The ultimate goal of what we do here in Crystal Lake is to make disciples who make disciples. Global and local outreach opportunities are an important part of our mission at EFCCL, which is to transform people to impact their world through Christ. Our desire is to bring glory to God by reaching the world with the gospel…

Short-Term Missions Trips

This year, we have sent or will be sending teams on several short-term missions trips, ministering to and sharing the gospel message with people in Honduras, Hungary and Canada. These places are near to our hearts, and we return regularly to invest in the lives of the people we meet there and to build and share in
a community with them.

Budapest, Hungary

Outreach English Camp | July 4-13
We partner with local churches and schools to provide an English VBS-type of experience. These are day camps, so the teams have time in the evenings to relax, visit, plan, or tour. Workers must be at least 18 years of age, but students 14-17 are allowed if one or more parents joins them.
Cost $2,300 (depending on airfare) | Contact Nina Lowe

Honduras - El Ayudante, Lo De Reina, Comayagua

Serve with El Ayudante | June 28 or 29 - July 5

We are in need of teachers, medical personnel, tradesmen, students and others with a willingness to serve. Skills of those attending will determine mission activities. Trips have included: VBS, construction of latrines and home water filters, concrete floors, medical/dental/optometric clinics, and evangelism.
Cost $2,000 | Click here for more information on El Ayudante | Contact Nina Lowe

British Columbia, Canada

Red Soul Rising Youth Camp | July 2025
This annual short term mission trip is open to all current 11th - 12th graders and older. We are also looking for adults with the following skills to join us: cooking, working projects, craft people, and adults who love to hang out with kids.
Cost $1,200 (depending on airfare) | Contact Ron Kirkeeng

Global Outreach Focus Areas

We partner with missionaries and send our own missions teams to minister to four main people groups:
First Nations people in the U.S. and Canada, and those living in Hungary, and Honduras.

First Nations (U.S. and Canada)

We reach out to those who are forgotten in our country. First Nations people have great needs to know God and receive compassion and love to rise above the pain they have endured.

Hungary

We are investing spiritually in the lives of people in Hungary. Many from our church family have visited—including pastors, students, lay people. Cassidy Baker and Samantha Gatz represent EFCCL on the Budapest City Team. Cassidy directs the Montazs Arts Cafe and Sam serves in English Outreach Ministries in the educational realm.

Magnificent church buildings occupy places of prominence all throughout the city of Budapest. The central location of church buildings in the major squares of the city is reminiscent of an era in which the institution of the church played a significant role in the life of the city, regularly exerting its influence over many aspects of daily life. But times have changed, and the Budapest of today bears the scars of a godless, communist past while ushering in the reality of a post-Christian present.

While church buildings still remain at the physical centers of the city, the church in its traditional and historical forms and expressions seems to have lost its effectiveness. At the same time, however, Hungarians are eager to experience Christian community, expressed in a way that has relevance for their lives.

The ReachBudapest Team has a city-reaching strategy based upon the desire to see individual neighborhoods transformed by the gospel as believers season and enlighten society by expressing the gospel in both word and deed. We long to see disciples making disciples, and meeting together regularly in reproducing communities.

According to the Operation World Fact Book, only 2.8% of Hungarians have responded to the true message of the gospel: salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Statistically this means that in the metropolitan area of Budapest, it is probable that there are fewer than 85,000 believers. It is plausible that there are people living in Budapest who have never met a new-born Christian. What's more, it is likely that there are fewer than 300 transformational churches in the city – just one place of vibrant gospel proclamation for every 10,000 residents. These are the stark realities about a city in desperate need of the gospel.

There are vast sectors of Budapest which are without a presence of the gospel. Some of those sectors are geographic: locations without a gospel-proclaiming transformational church. Other sectors are demographic or affinity-based: categories of people defined by socio-economic, educational, or vocational factors, that are unreached by the gospel.

Our teammates are presently ministering and working with established church and church planting efforts in two geographic areas of the city (11th and 3rd districts), and two affinity areas (art and education). As God allows and brings us additional laborers, we desire to establish a future ministry presence in two additional geographic areas of the city (12th and 8th districts) and two affinity areas (Muslim and Roma people groups).

We're asking God to bring us new teammates who will publicly live out their Christian faith in the space God has prepared for them on the cultural highways of Hungarian society, so that disciples would be made and churches multiplied across the beautiful city of Budapest.

Honduras

We have been sending medical and construction teams to Honduras for more than 20 years. There is a great need there, but we have seen God working in mighty ways! We currently partner with El Ayudante.

Discipleship and Evangelism Training

Learning to be a disciple—a follower of Jesus—is at the heart of everything we do at EFCCL. We want to be a community of disciples who make disciples, so we offer several training opportunities throughout the year to focus on:

A relationship with God through prayer that is personal and dependent.
A relationship with God through Scripture that is vital and growing.
A relationship with one another that is connected and loving.
A relationship with the church that is expressed through serving and giving.
A relationship with the world that engages neighbors and nations.

We would love to talk with you more about what discipleship means, what you can do to get involved right now, and to let you know about upcoming training opportunities. Contact Pastor Tim Bruns for further information.

SALUTE

SALUTE ministry focuses on providing support for the military and their families. We want to honor and serve those who defended our country by prayer and recognition.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SALUTE