we love to highlight amazing organizations and we love to highlight amazing teenagers who are spreading the good news and sharing it with children. And so Moses, I thought that would bless your heart as well as our whole CTVN family at home. That is so wonderful. That experience will literally be with her for the rest of her life. Many of the, we train about 3000 young people like this every summer and God takes them in many different directions. And it's amazing how, we have had, listen, this is cool. We have had parents come into CEF, quit their jobs, come into CEF because they sent their kids to CYA. The kids came back so transformed. They're like, this is what we need to do for work. And it's amazing the work that happens in their lives. And then when they get in front of the children to teach them in the summer, those kids are just, they love teenagers. They're just completely enthralled in having a teenager and talking to them. And they're just opening the Bible, opening the visuals, telling them about Jesus. It's a transformational experience. I'm so glad she was able to do it this summer. Yeah. Moses, so it just prompts a question in my mind. All ages are trained. I mean, are you trained in grandparents to do this? Parents to do this? And here we have a freshman in high school. So it's open to everyone as far as the training? Pretty much, pretty much. Starting about seventh grade, we have training for you. Not everybody participates in the summer ministry training. That's usually, you know, high school. Some middle schoolers and of course some college students. But then for other ages, we have many other types of training. So anybody can be trained. It's a beautiful thing to be trained to share the gospel at a child level in a very simple way. And then to be able to counsel them for salvation, meaning a teacher gets out of the way and just helps the child put their faith in Christ. We have extensive training to do that. And we would love to continue to train people in your area to minister to children effectively. Well, Moses Estevez, Child Evangelism Fellowship, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for the good news and thank you for all you do for the kingdom of God and for children to know the Lord. Thank you so much for putting the spotlight on the kids. Amen. Amen. Well, it's a fantastic thing. We're so glad that Moses was able to be with us. Hey, maybe God's speaking to you. Maybe God wants you to do something to touch the children around you with the gospel. Well, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back to minister to you. Every now and then life gets the best of us and we need a reminder to keep calm and trust God. Simple but striking, the keep calm and trust God box of blessings provides messages of reassurance to help carry you through tough and challenging times. These small cards fit into the palm of your hand and will turn your focus to the one who is in control of everything. Inside, you'll find 51 colorful double-sided cards featuring a combination of inspirational scripture verses and faith-based quotes. Add it to a get well basket or use it to encourage a teacher, family member or friend or save it for the time you need encouragement. Be sure to ask for the keep calm and trust God box of blessings when you give today. It's our way of saying thanks as you encourage others by providing life-changing Christian television through Cornerstone TV. Call us at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org slash donate. Well, welcome back to Hope Today. We're so glad you're hanging out with us and we just wanted to tell you about our newsletter, especially for those of you in Jacksonville who are a new part of our CTVN family. So every month we have the Hope Today newsletter that is completely free and it is packed with inspirational articles. It also has our full program guide as well as recipes and testimonies and all kinds of good things. So you can call us here at 888-665-4483 or if you get any of our mail yet at all that you'll see a place on there where you can also subscribe. You can also go on our website at ctvn.org and we would love to send our Hope Today newsletter. There's some good articles in there, right? I don't know who writes them, but actually I write a few of them. Pastor Gary writes you. Anna, she writes things in there. She's, you're the editor of that. That's right. We're a team effort here. I don't write the recipes. I don't do the cooking recipes, but you will enjoy what's in there. Be sure to make, be sure to have it delivered every month to you. We love to stay connected with you. And another way we'd love for you to connect with us is that if you're new to our family, especially from Jacksonville or you just started watching, or you don't even know about this, we do have a YouTube. If you go to Cornerstone Intelligent Network, we actually have a whole YouTube. So if you miss any Hope Today episodes or anything, you can always check out our YouTube channel. And we also recently, if you've been watching for a while, you saw recently that the host, we all shared our story. So we have a playlist that you can check it out and hear our stories and our journeys that we hope that'll inspire and encourage you. Well, speaking of stories, I don't know if any of you've heard about this, but I saw this over on the weekend of the move of God that actually happened at Auburn University. I was seeing that