Our Youth Ministry, and a Guy named Tony...

Hey everyone, its been a while since I have given an update about our youth ministry, so here it is. Chelsea and I have been having a blast working with the youth in the Glacier View community. We have been getting very involved in the school since Christmas, which gives us a connection with the few youth that don't often come to youth group. Chelsea is the lunch lady which has given her many opportunities to connect with the students at the school. We have also started up a tutoring program one night of the week where we go to the school.

To start off the story of our tutoring opportunity I have to let you know a little about the school system in most of Alaska. I was talking with a youth pastor who I have gotten to know in Anchorage about the connection that we have with the local school. He informed me that the Anchorage School District is very closed to letting youth pastors on their campus. They are not allowed at lunches or directly connected with the school in any way. So with that information I will tell the story of our youth ministry connection with the school through the tutoring program. We had heard that there was a desire to have a tutor for one of the kids in the youth group. His parents we not able to pay for a tutor at the current time. They knew that Chelsea was a wonderful math teacher, and that she would be able to help out a lot. Seeing the current problem we didn't hesitate at all to offer the only solution we could think of... Free tutoring. We figured if we were offering it to one student that we might as well offer it to anyone who could use the help. This also would give us another opportunity to get to know the youth on a deeper level. We were just planning on having it here at church allowing any of the students that needed help to get dropped off here by the bus and we would be able to help them with their homework and studying for tests. Chelsea had mentioned this to the principle at the school to let her know that if there were any other students that could use the help that they were welcome as well. The principle then made an offer that we were never expecting. She told Chelsea that if we were willing to move the tutoring program into the school (remember the story about youth pastors in schools and the beginning) then we could call it an after school program and Chelsea would get paid for it. Now just to put this into perspective there are two things mentioned in that last sentence that very very helpful in our ministry. First, they are asking us to come into the school (normally closed to those Jesus people) and they are willing to help us with our financial situation. Of course we started the tutoring program at the school the following Monday. We have been able to meet almost every week since then with anywhere from 4 to 10 of the students in Jr. High and High School. It has been a huge blessing for us, and hopefully a help for them as well.

As for other things in our youth ministry. We have been meeting once a week for youth group on Thursday nights. Half the nights are "topic nights" and the other half are service or fun nights. We have been covering many topics from friendships, to honesty, to sex/dating, to drinking and drugs. We have also had some great fun events including a formal dinner where we transformed the basement of the church into a fancy restaurant and had some of the fathers and the pastor of the church help out at waiters. The youth loved it. The local school doesn't have a prom or other formal event so this was their chance to dress up. It was very busy, and chaotic for me, but everything went over very well. We have a retreat planned in the beginning of May which will pretty much rap up youth group for this spring. Both Chelsea and I are really enjoying the opportunity we have to serve in ministry together.

There are couple of pictures of the youth from last fall up on the youth ministry blog that can be found above under the "Our Ministries" tab above.

Spring is hear, and we have been having a few hours each day of above freezing temps. Everything is a mess as we go through the breakup season, but it is very uplifting knowing that summer is coming. I have been told that according to the Farmer's Almanack that this is going to be one of the nicest summers in a long time. I cant wait. I will be directing Ranch Camp this summer and I am looking forward to it. There are a lot of things that I have to get done for camp before summer hits, and hopefully I will be ready when the summer staff starts to arrive in about a month. Thank you all so much for praying for us as we are continuing our journey in the place that God has placed us. I will leave you with this story about a man named Tony who became a part of my life yesterday.

Our church is located on the side of the only road that goes between Palmer and Glennallen. This is also the highway that people would take if they are driving from the lower 48 (continental USA) to Anchorage. So we have a great deal of people passing through the area at any given time of the year. It was about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, and I was working through the evenings youth group schedule for last night. A guy walks into the church through the door near my office. He shouted, "YouHoo, anyone here?" So I responded. He entered into my office and quickly introduced himself as "Tony". Just to give you a picture of Tony. He was probably about 40, a little scruffy, and he drove a van similar to the mystery machine on Scooby Doo just without the crazy paint job. He seemed very hyperactive, and a little ADD. He was one of those people that are just excited about life. He told me that he was just passing by, and wanted some more details about our church. I then informed him some of the details about our church. The times of service. Some small groups that we have going on. Tony didn't really seem to care too much about what I was saying. He just blurted out that he wanted to pray for me and my ministry here. Of course I will never deny someone who wants to pray for me. We prayed together for about 2 minutes and he was out the door. Our total time together was about 5 minutes. I don't know anything about Tony. Where was he from? Where was he going? What does his life look like? I was just encouraged by the few minutes that he was in my office. I will probably never see him again, but he is/was a small part of my life. I have been thinking about Tony quite a bit since he stopped by. Someone who felt so strongly that he was supposed to stop by and pray with me. Its encouraging, interesting, and a little bit odd, but sometimes I wish I would listen to those little prods from God with a little more faith like Tony did.