Lloyd & Marie Tsuruda have a passion for children’s evangelism. They have traveled to over seventy nations in their quest to reach children for Jesus and to train children’s leaders. They believe that the 4/14 Window (children between the ages of 4 and 14) is the most neglected mission field in the world.
Statistics on the Children’s Mission Field:
Problem: (statistics)
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Today, there are more than 2.2 billion children on Earth. Nearly two billion of these live in a developing country. (https://www.humanium.org/en/children-world/)
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National Association of Evangelicals discovered from one of their surveys that 63% of Christians accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior between the ages of 4 and 14-years-old. Other surveys say as high as 80%. (https://www.mapglobal.org/blog/2018/4/15/what-is-the-4-14-window)
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“The Great Commission applies to children as well as to adults. Children, more than any other people group, are receptive to the gospel. Nearly half of the population of every country within the 10/40 Window is also in the 4/14 Window. Where the churches are growing, most of the new converts are under the age of 18. Children are both objectives of, and resources for, Mission in the non-Western world.” (https://www.lausanne.org/about/blog/children-and-the-gospel)
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The 4/14 Window refers to the demographic group ages 4 to 14, which is the most open and receptive group to spiritual and developmental input. God is calling us to a new missional focus: the 4/14 Window, the golden age of opportunity to transform the world. God is also calling us to radically change the way we view children and to respond to their strategic importance and rightful place in His kingdom. This often-ignored and suffering people group can be transformed into a precious window of opportunity. The 4/14 Window Movement is a Global Mission Movement focusing on Reaching, Rescuing, Rooting, and Releasing children and youth (0-18 years old) to reach their full transformational impact in their family, community, and nation. (https://luisbushpapers.com/414window)
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The Devil’s target on children: VULNERABLE:
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Sex Trafficking
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Child Abusers/Domestic Violence
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Child Labor Slavery
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Runaways
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Orphans
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Poverty: Lack of access to food, clean water, clothes, education, and the GOSPEL
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Gangs, drugs, criminals
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Evil Government Regimes brainwashing
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Only 1% of missions money goes to the unreached, yet 86% of the unreached live in the 10/40 window. 87% of missionaries work in the portion of the globe with churched populations. The average Western missionary spends only 3% of his time involved in direct evangelism. The average American Christian gives only 1 penny a day to global missions. (https://www.aboutmissions.org/statistics.html
Website: https://fofgm.com/home
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Lloyd & Marie Tsuruda have a passion for children’s evangelism. They’ve traveled to over 70 nations in their quest to reach children for Jesus and to train children’s leaders. They believe that the four 14 window children ages four to 14 is the most neglected mission field in the world.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:22):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:56):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. We have very special guests with us, Mr. Lloyd and Marie through to sir Ruda. And they are children’s ministers. Children’s evangelists and love telling children about Jesus. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast. Thank you. It’s
Lloyd Tsuruda (01:20):
Great to be here With you. So tell me a little bit about yourselves and how you got started doing children’s ministry.
Marie Tsuruda (01:29):
Well, I’d have to go back to when I was a child, because as a child, I knew that God was calling me to missions, but my children’s pastor gave me an opportunity to minister, to kids. And then when I got into the youth ministry, my youth pastor gave me an opportunity to be the children’s intern. And so just getting started with backyard Bible clubs, with teaching children’s church, as a teenager with going on mission trips as a teenager, doing a children’s television program for kids as a, as a teenager myself. So I encourage anybody go ahead and let those kids let those teenagers be a part of the children’s ministry, because God wants to use this generation to reach themselves.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
And you have traveled to many nations around the world. Where are some of the places that you’ve been,
Marie Tsuruda (02:12):
We’ve been in 79 nations, every continent. So haven’t hit a Santa Claus yet on the north pole, but we’re working on that one for later. So a lot of variety, a lot of different people around the world, but our focus is on the children’s ministry orphans the unreached
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:28):
And I saw on your website, you’ve now reached over a million children for Jesus, 79 different nations. What a tremendous blessing that is. And you really believe in reaching this four to 14 window. A lot of people have heard of the 10 40 window, which is the area in the world that has the most unreached people groups. But talk to me about this four to 14 window and why it’s so important to reach people in that window. Well,
Lloyd Tsuruda (02:56):
I think it’s so important because you know, there’s a lot places that that are watched by the government and police, but you know, kids in that four 14 window can go everywhere and share the gospel sort of like in stealth mode, they’re not watching them. And you know what for example, in America, I’ll just say this, I can approach children because at the park or anything like that, they’d say, well, there’s an old man here and he’s trying to, who is he? Why is he talking to my kid? But you know, kids, once they’re taught how to share the gospel, they can share with all of them. And, and like Maria said we’ve always said that we can reach a generation and we need to, but it’s time. The Lord is saying that we teach a generation to reach itself.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:42):
And so the four to 14 window is this age group, between the ages of four to the age of 14, I was looking at your website. You’ve got some really interesting statistics. There is it. Let me read one of these to you. And then you guys can comment on it. Today there’s more than 2.2 billion children on earth, nearly 2 billion of these live in a developing nation. So talk to me about that. Why is it important to reach these kids?
