Time with LOTS of Friends

Dear Friends,

                   It’s been a busy January and February, but in very good ways. I’d love to tell you a little about all the friends we’ve been getting to see.

Leaders from the 2nd camp

The first opportunity to see a lot of friends was at our Leader training camps for Central America which took place in Nicaragua in mid-January.  Thanks for your prayers—those camps were a huge success.  We had over 400 leaders there (!) over the course of our two camps, many from Nicaragua, but also others from Panama, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. I’ve been thinking recently about a discussion with a good friend talking about our focus in Young Life of equipping leaders. He said: “If you focus on building Young Life into a bigger ministry, you will hurt your leaders and likely fail.  But if you build up leaders in Christ, you will build YL.”  There is a LOT of wisdom in that phrase.

One of my senior leaders classes

           The reality is we do want to see Young Life grow….our vision in the next few years is ‘doble-doble’--- helping the ministry in Latin America to double in the number of kids its impacting and then double again!  We’re excited about this because we feel it’s God’s call AND because it means more kids coming to know Christ and having their lives transformed.   That growth will be great, as long as we pursue it in the right way---- and that means helping equip and train leaders who are Christ centered and who love working with teens.  If we can do that successfully, our ministry to teens will grow in a big way.

       Nicaragua was a great step in building up our leaders.  We had classes that focused on spiritual growth and on working with teenagers. Some of the potential leaders taking classes are relatively new Christians and some of the leaders have years of experience, but all really benefitted from the time together. Most of all we focused on Jesus and his call to us, and it was wonderful to hear during and after how much this resonated with so many of the leaders—they heard Jesus during this time calling them to go deeper—both with him and with teens who need to know him, and that’s a real joy to be part of.  Thanks so much for your prayers for this time and for these leaders who are living this out. 

 Jenn and I also were privileged to be with a lot more friends at Young Life’s Staff conference in late January—and it’s never a bad thing to be in Orlando in January J.   The conference is actually called a Celebration—and we felt it was that. Celebrating what God has been doing with YL both in the US and internationally, seeing friends from around the world we don’t get to see enough, and learning from some great speakers and presenters--- all while having a lot of fun.  Doing all that and then having a lot of family come down to join us for vacation time afterwards made for a very special time. We felt really blessed, encouraged and energized by it all.

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Jack and Caroline got time with friends too

One very interesting thing that came out of this time was some discussions about Jenn’s role in the ministry. As many of you know, Jenn was heavily involved in YL in the Dominican Republic while teaching—hosting club in our house, mentoring a group of teens and connecting with the Vida Joven leaders.  The last few years though she’s been very busy as a Mom and my traveling job has limited the amount of connection she really gets to have with Young Life in Latin America.  As we talked more about this in Orlando, it became very clear that she really wants to and feels a need to get more involved and that we have a real need for her!  So Jenn is going to be more involved as a key volunteer helping support our female leaders in Latin America—focusing especially the American women living cross-culturally as missionaries since she connects so readily with their situation and loves to care for them.  She doesn’t like to call this a pastoral role (forgive me dear J)  but that’s really what she’ll be doing with a small group of about 10 women (all while continuing to care for our kids, lead youth group, be an all around great wife, etc! Yeah--She’s pretty amazing).  This feels very God-led and exciting for us both.

      So we feel really blessed by the friends we’ve been able to spend time with and are privileged to work with. Thanks for helping us invest in these leaders.

       Prayer Requests:  (some real big ones, please pray this week!)

·         Jenn’s Mom and surgery:   One real negative about our time in Florida. Jenn’s mom, Debbie, was caring for our kids and going to meet us in Florida for the vacation, but went to the hospital the same day we left for the conference and couldn’t come down afterwards. She has what seems to be a benign tumor in her liver that is causing some real problems with blood loss and other complications. She’s having a pretty major surgery this week and we’d really appreciate your prayers for her.

·         Alberto:  We asked you in January to pray for Alberto Saenz, our National Director in Peru, who’s wife Giuovanna passed away in January. Alberto and I talked last week—he’s still really hurting and really seeking God as he works through the loss and tries to care for his two young boys. The rest of the team in Peru has really stepped up to give Alberto the time off and support that he needs. Please continue to pray for Alberto, Fabio and Angel.

·         On-line class:  February kicked off our biggest on-line training class ever for YL international. We have over 140 leaders in 14 countries in Latin America taking a course on proclaiming the gospel. It’s a class we’ve set up that is theology, YL training and club and camp talk practice all in one. It’ll be running all year long and we’re hoping it’ll be a great training tool for our leaders.

·         Colombia:  At the end of this month I’ll be taking a trip to Colombia. There are two real goals on this trip. One is to get to know two leaders from Cuba who will be visiting YL and considering starting YL in their country.  This is a really exciting goal, so please be praying for the training they’ll be receiving. The other is to visit our growing ministry in Colombia and encourage our team there that I’ve been able to get to know well over the past 3 years.  

Thanks so much for your encouragement and prayers, we really appreciate your help.

In Christ,

           Scott