ARIZONA ASSOCIATION OF FOSTER AND ADOPTIVE PARENTS
The Arizona Association for Foster and Adoptive Parents (AZAFAP) is a non-profit, statewide organization that serves families who adopt children and provide foster and kinship care. Working in partnership with child welfare professionals and the community, our purpose is to support, educate, empower and provide a voice for Arizona’s foster and adoptive families, with the goal of increasing the stability and well-being of Arizona’s most vulnerable children. Key support events include the Annual "Courage for Children" Awards Banquet held each year in conjunction with a statewide conference offered to foster and adoptive parents in the fall.
This year's event is being hosted by CrossRoads and will offer a fun-filled evening of recognition for adults who show what everyday heroes look like. Other supportive programs provided by AZAFAP include interactive training sessions called "Town Halls" that meet the needs of ongoing training, a Christmas toy drive for foster children, a fall and spring picnic for foster and adoptive families, and resources for families wanting to create their own extended foster family network in their local community.
CrossRoads Nazarene Church, along with 16 other churches in the Valley, partners with Family Promise to help temporarily homeless children and their families. The families are hosted in the Youth Building for one week. The families spend their days at the Day Center in Phoenix during the week, and return to the church in the evenings and holidays. We like to make the stay at CrossRoads memorable and fun for these families, as well as providing a safe place to stay and well-balanced meals.
Our need is for volunteers to purchase, prepare, and serve evening meals, set-up and take down of the living and sleeping spaces, evening hosts to visit with the guests and have dinner, overnight hosts, and for the donation of necessary items.
International Students, Inc. (ISI) is the opportunity to befriend international students in our community. 70% of the 850,000 international students in America may never step foot into an American home. This is the perfect opportunity to clearly present the Gospel to many who have never heard it. They are very open, culturally and spiritually, and long for your friendship. Most of all, they need Christ's love.
CrossRoads partners with the ISI Friendship Partner program enabling you to become a friend to an international student. Expense and time can be minimal: have them over for dinner once a month, give them a call once in a while, or invite them to join your family for holiday activities. These relationships are meaningful and make an everlasting impact.
The Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA) is the oldest and largest organization in the United States representing those who provide meal services to people in need. MOWAA works toward the social, physical, nutritional, and economic betterment of vulnerable Americans.
CrossRoads Nazarene Church commits to deliver meals to those in need for three non-consecutive weeks. Our vision is for community outreach, ministry to people with dietary needs, and to fulfill the Great Commission in concrete ways. The biggest obstacle is lack of volunteers to deliver the meals.
Pregnancy Care Center of Chandler (PPC) is committed to assisting women who are facing unexpected pregnancies. All of the services are free and confidential. Since July 2007, PCC has provided over 600 services to women. Of those 600 services, only 4 are known to have chosen a path other than adoption or parenting.
Services include pregnancy tests, options counseling, DES verifications, resources and referrals, material assistance, adoption information, an Earn While You Learn Program, ultrasounds and post-abortion counseling if necessary.
Pregnancy Care Center is always in need of prayer support, financial support, and women willing to train as volunteer counselors.
We can be overwhelmed by statistics on crime, but we believe that hope comes from lives changed through the love of Jesus Christ. The primary objective of Prison Ministry is to be ambassadors for Christ by proclamation and demonstration. Through diversity and unity of lay leadership from local churches we can provide ministry teams to proclaim the gospel and coordinate local ministry programs for those impacted by crime.
Volunteering consists of leading Bible studies, seminars and discipleship training; assist chaplains with visitation and counseling; assist inmates in transition back into society, ministering to families and victims through Angel Tree Christmas and Summer Camp programs; act as link to support resources; mentor at-risk youth and ex-prisoners; discipleship by mail; “pen-pal” letter writing to nurture and encourage inmates and family members. Prayer and donation are also integral to the blessing.
Royal Family Kids’ Camp (RFKC) is the nation’s leading Christian camp program for abused, abandoned, and neglected children, from ages 7-11. This summer over 6,100 volunteers from local churches, working in 155 camps in 36 states, will welcome 6,000 foster children into a local camp setting.
Each faith-based camp is presented by a church in their local area. CrossRoads Nazarene Church has been a sponsor of a local camp for the past 6 years. We have developed a relationship with the social services department and foster system in our area which allows many children the ability to attend camp each year and receive God’s healing touch in their lives.
RFKC and CrossRoads has ministered to an average of 30 children annually allowing them time to grow and develop as normal children in a safe environment in the cool pines of Northern Arizona. A team of 50 adults participate in camp week and even more help through prayer, hosting a birthday party at camp, registration, and very critical interfaces with social services.
Tempe Homeless Outreach is an opportunity to share a good meal, a warm smile, and God’s love with the needy in our community.
Serving the 100 guests at Moeur Park is the heart of the ministry. We leave the church gym parking lot at 5:30 pm on the 2nd and 5th Saturdays of each month. Anyone is welcome to come and bring a dish to share, or drop off a covered dish to help.
Donations are also crucial in reaching out to the homeless. CrossRoads provides things such as local bus tickets, clean clothing, and batteries. Shoes, toiletries, blankets, and many other items are needed as donations. If you would like to support this outreach by donating, please clearly mark them “Tempe Homeless Outreach” and leave them on the church dock.
The Yellow Bag Ministry is a partnership with the Chandler Christian Community Center (CCCC), in collection and distribution of food and clothing.
We are assisting the CCCC in providing the various resources they make available to families in need of basic items. Our donations assist the center in providing food and clothing to more than 82,000 people in Chandler! Our partnership also helps provide domestic violence victims with the means to start anew. Services such as food and clothing banks, English language classes, job services, narcotics anonymous, back-to-school necessities, and Operation Santa are also provided for those in need.