Marie Tsuruda (04:09):
These kids are the ones that Jesus said, let the little children come to me, 85% of people who are going to be born again. Usually do so before the age of 15. So if we’re going to reach children are the, that low-hanging fruit and we can influence a whole family will begin to come to church if we can get the children to be interested. So it’s so vital to us that we reach them while they’re their hardest Tinder. And so, especially in those developing countries where there’s so much need, they need food, they need water, they need clothes. But the number one thing they need is the gospel. And so many times we go into churches or orphanages or schools that are supposedly Christian, but they’ve never presented the gospel. They’ve never led those children to Christ, which is also true in churches right here in America. So that’s, our passion is sharing the gospel with kids all over the,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:54):
And you often do children’s crusades. So paint a picture for me. Imagine that you’re in Africa and you’re, you’re doing a children’s crusade. What’s that going to look like?
Marie Tsuruda (05:06):
Well we met doing a children’s ministry for inner city kids in America. And so we take some of those same kind of high energy things with clowns and puppets and drama and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:18):
Who dresses up at because of the clown. Do you dress up like a clown or you you’re the clown?
Marie Tsuruda (05:21):
We have three kids. They have now become the clowns. So we have a built-in drama team. They’re now a growing up. So we might have to start doing clowns again.
Lloyd Tsuruda (05:30):
You know what, having such a large group of kids, and they’re so easy just to preach a simple story or a gospel and watching hundreds and thousands of to receive Christ just in a matter of a few minutes. And not only that, but having the holy ghost fall on them and, and you know, them speaking in tongues and having God’s presence there and the power of God and the miracles and the healings and things like that. That’s what Jesus wants. He wants to, for him to be real to them.
Marie Tsuruda (06:07):
I was just going to add at the end of that, we always are teaching them to lay hands on the sick and teaching them to lead their families, to Christ, to lead their neighbors or school mates to Jesus as well, because it doesn’t just start with them. It’s a full circle that we believe in there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:20):
Yeah. I actually got started in ministry ministering to children. I would dress up as a clown. My parents were missionaries to Mexico and we found that clowns were a great way to attract kids to come to the church. And to this day, I still love doing children’s ministry. So I’m an evangelist. I preached a big crowds of people, but sometimes if it’s children, I’ll still dress up as a client. In fact, this past Sunday I was in Malawi and I was invited to preach Sunday morning at St. Michael’s and all the angels Presbyterian churches, the first church planted in Malawi. And they’re very formal. Everyone in attendance was in a three-piece suit, wearing a suit and tie. You know, I dressed up with a suit and tie in order to preach to them. And we had some of these elite from society that gave their lives to Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:10):
And then Sunday afternoon, we had a children’s festival and I dressed up like a clown and put on a funny nose and a bow tie. And we did juggling for the kids at the children’s festival. So morning suit and tie afternoon clown suit and funny wig. But Paul says you become all things to all people so that some might be saved. And so we are fishers of men and you use what attracts people, so that if you’re trying to reach children, you have to use bait that will attract them. And if it takes a funny looking hair, funny looking wig, in order to attract kids, then go for it in order to preach the gospel to them.
Marie Tsuruda (07:53):
I so agree with that. And you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about that. There is the component of entertainment, but then there’s the component of education that we’ve done in, in Sunday schools and a great way of teaching the Bible stories to kids. And we’ve had lights and sounds and puppets and drama, but it comes down to this and encounter with the holy spirit. These kids need the gospel translated into their language. And I don’t just mean the language that they speak, but I mean, the language of fun, the language of encounter with the holy spirit, in a way they can understand taking the gospel instead of big words and making it into words they can understand. And then when they walk away, they know they have encountered Jesus. There’s just a presence of God. If I can just tell you one story about that.
Marie Tsuruda (08:33):
We were in an orphanage in a a closed country in Asia and these children were actually children of the martyrs. Their parents had been killed for sharing the gospel. And so there’s a hundred or so of them at this camp that we were doing for the kids that week. And so I love doing, you know, all of the exciting things that we just talked about, but then there was a time where we just had prayer. We just had the kids, they were soaking in the presence. God seeing visions, hearing words from the Lord three or four hours at a time, listening to the voice of God. And then we went out from that place, which I don’t know how many of your kids are in that presence, but that’s what they need. That’s what they need at home. That’s what they need in church anyway.
