In the icy north...

As happens every year in March, I've travelled to another part of the world to meet with our KKI international leadership team. This year we're being hosted by King's Kids USA and are staying in the wintery state of Minnesota. Not so many weeks ago, temperatures here were well below zero - at one point as low as minus forty - but, to my relief, things have thawed a bit now and the temperatures are not too far below and above zero. It's no longer snowing here, but the thick snow is still lying everywhere and the lakes are completely frozen over - as seen in the pictures here on the right, which were snapped from the room where we're holding our meetings, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening sunset. We're staying at a little retreat centre belonging to the local church that our friends attend, and the "tree house" that you see at the edge of the lake is one of several little prayer cabins on the property.

On our first day here, we took a trip into Minneapolis to visit the Mill City museum, which tells the history of this part of the world - in particular how the falls on the mighty Mississippi River made it the biggest flour mill centre in the world at one point. This helped us to pray with understanding, as we took time in intercession for the city, the region, the USA and the work of KKI in this part of the world. Below (at the end of this post) you can see a picture of our leadership team, and two of our international elders, taken as we were crossing that old stone arch bridge over the Mississippi.

One of our ministries based in this region is called "Life Rice." Formerly called "Kids against Hunger," it's an initiative that allows whole families to work together packaging fortified emergency meals for people on the verge of starvation (such as refugees and victims of natural disasters.) Together with a handful of families from the local church, we worked one afternoon to pack 8,800 meals that will be sent to help Venezuelan refugees who have fled into neighbouring Colombia to escape the current crisis there.

Now we're well into the "business" part of our week, as we evaluate the progress made since last year and work further on the various action steps and decisions that will serve the ministry worldwide. Questions like communication, leadership structures, updating of child protection policies, new initiatives in youth ministry training... are all part of our agenda this week. We also took time to pray for, and write to, all our KKI regional leaders on the different continents of the world. Thanks for your prayers as we continue to meet over the coming days.