About Us
(Who We Are)
Child Evangelism Fellowship was founded in 1937 by Rev. J. Irvin Overholtzer, a man with a God-given vision for boys and girls in need of the Savior. Today his vision lives on.
CEF® is a Bible-centered, worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize children with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.
CEF wants to reach the children with the Gospel. Our concern in seeking to evangelize them is that "not one of these little ones should perish."
Child Evangelism Fellowship Cares About...
Discipling Children
Children must be established (discipled) in their Christian lives through the Word of God. They need to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Establishing children in Bible-believing churches
Evangelized children need to be in the local church where they can continue growing on a regular basis. In this way, CEF serves the church and assists in the goal of church growth.
Involving other Christians in ministry to children
CEF's greatest need is for those who will see the fields which are "ripe for harvest" and become involved in this outreach to children of the world.
Our Vision
Every Child. Every Nation. Every Day.
”How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”
Many children don’t have someone in their home, their school, or even their entire community to answer their questions about God.
CEF® San Gabriel Valley is here to help bring the Good News to the next generation.
By the Grace of God, as believers, we endeavor ...
- To reach each child with the Gospel when God has made him/her the most open provides the greatest opportunity to see his whole life changed
- To equip the church to reach beyond their building and to fulfill the Great Commission
- To evangelize and disciple children to prepare them to reach their peers and to spend a lifetime of serving the Lord
- To develop programs and materials that clearly share the Gospel, lead each child to trust in Christ, teach victory over sin, and give each child hope now and throughout his life
The changed life of a child can impact a family, a school, a community, a city, a nation.
Our volunteers at CEF® San Gabriel Valley have a vision and a commitment to using our God-given gifts to open the door to impacting a nation.
“One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” -Psalm 145:4
We evangelize children. We disciple them in the Word of God. We establish them in a local church to help them grow. Every day we practice a strategy that works ...Training … Equipping … Supporting ... to reach children. Because we must not let a generation grow up never having heard the Good News.
That’s our vision, our burden to take the Gospel to every child, every nation, every day; one child at a time. What will you do to help them hear?
Our Story
The following is from Denise Agron from a phone conversation in December 2018 with Kathy Coffman, a former volunteer in the Foothill Chapter of CEF in the late 1960’s. Kathy used to teach a Good News Club and attended the trainings in Arcadia that were led by Wayne Leitch.
Wayne taught the GNC teachers how to make very detailed lesson visuals to help make the stories come alive for the children. When Phyllis Roberts, (Kathy Coffman’s mother) started teaching GNC and she used to say to her daughter, “You know, Kathleen, you never know what God’s doing in these little hearts and minds, whether they are serious….” But Kathy’s mom would run into those kids years later, at weddings and funerals, after they were all grown up, and they would tell her about the impact she had had on them when they were children. There were three leaders at the time Kathy began training with CEF at the Live Oak location: Wayne Leitch, Dorothy Walsh, and Ginger Foskett. They spear-headed all of the ministries, including the Fair, the teacher training classes, the drawing classes for the flannelgraph backgrounds, etc. For the flannelgraph art classes they set up tables, lights, paints, cardboards to mount the flannelgraph scenes on, etc. Wayne Leitch was an amazing man—he had a creative, artistic mind. He went in-depth to visualize the lessons; for example, he would cut little pieces out of the cardboard to make flames, cut out and put light in the background. Very detailed! The way he told the stories made the stories come alive—along with the art. Dorothy and Ginger were always helping Wayne but then stepped up even more after Wayne passed away, doing the training and even the art classes and the Fair. Kathy was in the teacher training for about a year after Dorothy Walsh took over.
Note: Wayne Leitch—b. May 15, 1892 in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin; d. Sept. 15, 1979 in Temple City, California. He died at age 87.