Upcoming Events

The 1/2 lock-ins are officially scheduled and coming up very soon!

Basketball Tournament for the Guys

Spa Night for the Girls

More details will be coming via e-mail.

Please pray that these events will be an effective means of reaching out to youth in our city.

Wow!

Record attendance at both youth groups this week - 19 @ Dev. and 18 @ CP.  The way God worked with both groups was amazing!

At Dev, we had to be outside b/c the carpet had just been cleaned.  As more and more youth showed up, I was expecting chaos for the study time.  It's so difficult to concentrate outside with people driving by with radios blaring and kids running around hollering to us.   Somehow they managed to settle down on the curb and sit rather quietly as Jacob shared his life with them.  He assured us, from his experience, that life is painful and people will let you down, but God loves us and wants to be the One who brings satisfaction and joy in our lives.  Jacob shared honestly from his struggles and clearly explained the hope God offers us in Jesus Christ.

Scott and I had decided that even a group of 12 was pushing the limits for the discussion format we've adopted and planned to evaluate tonight whether we needed to split into 2 groups.  A very diverse group of 18 showed up and it still went really well.  The CP Youth Night is now called Search for Truth.  Tonight we read about Pilate and stated as a group that we truly want to know "what is truth" unlike Pilate's careless question.  We will continue on that pursuit.  We also announced the Guys and Girls 1/2 Lock-Ins coming up in the next few weeks.  That news was received with excitement!  A Basketball Tournament for the Guys and a Spa Night for the Girls are on the agenda.

Did I mention that we were missing at least 5 regular youth from each group???

helpful info

¡¡¡I am excited that I just learned how to set up the international keyboard on my computer!!!

Typing the accent marks for español no longer gives me a headache.

I found the instructions here: http://www.studyspanish.com/accents/typing.htm#winXP

Thank You, Lord!

I was a bit apprehensive knowing I was going to be the only adult at CP youth tonight while Scott is on vacation. Just recently we've been talking about splitting the group b/c it's getting so large, so I was expecting a rather chaotic night and prayed for strength and patience. The Lord was so gracious! It was one of those evenings that sent me walking out with a smile on my face and thinking, "God, I love these kids! Thank you for placing me here!"

We talked about dreams. Today Jess taught 2 Spanish words for dreams; sueños are in your sleep and ambiciones are goals or ambitions. That was helpful for clarification since Spanish is the first language of 6 of the 10 youth who were there tonight and some were stuck on the "let me tell you about the crazy dream I had last night" idea. I asked them to share some of their dreams and one boy said, "To get to Heaven, if there is a Heaven." Immediately, one of the girls said, "I know I'm going to Heaven!" So I prompted her to continue, "And how do you know that?" So she shared, "Because that night we went for ice cream, you said some things that I understood. I asked Jesus to come into my heart. So now I know that I'm going to Heaven no matter what!"

At the end of the evening I asked the group if they had anything they wanted me to be praying about this week. At the end of the sharing time, this same girl's hand shot up (she had already shared a couple of requests). When I called on her she said, "Oh, I just have something good to tell you about that book you gave me. I'm almost finished it. Every night for 15 minutes I do the homework and read my Bible." This is the girl who trusted Christ and immediately left the country for 2 months. All I had time to do was hand her a discipleship study and encourage her to go through it while she was away. AND SHE DID!!!! She wants to finish it and then we're going to get together to go over a couple pages that confused her. I told her the book was the first in a series of 7 (Design for Discipleship by Navpress) and that I would get the second book for both of us and we can do it together now that she's back. She's ready. That totally made my night!

a good night

I thought Youth Night went well tonight and then Jacob and I got to hang out with a boy who needed some extra time and attention. He is hurting and it broke my heart. I wish I could fix everything for him, but there's nothing I can do about his circumstance. We showed love and left him with a smile on his face. It may have been gone before we left the parking lot, but at least for a few moments, life was good.

Father, please help him see that only You can heal his pain and remain constant in a dark and confusing world.

It's really good to have Jacob back!