Marie Tsuruda (09:08):
But these kids went out to witness. And when they went out with us in the streets, again, it’s illegal. They know their parents have died for it, but they are bold and they do not have any fear. So I just, after having trained them, how to minister, to people stood back and listened to my interpreter, save what was going on. This one little boy was about eight years old, nine years old. And he began to have a word of knowledge for this lady that we knocked on her door. And he said, you have a tumor in your stomach. And I looked at my translator, like, I hope he’s accurate. You know, and sure enough, she said, I do. He laid his hands upon her, the tumor instantly disappeared. And when that happened, he began to share the gospel with her. She got born again. She got filled with the holy spirit, began speaking in tongues. The woman is, is telling her testimony that she has had a husband that was a believer for years, but she had never believed in 40 years. He tried to get her to convert to Christianity. But in this moment she said, I see that Jesus is the real one. And so now their whole family is part of that church. That, that orphanage is a part of. And it’s just an amazing testimony. When you start seeing kids that will share the gospel in their cities and seeing the transformation of activating kids into the ministry.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:14):
Amen. Now you were just sharing with me right before the podcast about why Jesus hasn’t come back yet. Can you explain to me why a God revealed to you? W w the timing of Jesus coming back? Okay.
Lloyd Tsuruda (10:33):
So I was a little exasperated three years ago, and I asked the Lord a simple question. I said, why haven’t you returned? And he said, James, five, seven. And I was amazed because he answered me right away. And I thought, okay I’ve heard that scripture. So what does that mean?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:51):
So tell me what the scripture says. It says
Lloyd Tsuruda (10:54):
The husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth waiting for the early in the latter rain. So I said, okay, well, what’s special about that. I’ve heard it. And he said, who do you think the precious fruit are? And the Lord said to me, the precious fruit, our children, and then the question came, do you think that the Lord could return and leave the children behind for the rapture? And I said, no Lord. And he said, reach the children.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:23):
What a tremendous reminder to us that it’s so important to, to reach children for Jesus. What encouragement would you give to people who are looking for a ministry? They want to be involved in evangelism, encourage them to, to start looking at ministering to the children and what a fruitful mission field that is. Yeah.
Lloyd Tsuruda (11:45):
I want to take that one. So, you know, I would say I’m a business person and I would present a case to someone I’d okay. There’s a, B and C. If, if we’re a business and we want to get as many people converted as possible. If a, if a, if an a, you get 85% of the people saved. If B you get 10% and a five and a C is 5%, which group are you going to go for? I’d say a, because 85% of people get saved there. And you know what age group that is four to 14. So why, why do we skip that group when we can totally change the complexion of any country by getting the children’s?
Marie Tsuruda (12:29):
Yeah. I’ll tell you two quick stories on that. When even last Friday night right here in Orlando, I think it was actually, maybe a couple of Friday nights ago. We went out with another little girl. She was witnessing with our team and she let 18 people to Jesus on the streets on a Friday night. That’s the little girl, a team of a whole bunch of evangelists probably led that many to Jesus themselves. And so children are effective evangelists. And other story, when we were in another country, our son was a little boy, and he was witnessing over to some kids in a playground with a little visual aid that we use called an Avanza cube. And he had his translator telling the gospel story. Meanwhile, I was over on the street corner and somebody was getting healed from being paralyzed. And of course, when that happens, I do an altar call.
Marie Tsuruda (13:11):
Doesn’t matter if it’s against the law. Well, of course I was getting in trouble. The police came over to me. Why are you gathering a crowd? I was about to go to jail. Meanwhile, our son was leading just as many people over there on the playground to Jesus, totally ignored. And so I’m telling you activating kids into the ministry, getting involved, getting your kids involved in the ministry is vital. And so why serve in children’s ministry? Because that’s where evangelism can be birthed and grown. Because if you don’t get them started young, then they’re going to be pew sitters for the rest of their lives.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:42):
Yeah, I believe it’s better to prepare than it is to repair. It’s better to go fishing for your son today than to go F go fishing with your son today, then go fishing for him tomorrow. It’s way easier to shape a, a sapling that has just been planted. Then a big growing tree. You know, it takes a miracle to, to shape it, a tree that that’s already big and growing. I mean, if you can imagine trying to, to bend a branch and make it straight, but if you take a little sapling and drive a stake into the ground next to it, you can make that sapling grow up straight and tall in the stake that we drive in next to our children, to help them grow up straight is the word of God. And so the more that we can do to reach children, I think the more we can build the kingdom of God.
Lloyd Tsuruda (14:41):
Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:42):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. It’s really wonderful to get to know you. And I love what you’re doing to reach the children of the world. And we
Lloyd Tsuruda (14:51):
Love what you’re doing to all the time partners in the harvest state.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:56):
Amen. Bless you. Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today, our ministry is supported by people like you, who help us go to the nations to preach the gospel. Our goal is every soul. It only costs us an average of about $1 for every person. We’re able to tell about Jesus. And so could you do me a favor, go to my website, king ministries.com and become a partner with us for as little as $1 a month. You can start to partner with king ministries and help us lead at least one person to Jesus every single month. Imagine for $1, you can start a party in heaven every single month. So right now, go to king ministries.com and partner with us and help us to preach the gospel to those who need to hear the gospel. The most, the least reach people in the world. Also, I’d like to ask you to go to apple podcasts and give the evangelism podcast a five star review. Your positive review will help other people find this podcast who are excited about evangelism. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (16:16):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
