Monday, August 14th, 2006, I will be heading overseas to Tanzania for a short-term missions trip. The focus of the trip is teaching and building relationships for future ministry opportunities. I will be teaching a seminar called "The High Impact Church" which focuses on basic principles for a church to be engaged in their community with high impact in all spheres of community influence. As you know, this is my heart - community transformation.

Another aspect of the trip will be building relationships for impact of Covenant Community Services, Inc. on a worldwide basis. One of our value statements is to be a relevant ministry in Bakersfield, Kern County, throughout the United States and throughout the world. This trip will further our reach as we partner together to have impact and create ministry models in Africa.

Lastly, I am going to follow the dreams the Lord has placed in my heart for the children and families of Africa. It was long ago that God birthed in the deepest part of me a desire to go to Africa. Soon I will land and the dream will be real. I will play with children on dirty soccer fields and engage pastors to "engage their communities" with the love of Christ! Thanks for being a partner in this endeavor and please pray for great results.

Scott and Celle Stevenson became foster parents with Covenant Foster Care last year and have four teenage foster boys in their Northwest Bakersfield home. The following story is a brief excerpt from the original story published in the Bakersfield Californian's Northwest Voice. We are proud of all of our foster families. They are the heroes of children and our ministry. Enjoy this article written by a Californian staff member.

By the time he was 6 years old, Scott Stevenson was forced by his father to smoke marijuana as a way to entertain his parent and friends. Stevenson’s childhood was filled with tragedy. His parents divorced when he was about 2 and his father, a Vietnam veteran with postwar stress disorder, had retained custody of him, but life was not easy for the boy who was born in Oklahoma and raised in busy Reno, Nev. “My father abused me all the time. He whipped me with a belt, whipped me with a weapon, with extension cords...,” Stevenson recalled. At a certain point, child protective services stepped in and took Stevenson away from his father. But not everything changed for the better.

Some foster care parents also physically abused him, and he ended up bouncing back and forth from foster group homes and his father’s custody, Stevenson said. Running away became Stevenson’s only escape until he found a Christian couple, who cared for him and helped him overcome adversity and focus on life’s opportunities.

The staff, Board of Directors, and Development Committee of Covenant Community Services, Inc. have revised the vision and mission statements of the organization to assist with focus and success. The new vision and mission read:

Covenant Vision We envision a future where every foster child lives in emotional, physical, relational and spiritual wholeness thereby ending the cycle of abuse and neglect in our community. Covenant Mission Improving the lives of foster children and their families

In addition to our changes in mission and vision our services and supports have become more focused to insure effectiveness and efficiency in serving our target population ... foster children and their families. As such, Covenant is focusing efforts in three major areas including therapeutic foster care, mentoring of foster children and foster youth, and family preservation services to assist families that are getting back together (reunification) and to help families from entering the system (preservation).