YL Training in Latin America

Dear Friends,         Thanks for all your support and prayers for us in 2011. We’ve had a wonderful year as a family and in ministry. My job hasn’t changed as much as it might sound, but I do have a little larger role within Young Life now in helping with training for International South. My main focus and time investment is still Latin America, but I have begun to have more contact now with our leaders in Asia and Africa as well. We have a huge challenge in International South since the countries you see high-lighted above contain almost 75% of the world’s teenagers. But we also have some amazing blessings. Frederick Buechner once wrote,       "There come moments, I think, even in the midst of all our cynicism and worldliness and childishness, maybe especially then, when there is something about the saints of the earth that bowls us over a little…I mean saints who have their rough edges and their blind spots like everybody else but whose lives are transparent to something so

Dear Friends,         Happy Birthday! Just two weeks ago, Young Life officially celebrated its 70 th birthday.   In 1941 Jim Rayburn and some other folks in Texas had a great vision for how to reach out to teenagers who weren’t interested in the church and started this mission….what a wonderful thing to celebrate! They discussed how to live out Colossians 4:5 “ Walk in wisdom to them that are without ” and John 1:14 “ And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (KJV) with teenagers to help them hear the gospel with new ears and be discipled by a loving Christian. It’s how they formed their plan to reach teenagers and it’s what Young Life is still doing—going where kids are and helping them hear and experience the gospel for themselves. But, while Young Life is still very true to its roots, I like to think the mission has grown even more than Jim and his friends in Texas could originally have imagined. Camp in Colombia Jim and his friends started with the desire to reach teens

 Our camp group in Haiti       A couple weeks ago I went to Haiti to visit our Young Life leaders there and help them run camp. When I was leaving the US every headline was about the stock market crashing, how much net worth had been lost in a day, and an awful lot of doom and gloom about the economy—quite depressing stuff----- and then I entered Haiti, a place that is well beyond what our doom and gloom can even imagine. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with an unemployment rate of over 40% and over 50% of its population living on less than $1.50 per day (the definition of abject poverty); it’s also still trying to recover from a devastating earthquake, flooding, and a cholera epidemic that hit the country in 2011. As you can imagine, much of life in Haiti is focused on trying to get enough resources to just survive.   Our senior leaders in Haiti-- Noyo, Bouzy and Chedrick     Haiti can be a place that seems really bereft of hope—and yet when I

The VJ clubhouse decorated for the 4th On the 4 th of July many people (maybe you even) celebrated by spending time with family, grilling hamburgers or hot dogs, eating watermelon, watching a parade, lighting up sparklers and viewing fireworks.   That’s actually how I’ve spent a lot of Independence Days over the years.   But this year Jenn and I spent the 4 th of July doing a lot of painting, eating rice and beans in a Dominican barrio, and holding a merengue dance party….I’m not much of a dancer, but I’ve got to admit, it was a pretty good way to celebrate. J            This all happened because Jenn and I were able to go ‘home’ to the Dominican Republic for ten days with 17 teens and 3 leaders from the youth group of Brookside CRC and experience the DR with them as we worked at Pico Escondido--Young Life’s camp in the DR-- and spent several days in one of the neighborhoods where Vida Joven does ministry.   It was a very rich experience in so many ways.  Stump removal

How many campers would you put at a camp that has a capacity of 95? For most of us, that answer is pretty clearly 95 or less. But at our training camp for leaders in the Dominican Republic in March the answer was 157! It was our largest training camp ever and it meant people were sleeping in every available space-- on mattresses, sleeping pads, sleeping bags or whatever we could find. I ended up with a lovely space on our camp manager’s office floor. But it also meant a great deal of fun with a big group of potential leaders who were excited to learn and grow. The amazing thing about this is that well over half of that 157 are teenagers who accepted Christ in the last two years through Vida Joven and they’re now desiring to learn to share what they’ve come to know with their friends and classmates. This is the fruit of a lot of outreach and discipleship by our leaders in the Dominican Republic. They’ve really dedicated themselves to walking with these kids the last two years and helpi

The first flat tire isn’t a big deal—it’s the second one you need to be worried about.     A good friend once told me this Flat tire #2 while we were traveling over some extremely rough roads in Haiti. We only had one flat tire on that trip ( below average actually for those roads ), so no problem.   I hadn’t thought about that for a while until traveling in Colombia a couple weeks ago. Our bus there had a flat tire on our way to a leader’s retreat we were holding outside of Bogota.   A 2 ½ hour ride turned into 5 hours, but no real trouble, just more time to laugh, hang out at a gas station, play with some stray dogs and sleep on the bus. The second flat tire though (same bus, different tire) happened on our way back to Bogota, it shouldn’t have been too terrible except it was on a curvy mountain road…. with no shoulder.…at night….and the old tire wouldn’t budge….and I had to catch a redeye flight late that night. It’s the second one you need to be worried about.     In between

Dear Friends,    Thanks for your prayers for my trip to Peru last week. The trip was rich in many ways. We had a great regional team meeting—full of sharing, time in scripture, laughter, planning and dreaming for the future of Young Life in Latin America together. There’s always something special about being with other YL leaders and friends in the ministry and this was no different. I left that time feeling enriched and very blessed God has allowed me to be part of this team and this time of growth in Latin America. Scott with Alberto Saenz     The other part of my trip was also very rich in community. I’ve visited Peru several times in the past 3 years to work with Alberto Saenz, our national director there, and his team of leaders and I’d like to share a little of Alberto’s powerful story with you. Three years ago our ministry in Peru, which is called Algo Nuevo, was going through a very rough time.There was a real rupture between volunteer leaders, staff members and our adult

Hebrews 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith." " So, how was Nicaragua?" That question doesn't seem so hard, but Wow , is it a challenging question to answer.  I'm struggling to figure out how to sum up 11 days of great training with over 350 national leaders who are part of Vida Joven (Young Life) in Nicaragua or other Central American countries and I really can't do it justice. It truly was an amazing time of sharing, training and growing together.  Some of the leaders have been part of doing youth ministry in Nicaragua for many years.  Many others were young people who came to know the Lord through the ministry of Vida Joven there and are just taking their first steps to become leaders to others.  S