On Thursday 3rd August 2023, a promotional meeting was held over lunch for church youth leaders and pastors at the Church of God Holiness to highlight the mission and work of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in Anguilla and the region.
CEF is an interdenominational organization that systematically spearheads the mission of spreading the gospel primarily to children and youth of the region and reaching them with the message of salvation through a spiritual new birth in Jesus Christ. CEF was introduced to Anguilla in 2013 by its local Director, Mrs. Florita Kentish, who had formerly worked with the organization in Antigua for many years.
Guest Speaker at the promotional event was Former Pastor and Child Evangelism Fellowship Regional Director for North America and the Caribbean, “son of the soil”, Pastor Beltane Harrigan.
In providing a brief history of CEF, he said: “Child Evangelism Fellowship was founded in 1937 by Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, native of California. Growing up in a religious family, Jesse at the age of 12 was convicted of his own sin and sought counsel from his mother. His mother told him that he was too young to accept Christ.
It wasn’t until Overholtzer was in college that he heard the Gospel and trusted Christ as his Savior. Later, as a pastor, Mr. Overholtzer read one of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons which stated, ‘A child of five, if properly instructed can as truly believe and be regenerated as an adult.’ The Lord used this statement in Mr. Overholtzer’s life to lead him to begin the ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship when he was 60 years old.”
“That man became so burdened for reaching children,” Pastor Harrigan said, “that today Child Evangelism Fellowship is the greatest ministry in the world that reaches children for Christ on a systematic basis. Pastor Overholtzer had the desire to exclusively reach children with the gospel message of Jesus.”
“The CEF ministry has grown so much, that presently it is [in] almost every nation of the world,” Pastor Harrigan stated.
He said that in order to properly serve the nations of the world, the CEF organization, with its headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri, has divided the world into eight regions of which North America and the Caribbean are one division. This region consists of the United States and Canada along with 27 nations in the Caribbean.
In promoting the work of the Ministry in the Caribbean, Pastor Harrigan said: “We are going to be adding some more to this 27, because I want to see some of the smaller islands like Saba and St. Eustatius having a CEF chapter. Our purpose is geared towards evangelizing every single child within our reach. But apart from evangelizing children with the message of salvation, we want to disciple them for Jesus Christ through the word of God.”
The Pastor gave some very impressive statistics of children who are being constantly saved around the world through the Ministry of CEF.
One prominent child outreach evangelist who pioneered the CEF ministry in her church is school teacher, Mrs. Tracelyn Hamilton. She is Child Evangelism Coordinator at her church. “As I sat and listened to Pastor Harrigan,” she noted, “I thought about Sister Florita who was instrumental in bringing Child Evangelism Fellowship to Anguilla.”
“When she came to the Vivien Vanterpool Primary School when I was principle, she effectively introduced CEF to us there,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “That is where I was challenged and called to get involved in the evangelism of children. I was then able to introduce Child Evangelism Fellowship as a Ministry in my church where my pastor gladly embraced it.”
All of the pastors and youth leaders present were inspired by Pastor Harrigan’s presentation and together they felt the urge for child evangelism. They all agreed that there is a need to evangelize children while they are young.
