What follows is a report from Ryszard Paciocha, our ministry associate in Poland.

It was a really good year. We started 20 new groups in different churches in Poland. In 11 of them the “Insight Group” was a part of the Coffee House training. Six of them are still ongoing.

Now we have three curriculums available in Polish: Insight Group, Free to Grow and Concerned Persons another one – Completely Free is already translated into Polish and now we are correcting the text. We would like to print it in January or February. What we had to do this year was also printing second edition of the Insight Group and we just finished it! We have another 1000 copies of the curriculum which appeared very useful here in Polish church. The picture - guys from our Coffee House with a new copy of the second edition of Insight Group.

Response to Living Free Everyday

Each week we receive many testimonies from people facing life's problems. Here is one recent response to the Living Free Every Day® devotions that are sent out each weekday.

Thank you for all of these meaningful and helpful messages. I admit that I am now experiencing "emotional loss" that it seems I am dead and that I'm useless, may be because of not having a job. I feel so down.

Excerpt from the Scott County, Kentucky Lifeline Connection Newsletter

Our Church Partnership Program is underway. Dennis McDonald, from Scott County Lifeline Connection and a trainer with Living Free, conducted a Living Free Seminar at Trinity Assembly of God. Trinity has formed their leadership team and is coming up on their 4th week of their first Insight Group. The Insight Group is a step in the process of training facilitators for their Living Free ministry but word has gotten out and others have registered for the group from outside the church as well.

Teen Challenge and Living Free have been associated in ministry since 1988 when Dr. Jimmy Ray Lee launched Living Free under the name of Turning Point Ministries. Prior to this, Jimmy founded Teen Challenge centers in Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee. He also served on the national board of Teen Challenge for a number of years. The bond between the ministries is strengthened further because many Teen Challenge associates have helped develop Living Free materials and have served on the Living Free faculty and Board of Directors.

Many Teen Challenge programs use Living Free groups to supplement the core Teen Challenge curriculum. The Living Free groups give the students a structured environment to encourage one another, talk about their lives and choices, care-front delusion in each other, discuss the Bible, and listen to what God is saying to them. Groups that are especially useful for Teen Challenge students include those dealing with addictions, overcoming disappointments and failures, conflict resolution, family violence, eating disorders, and sexual purity.

Some Teen Challenge centers use the groups as a community outreach by helping churches establish small groups to minister to inmates and to provide help for people who cannot enter a residential facility. These outreach ministries are known by the name Lifeline Connection. These groups build goodwill in the community, create safe places where graduates can find ongoing help, and provide referrals to Teen Challenge residential ministries.

Clayton Arp, director of Lifeline Connection, is training Dennis Raines whose main focus will be to bring the ministry to the Native American population. This is a huge opportunity.

Dennis is an ideal candidate. He is a graduate of Teen Challenge so he has experience in dealing with and overcoming life-controlling problems in his own life. He is sure that God has called him to this ministry. Since his parents taught school to the Navajo, Apache, and Yupik tribes, he has first-hand knowledge of the culture. He has experienced the joys and trials of ministry and has proven himself his serving with YWAM (Youth with a Mission).

Clayton says,

I, as well, believe that Lifeline Connection could be a tremendous tool to help the Native Americans. Beth and I were able to facilitate Living Free training for a Baptist pastor at the Cheyenne reservation in Lame Deer, Montana, a couple of years ago. The need is overwhelming!

Many doors have opened for Living Free and Lifeline Connection this past year, and we are thankful for every opportunity. If you are interested in knowing more, please call us at 800.879.4770 or go to our contact page on the Living Free website.

Leftovers Again? Yuk! I hate leftovers! Are you serving your family leftovers? Not last night’s leftovers from dinner, but another kind of leftovers.

Do you put on your best in the morning when you go out the door? Entering the public arena, you look your best, behave your best, and treat even the stranger at the supermarket with utmost kindness and courtesy. Coming home, bone tired and frazzled, you find your patience thinning by the minute and your temper flaring by the second. Suddenly you hear yourself screaming, “Johnny, stop that! Johnny, put that away NOW! I said NOWWWW!” Saving the best for others and serving leftovers to those we love. This happens more often than I’d like to admit.

What can I do?

This week we spent time with Sandy Rees, considering what steps we should take in order to help churches reach even greater numbers of struggling people with the Good News that they can enter a new life in Christ. People today are under enormous stress from job loss, family breakdowns, strained relationships, and self-destructive lifestyles. The need is so great, and people are never more willing to commit their lives to Christ than when they are at the end of their own resources.

There has never been a better time to reach out to those around you. They are more likely to seek help now, and the Living Free curriculum can equip you to guide them to a life-transforming relationship with Christ.

If you are new to our website or haven't visited the Living Free store in a while, there is a new feature that can help you when you are considering a curriculum purchase. Please notice the flipbooks, which are available for all Turning Point published materials. Each flipbook contains a complete curriculum that you may preview.

To access the flipbooks, click on the product details for any curriculum that interests you. On the product details page you will notice below the title the phrase "Flip through This Curriculum." Just click on that link and it will take you to the title page for your curriculum of choice. This link will allow you to view the complete curriculum page by page. An example of a flipbook for the Insight Group Facilitator's Guide can be accessed directly by clicking here.

We hope that you will enjoy this new feature of our online store.

2010 came with great excitement as a new area of Living Free (LF) ministry opened in the Middle East. In seven days three distinct ethnic and language groups were equipped to offer LF small groups.

On January 15-16, 2010, in East Jerusalem, Dr. Jimmy Lee and Dan Strickland presented the first ever Arabic language LF training. Pastor Jack Sara of the Palestinian Alliance church was a gracious host and the people of the church received the trainers and the seminar warmly.

The following two days the team moved to the seaside town of Netanya to train a Russian-speaking congregation and workers in rehabilitation ministries. At the invitation of Pastor Lev Guler, the team used Russian versions of the LF video training and workbooks to introduce Living Free. Over 1.5 million Russians of Jewish descent have moved to Israel, so there is an urgent need for the Russian-language materials there.

A new curriculum from Living Free will soon be available. Where Is the Image of God in You?, written by Brad Rymer, a marriage and family counselor, seeks to show how some of the different character traits we have can be used in constructive rather than destructive ways in our lives and relationships. Participants will learn to operate more and more in the image of God according to the way they were created. This study can also help people better understand others as they build godly relationships.