From the Caribbean to Colorado

Sunshine, Colton and I would like to thank you for your prayers and support of our family as we have been, and continue, to serve others in God’s name.  We want to update you on the latest journey that God has us on for the next season of our lives.

It is hard to imagine that it has been seven years for Sunshine and almost four for me that we have been with G.O. Ministries serving in the Dominican Republic.   It has been a tremendous time of working alongside Dominicans, Haitians and Americans.  With G.O. Ministries we have seen tremendous growth, opportunities and relationships established.  We have witnessed  the school increasing in size, additional Church’s being planted, nutrition centers expanded , countless lives restored by committing lives to Christ, more medical outreach and relief being brought to Haiti. Gods hand has been present in moving all of us to Him. 

This past fall Sunshine and I both felt God speaking to us about a new chapter of ministry, but we weren’t sure what that was.  We both spent months in prayer and really felt He was calling us back to the U.S.  We continued to pray about what that would look like and felt so convicted that this is what was in store for us, that in March we let G.O. Ministries know what was on our hearts.  We felt very strongly that we were to step out in faith, but we also did not want to leave G.O. in a difficult position with the busy summer months.  We let them know that we would be happy to continue serving through the busy summer season, but that in August we would be leaving the ministry.

 While we were praying about what was next for us, we sat down and wrote a list of what we were passionate about in ministry and what we have been blessed with for skill sets.   We felt a strong calling to continue to work with the poor, to find a connecting point for the Americans that we have been working with to get involved in their own backyard, mentorship and leadership development.  With that in mind, we started to pursue ministry opportunities.

God began to lead us on a new journey. In March, we connected with an organization called World Impact.  After I initially saw the ministry opportunity with them, we spent about two weeks in prayer before contacting them.  Over the last three months we have had several phone conversations, filled out a 30+ page application, visited their regional hub for personal interviews, visited the potential job site and have completed the candidate  assessment program.   We will official be joining World Impact on October 1, 2012.  

World Impact works in 10 cities across the United States with their headquarters located in Los Angeles, CA.  Their goal is to impact urban communities for Christ and have been doing that for the last 40 plus years.  After the Rodney King riots in 1992, which happened all around their headquarters, World Impact charted a new course for the ministry to plant Church’s with indigenous people.  What better way to reach those around them than the people who know them best.  Missionaries work side by side living in the same neighborhoods in which they serve.  They train, equip and empower the locals so that they can be a light in some pretty dark places.

World Impact also has four camps around the country for urban youth to have a unique experience that they normally would never be afforded the opportunity to do.  Sunshine and I will be working at one of the camps in Bailey, Colorado called Deer Creek Christian Camp.  There are several things we love about this camp.  First, we love working with teams of people as we have done for the past several years.  Even though we are only with them for a week, it is amazing how much God can use that short time to impact someone.  Secondly, we both felt God leading us to do more mentorship and leadership development with young adults.  World Impact has a program called Leadership in Training that will not only provide us the opportunity to mentor, but expand the program as well.  It is a great program that identifies youth from the area Churches who have a desire to grow as a Christian leader.  They are able to spend three months at the camp to work, serve and have leadership training classes.  Another key element is called The Urban Ministry Institute or TUMI for short.  It is a seminary level education that has been developed by Dr. Don Davis to raise up future pastors and church leaders.  It is an incredible course that is affordable for all and it already has 112 satellite locations in 11 countries.  We will be looking to start a TUMI location in the Denver area and possibly at the camp. 

We are so excited about this new opportunity that God has laid out for us.  Please pray for us in this process that He provides us with the resources connect us with volunteers willing to help and that we will truly impact those coming to the camp.  The task at hand is enormous, but not too big for Him.  Our position with World Impact is similar to G.O. in that we have to raise our funds for ministry.  We would love for all of you to continue or become a new partner of ours in this new venture.  You can click on the give tab above for more details.

Our immediate schedule is that August 28^th we will be moving back to the States.  We are going to take a much need break to process all of the ministry we have been a part of the last 4 years, meet with supporters, friends , family and take a week vacation.  From there we will spend be spending nine months training and working at the Morning Star Ranch, northeast of Wichita and at the regional hub in Wichita, Kansas and then move out to Colorado.  It provides us a great opportunity to learn all aspects of the ministry while working at a camp.  We are eager to share more with each of you and will as we head out on this journey.  Thank you all so much for your love and support.

The last bit of big news is that we just found out that in the middle to end of February our family will be growing by one!  Sunshine and I are so excited for Colton to be a big brother.  Please also keep this in your prayers as we will be having a lot of transition this next season of life.

Eric, Sunshine & Colton Leach