For those that attended our banquet, thank you! It was an incredible night celebrating what has already happened in Kentwood Younglife and dreaming about the future. If you were unable to attend, this is what I shared at the banquet:
For the past two months I went back and forth on what I was going to share with you all tonight. I kept thinking, "Oh, that would be a good idea!" Then I would have another idea, and another. It got to the point that I had what felt like 10 different directions I liked. Then I did what I should have done to begin with; I asked God what I should talk about. And he made it very clear to me: "Jake, wait until after you go to Fall Weekend."
Last weekend, I had the privilege to go up to Timberwolf Lake with 12 high school friends and 5 leaders. It was an incredible weekend. We had 7 kids that had never been to camp on the trip. Add to that another couple of leaders that had never experienced this little slice of heaven before. One of the boys on the trip asked, “Who built this place?” I responded half jokingly, “God did.” He matter-a-factly agreed. As we continued to play Frisbee Golf and laugh and call each other by our new nicknames, I couldn’t help but think about the Lord’s face shining upon us.
On Saturday night after our camp speaker Joe delivered a beautiful message on the grace of Jesus coming to bring us back to the Father, we headed to cabin time to debrief and dig a little deeper into the message. It was then that 4 kids decided to give their life to Christ for the very first time! Following up with one of the boys that said yes to Jesus, I asked him what was going on in his heart? He responded with, “I finally feel like I belong.” This is absolutely a story that we need to celebrate. But I want to take us back about 4 weeks before camp.
Us leaders get together every Monday night at 6:15 to eat dinner together, pray for each other, pray for the kids, go over club, etc. It’s a great time of fellowship. One day though, we had one of our Young Life friends Paul come a little early (picture below). (I should add that I asked Paul if I could share this story with his name, he said yes.) He had walked over early thinking it started at 6:30 not 7:37. Yes you heard me right, 7:37. It sticks better than 7:30. Not as well as I thought though. Anyway, Paul ends up joining us for dinner and our discussion about the book we are reading, One at a Time by Kyle Idleman. As we are talking about the book, one of our leaders, Alec, was filling Paul in on what the book was about. Alec even gave him his book to read a little bit. After our club on Monday Nights we head over to Steak N’ Shake to hang. It’s like the fellowship time after church but with much better food and drinks and generally less awkward. Then after Steak N Shake leaders end up driving kids all around Kentwood and Grand Rapids home. Because we have so many freshman and a good portion of kids that have parents working at night, we end up driving a fair share of kids home, which is why Annika and I changed our car search to a van - we needed the extra room! Shout-out to Jeanna Watson for helping us get connected to our brand new 2002 Honda Odyssey van. That is not a typo, 2002. The car can legally drink in just over a month. My wife ended up taking a few kids home, including Paul. She started asking him questions and when she got close to his house asked him if needed a ride to club next week. He said, “Yes”. She followed up with asking, "Do you want to join us for dinner again? He said “Yes, I want to come when the teachers (aka leaders) come."
Over the next few weeks as we drove our new high school friend Paul home, we kept connecting with him. And one day we asked him the big question… We asked him if he wanted to come to camp? Which Paul emphatically said, “yes.” Now in this case, getting him signed up for camp was going to be a little harder because there was a language barrier with his dad, but we were determined to not let anything get in the way of him coming to camp! I dropped him off after club the Monday before camp and talked with his Dad and introduced myself and let him know what Young Life was all about. His Dad said he would think about it. After a few days of communicating with Pauls dad, not being sure if he was going to be able to join us at camp, we finally got his sign-up sheet!! Now we know the end of the story. He ends up giving his life to Christ and he has found community through Young Life! But there was a lot of work to get us there. It started with a leader making sure that he was seen and heard at the table. That is the power of Young Life.
But the story doesn’t end there. Obviously our relationship with Paul is just going to continue to grow. But I want to now get back to what I think is the most important thing that I want people to hear tonight. Kentwood Young Life will always be about the one. When I look back at our cabin, we had 13 of us guys in the cabin, and there were 14 beds. We had room for one more. We drove 3 cars up to camp. Each car had room for one more. We have a lot to celebrate as Kentwood Young Life. The past few months we have seen our club start with 4 kids and climb up to 19 one day. We had a combined club with Grand Rapids City and we had over 40 people in here for club, it was awesome! But we are just scratching the surface of what God wants to accomplish through Kentwood Young Life. We have so many more kids that need to be invited to the table to hear about what Jesus has done for them and for us. The harvest is plentiful.
For those of you that have generously given to me and the ministry I get to be a part of through Young Life, thank you! I hope that this gives you a glimpse into what we are doing, where we are going, and the stories that God is writing through the ministry.
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