Crossroads Yellow Bag ministry is simple. Pick up a yellow bag, take it home and fill it with the needs list from CCCC. Each Sunday we have a Yellow Bag collection bin where you can drop off your bag. CCCC picks up the bags each week and updates us on their needs.
One of our international partnerships since 2004 has been with the country of Armenia. This partnership has allowed CrossRoads to come alongside the Armenian church leadership in various ways enabling the Armenian church to move from a place of receiving, to a point where they themselves are now able to partner with other churches and go into other countries.
Our Armenian partnership has included everything from providing assistance with pastor's salaries, buying vehicles, and purchasing property to sending medical teams, youth teams and work and witness teams. Our desire is to expand the partnership this year by adding a leadership conference led by Pastor Dave and Pastor Curt, as well as women's retreat team.
Nazarene Child Sponsorship is a ministry that engages the sponsors and the local church to act on behalf of children living in poverty by providing a tangible expression of the love of Jesus Christ and developing a personal relationship between the sponsors and the sponsored child. Through your monthly participation, children have the opportunity to receive food, education, job training, life skills, and spiritual guidance.
CrossRoads Nazarene Church currently sponsors 37 different children around the world. It is our sincere belief that we can triple our overall sponsorship.
The LINKS program of the Church of the Nazarene is a network of personal connections between missionaries and Nazarenes around the world. Missionaries are assigned to districts and then connected to local churches. This provides the opportunity to become personally acquainted with a missionary family and their field of service. Typically, churches send packages, cash gifts, cards, and other remembrances to their LINKS missionaries.
In return, you are involved with the world mission enterprise of the church through regular correspondence from the missionaries, updates from their field, and even through deputation services while the missionaries are on furlough. The missionaries are encouraged, knowing people care and pray for them.
The LINKS missionaries assiged to CrossRoads are Michael and Julie Shalley who are presently in Namibia, Africa. To view their online bio, click here.
MEDICAL MISSION
The vision of Medical Missions is to go into the world and help local pastors and missionaries form relationships and bridges to their community. Medicine is used as the key to pave the way. CrossRoads has served in areas such as Armenia, Ukraine, and Guatemala.
Medical Missions would like some new healthcare providers to join the teams, including MD, DO, NP, PA, Dentists, Nurses, and Pharmacists. However, any one interested in participating is welcome to join and spread the Gospel through medicine.
We live in a day of great opportunity! As the Church of the Nazarene reaches out around the world, our missionaries are being challenged to be able to meet the many needs around them. Volunteers are responding from every age group and career background with a variety of skills, gifts, and talents to help meet those needs. There were 452 Mission Corps volunteers in 2007.
Mission Corps provides the training, equipping, and preparation for volunteer missionary services across the globe. If you would like to be involved in a volunteer missionary ministry, Mission Corps empowers individuals to serve where God is calling.
The Church of the Nazarene’s Work and witness teams go to every region of the world and partner with local churches in construction projects, technical needs, evangelism and compassionate ministries. In 2007 over 10,000 people, in 651 teams, were mobilized through Work and Witness around the world at an average 13 teams per week, donating more than 337 years of labor.
In the last decade, CrossRoads has participated in adult and teen trips to Australia, Armenia, Tanzania and Mexico and here in the U.S. including Chicago, New York City, North Little Rock, and Los Angeles as well as multiple projects locally and throughout the state. Our current international partnerships are with the country of Armenia and the city of Tapachula, Mexico.
The mission of the International Church of the Nazarene extends to all humanity, all being created in the image of God, having ultimate value. It is our mission to love and value people as they are loved and valued by God, who seeks to bring them peace, justice, and salvation from sin through Christ. It is our mission to have compassion upon and to care for those in need. It is our mission to oppose social systems and policies that devalue or disempower people.
It is with a spirit of hope and optimism that we engage our God-given mission in the world. It is more than an expression of human concern or human effort. Our mission is a response to God's call. It is our participation with God in the Kingdom mission of reconciliation. It is the Church's faithful witness to and expression of the love of God in the world in evangelism, compassion, and justice. It is our faith in the ability of God's grace to transform the lives of people broken by sin and to restore them in His own image.
The Church of the Nazarene ministers in 151 world areas.
More than 770 missionaries were deployed from 34 world areas in 2007.
World Mission Broadcast ministers via radio, television, and Internet, reaches the unreached in 73 countries, 30 languages, with 94 programs and 7,012 broadcasts.
Literature projects were completed in 36 languages in 2007, with projects in process in an additional 57 languages.
Nazarene Compassionate Ministries supports 10,205 children in 79 countries through Child Development .
The total amount raised for World Evangelism Fund in 2007 was approximately $48.5 million—135 districts globally paid or overpaid their accepted World Evangelism Fund allocation.
As of April 15, 2007, the Church of the Nazarene through the JESUS film ministry, made contact with more than 47 million people; 17.6 percent (8.3 million) accepted Christ; and 32.1 percent of the new converts were involved in follow-up (discipleship). Because of the JESUS film ministry, more than 15,000 mission churches have been started and more than 14,200 new pastors are in training.
The Border Initiative, a ministry partnership between the World Mission and USA/Canada Mission/Evangelism departments, has a team of missionaries in place who are developing and implementing strategies to promote growth and development of the Church of the Nazarene on both sides of the Mexico/United States border.
The Church of the Nazarene has 175 compassionate ministries centers in the United States and Canada to help care for underprivileged and hurting people!
There has been 372 Bible Schools and School Buildings established, as well as 36 Hospitals and Clinics, since 1949.
