I love Youth Street!

Hey everyone!

Wow, what an amazing month it has been! So, I have been getting more familiar with my responsibilities on the Youth ministries team. In a nutshell, I am in charge of preparing weekly school programs, leading a small discipleship group called Vetamorphis, leading a Bible study for the Youth Street crew every Saturday, working and researching grants available to help support Youth Street, entering new crew (what we call our youth) information (like emergency contact info, etc) into our database, and lots of other stuff that I can't think of right now. lol

It is quite interesting how they run public schools here in Australia. Public schools have a Christian chaplain that provides care, support, teaching, and fun for any students who are interested. We have partnered with some of these chaplains to come in to their schools and do about an hour long program each week. Currently we are consistently visiting 2 schools each week called William Ross and Town High. An average school program looks something like this:

Hangout time

icebreaker game

introduction to biblical topic of that week

discussion questions presented

Youth response

Prayer

I try to keep the teachings more like a discussion rather then me talking the entire time, just to keep the kids engaged and challenge them to think. Most of these kids are not Christians, but they are so hungry and curious to learn about God and what a relationship with Him looks like. God is really stirring there hearts in a visible way that is so exciting to watch. There was one young man who is new to the "God thing" (to put it in youthful terms lol) who's brother was very sick in the hospital with cancer I believe. This young man prayed for his brother every night and with some of our youth leaders and his brother is no longer sick or in the hospital!!! Not only did this young man (around 14-16 years old) get to experience God, but he got to share this story with his fellow peers and be a testimony of the awesomeness and goodness of God to young teens. This is just one example of the super exciting things that God is doing in the youth here in Australia.

I am preparing to take over leadership of the Youth Street sports team every Saturday as well. We do a new sports activity each week like soccer, baseball, rugby, or ultimate frisby. 2 weeks ago, we did "Ghetto Paintball" . Basically, we filled up over 200 water balloons with a homemade paint (water, flour, and food coloring) and played capture the flag where they had to tag each other by hitting them with a paintball. We took about 11 guys ages 12-16 out to a semi-dried up muddy plain to play. The 200 balloons were gone in about 10 minutes causing these creative youngsters to substitute mud for the paintballs. LOTS OF MUD, EVERYWHERE!!! lol Some of these guys were literally rolling in the mud covering themselves from head to toe. Then they decided that if they were covered in mud, the leaders should not miss out on such an honoring privilege, and chased us around throwing mud at us, smearing it in our hair, and all over our clothes. Wow, what an adventure. One of the guys on the muddy ride home said this was the best Youth Street ever, and he would never forget it.

It amazes me how much these kids love Youth Street. They put on there facebooks, Can't wait for Youth Street!!! the sunday after lol. We have been praying for more kids to come as well and God has been continually answering our prayers. We were at around 60-70 kids per week and this week we saw 87 kids come through. Our goal by the end of the year is to have 100 kids consistently each week. I have never seen God work so drastically in such young people and am so excited to see what he has in store for this next month.

Please pray that as we get more youth coming that behavioral discipline would continue as it is easier to let small things slide (that quickly turn into bigger things) with so many more crew. I would appreciate prayer for a Godly confidence as well as i am teaching and mentoring these kids. I have been feeling underqualified and not good enough for what God is calling me to but know that I am right where he wants me to be. I'd also appreciate prayers for more consistent monthly financial support. There is a youth camp coming up that I am staffing and need to see about $400 dollars come in for that. Thanks for all of your prayers and support!!!! I'd love to chat on email or skype if you would like and LOVE snail mail :). Love you all and miss you!!!

Lexi