there was 200 students. There was a move of God and got baptized right in the lake right there. So as we've been talking about children, as we've been talking about young people, I just wanna encourage you, if you're a parent or a grandparent or just anyone, God is moving. I think we've been crying out for a revival. God is moving. He's doing something so fresh, so different, so new. I just even see in my church, it's amazing the teenagers that are coming to Jesus who are getting baptized, who are hungering and thirsting after the Lord. And I think what we're even seeing in our world is as it's getting darker, we see these things, these satanic things going on, they are desperate and seeking for the truth. And so as it continues to get darker, guess what? God is getting brighter and the young people are running after Jesus. So be encouraged with that. And Anna, we know you have a scripture you wanna share with us too. Yeah, we certainly do. I just wanted to affirm your story too about these teenagers coming to God and seeing these baptisms. I wish I had some pictures ready to show of the teens at our church this summer that got baptized in the lake and awesome things. So all right, here's our scripture for today. It comes from Psalm 78.4, and it says this, we will not hide these truths from our children. We will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders. I just have to just talk to all of you parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles out there about the influence you have on your children and even on your teenagers, even when you think that they're not paying attention to you. Like truly as Moses said, the younger they are, the more open their hearts will be to hear about the stories of the Bible and about who this Jesus is. And as we were talking about the teenagers are going through some incredible challenges and difficulties and any chance that we get as adults to just share from our own life and experiences about how God has worked in us and through us, the kids are paying attention and they are drawn to the gospel. You know what I love about that verse, it says about his power and his mighty wonders. It's not about, hey, don't do this and don't do that. And you know, don't go to parties. Listen, there's good guidelines we need to set around our children, yes. But it's way more than that. Christianity is about Jesus. It's about who he is and about his power, his wonders. And all the things that as we get to know him, you know, Christianity is not this boring thing. You know, it's like, oh, well, here's the party. It's a lot of fun. Here's, no, it's going after God, the most wonderful and creative and fun and fantastic being in the universe. And that's what these children need to know, Sidney, that we're going after God. I just hear God saying that I am equipping the children in this season, that the adversity is in the things that they're facing and they're going through. I feel like a lot of us are very afraid and we're very fearful, but God is doing a new thing every generation. There's some hardship that they have to face, but God is strengthening them. He's testing their muscle. Listen, I was like, even the Sunday, there was a young man that came up and he said, I know he's going out on the streets and he's evangelizing. He is 17 years old. He said he had a friend that was, he was killed by gang violence. These young people understand the war that they're in. They see the spiritual nature between light and dark, but I just felt like God was just saying to encourage the parents and the grandparents, those of you who are mentors, he is equipping them in this season. There are certain things that I even see. I talked to my friends as a millennial that I see Gen Z is going through. They're really strong kids. They're resilient. I mean, they lived through the pandemic. They've endured so much hardship, but God is using them. They are the ones that are going to, we're gonna see so much break out in this season with these young people. They are on fire for Jesus. They know what the darkness looks like. It is up in their face. So do not be afraid. We know that God has a specific plan for every child. And if you're a young person out there and you're watching and maybe you're on the couch right now with your mom or your grandmother or your family, whoever it may be, we just wanna encourage you to say that God has a plan and a purpose for you. Do not let anyone despise you because you're young. That's a scripture that's in the Bible. Know that God has a plan and a purpose for you. And he is a journey. He's gonna ordain your steps. He's gonna lead you every step of the way when you put your trust and your hope in Jesus. And he is your firm foundation. Watch what he will do for you. He is a good God. He is a faithful God and he loves you. And we love you too. And we are so grateful that you joined us on Hope Today. This is what we love to do. We love to lift you up, to encourage you, to inspire you. You are a child of God. You are a son and the daughter of the Most High God. Never forget that. Stand in your authority and your identity in Christ. Have a great day. On tomorrow's Hope Today, be uplifted and refreshed with prayers to strengthen your soul. Author and speaker Karen Moore shares how we can strengthen our prayer life, grow in our faith, and ultimately transform our relationship with God. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.