Faithful Yesterday, Today, and Forever

It's crucial in each of our lives and ministries to spend time each year remembering and reflecting on God's faithful provision. Matthew 7:11 comes to mind, "If you then, who are evil (sinful), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" Periodically, our program staff write out their reflections or anecdotes about their work. Inevitably, one can see God's Spirit moving and His faithfulness of His people revealed.

At the beginning of August, Pete Blodgett, our youth pastor, wrote a few words of reflection of our summer youth programming.

(Flashback)It is 8:55 a.m. on a Monday in June. In a couple of minutes, the doors will open and our Summer Blast day camp will begin. The time for planning is over and there is some nervousness in the air. The summer staff and I have spent weeks in training and preparation for this day, but it's hard to know what to expect. We've registered quite a few kids and passed out hundreds of flyers. But no one really knows how many kids will show ip. We've planned all the events of the day, but no one really knows how they will do.

Fortunately, we know that God was in control and had already planned out our summer for us. We had over 30 kids on the first day and eventually grew to meet our capacity of 50 during our five weeks. Our planning paid off as our stations of games, academic tutoring, drama, and crafts flowed real well. The kids always looked forward to our weekly field trips, despite a few transportation struggles. Our Bible times were effective; over half the kids were new to Sunshine and most were unchurched. As strong foundation of the Gospel was clearly given and built on throughout the summer. In fact, during the week-long residential camp, eleven of our kids accepted Christ as their Savior!

Many of these kids will be involved in our tutoring program this fall, and we hope to involved them all in our discipleship activities.




Please pray that we will be able to follow up with all these kids throughout the year.