Summer Updates from Jenn at YFC!

What a summer!

We took a team of 6 students and 5 leaders to Namaqualand, South Africa from July 16-31st. Words can’t describe how thankful I am for EJ and Koekoes, our lovely hosts, for welcoming us into their home. They are incredible examples of what a Jesus-follower looks like. Pray that God blesses them and their ministry as they seek to serve Him and others.

Here are some highlights from our trip!

• Running children’s programs in remote villages (seen above)

• Learning new dance moves from the students at the local school 

• Being asked to pray for the staff and students at the school

• Running into a snake while hiking (major controversy whether it was a snake or a tire, Ej and Koekoes confirmed it was a snake!)

• Spending time with youth living at the youth home

• Watching our students step out of their comfort zone by leading activities and praying for people

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It was an absolute honour to watch God shape the students on our team as He challenged them to look to Him for comfort, strength and hope. Please join me in praying for Kamieskroon, that God continues to heal, restore and unite this community.

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From August 24-30th, I was a counselor at Conestoga Bible Camp for Youth Camp. The question of the week was, “Who is your King?” I am thankful for the rich conversations with campers, maybe getting a little too competitive in water polo (oops) and reconnecting with day camp counselors I worked with in previous years. God is good!

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Looking back on the last three months, I take a lot of comfort knowing the one constant was Jesus Christ, the One who brings hope and healing to the lost and broken. What I do at Youth For Christ is not possible without you! 

Will you will help spread the good news of the Gospel by joining my support team and becoming a monthly partner? You can do so by clicking the "donate" button or contact me for more details.

Thank you for your support!

Will There Be Enough Pizza?

"They messed up the order!!!!
They gave us 8 personal sized pizzas instead of 8 larges!
How could they do that? All the others were large pizzas!
We have 150 mouths to feed and not enough pizza to do it!
Hannah! what should we do?!?!?"

That is what Anastasia cried out to me as she ran past me trying to chase after the pizza delivery guy that was long gone.
Many lessons were learned that night when 120 first year students (and 30 student leaders) at the University of Waterloo came to learn about getting involved with Power to Change. The biggest lessons were not logistical. The most important lessons were spiritual.

Lesson #1: Remember to pray
As we were figuring out what to do to feed the masses, Daynica, a student leader comes and says "Have you prayed about it yet?"
Nope.
Ashamedly, fixing the problem was my first reaction, not prayer. But at that moment we stopped and we prayed. We thanked God for all the people in the room and asked that He would feed them, knowing that the number of people surprised us, but not Him.

120 first year students interested in joining Power To Change at the University of Waterloo.

Lesson #2: God's love is not dependant on us
Anastasia was in charge of feeding the 150 people in the room that night. When she couldn't do it, it affected her greatly. It was as if, there was a great weight on her that couldn't be lifted. As we debriefed the night together, she realized that she understands that in her head that God doesn't love her because of what she does (or doesn't do), but in her heart, she is still trying to earn His love. We talked through how God shows His power through our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9) and how because of Jesus we can approach His throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).

Lesson #3: God can break our plans to make sure His plans succeed
Two teams tried to fix the problem. One team went to the campus pizza shop to buy more pizzas, the other team called the pizza shop back. Both teams came back with pizzas. So we ended up having the 8 personalized pizzas and 12 large pizzas. This was the perfect amount of pizza for the first year students in the room. Without the order being messed up, there would not have been enough pizza for everyone in the room!

Pray that these 150 students would be lifelong disciples of Jesus who follows the one who will care for their every need - even if it's 2 slices of pizza.

NOTE: 8 of the large pizzas were delivered during the prayer for the food...and Anastasia let out a sigh of relief.

Thank you for all your support in helping students discover Jesus

Praise Items & Financial Needs at CBC

Praise -

1. We had a great summer. It was a fantastic program summer - lake held out all summer and we had decent weather! Registration was down a bit in all 3 sessions, so our prayer is a full camp next summer.

2. We also will have a new Program Director next summer with Katie Morden (Shark Bait) moving on and Owen Holbrook (Velcro) stepping up as the next PD! Change is not always easy, especially with the love we have for SharkBait, but we are excited to see Velcro step further into leadership and what is to come!!

Needs: Financial and other

1. As always we try and renew an area each winter. This winter we are hoping to refresh the 'smelly' basement at the manor. We have also had some unexpected repairs on the Kubota tractor and the lawn tractors always need some TLC after a heavy summer. Estimated needs for these repairs are $6,000-12,000

2. We have some water system repairs and updates to do. The residences need some TLC before winter, and the 'cottage' will need to be prepared for more use next spring. We estimate another $4,000 in maintenance needs.

3. We have added Julia Ruegg as our Kitchen Manager for the 2019-2020 year. With changing provincial regulations for kitchens and camps, we can no longer continue the 'way it always was' and have had to make some tough decisions regarding importance. To continue forward, we need to make these changes, and it strains the budget when something occurs that was unexpected January 1st, but necessary by June 30th! This is an exciting change and challenge!

4. Ongoing septic planning and site planning.

Annual Celebration Dinner is Nov17 at 6pm at Linwood Community Centre. More info to come, but mark your calendars and plan to be there!! it is a great night to celebrate the past season, learn about developments at camp, and prepare for the season ahead! Food is great, and it is a wonderful way to connect to the CBC community!

Fall 2019 Newsletter

Thank you so much to everyone for another amazing summer! Day Camp and Youth Camp 2019 was a blast! The summer went very well, and we had awesome weather too. Our camps were pretty much right full again and we thank you so much for that! We are already starting to plan for next year, but first lets remember the summer a little bit.

Looking Back

Closing Program Videos

If you want to see a little bit of what happened this summer at camp. or you want to remember your session, you can re watch the closing program videos below! We ask that you don't post these anywhere, but they are there for you to enjoy.

Looking Ahead

New Program Director

As part of starting to prepare for next summer, we have hired our next Program Director! We want to say a huge thank you to Katie Morden (aka Shark Bait) for her years of service and for all her work. We are excited to announce that Owen Holbrook (Velcro) will be coming on as the next Program Director.

Celebration Dinner

Stay tuned for more info coming soon on the fall Celebration Dinner. This is a great time to come together for a meal, hear about this past summer, as well as where camp is headed in the future and our progress on new and exciting adventures. We would love to see you all there!

Update from the Espinozas

Dear praying friends,

“In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” Ephesians 3:12

How incredible that we can approach God freely and with the confidence that He will gladly listen to our requests! We have seen Him delight in answering our prayers and helping us with our plans these last few months.

During Becky Ortega’s time in Canada she has found a number of new sponsors for our school which is a big answer to prayer. More sponsors means more people who are praying for and involved in our student’s lives and it means a lessening of the financial strain at the school.

At the end of July our church along with a couple other churches joined together for 3 days of family camp at the beach. It was beautiful to see families from all walks of life spend time together and get to know other families who desire to follow God’s way of life. Two Canadian families came down to join us. One family had 4 youth age kids and one family had 3 young boys in elementary. The kids joined in all the events and we loved seeing how kids could communicate across language barriers. Turns out play is a common language! Love is also a common language that needs no words and we saw that communicated again and again at camp. J After our time there one of our families from the Bastion church said that their 7 year old boy (who they normally have to coax to come to church) kept asking how many days left until Sunday because he couldn’t wait to see people again.

A few days after the Canadian families left, an American group of teachers arrived to spend a week at the school. They spent time observing our teachers at work and then gave ideas of how to teach Math in more interactive ways. Professional training days at our school are few and far between, so we were very grateful for that time.

Since then, life has been full of normal school work and youth. We continue enjoying working with our youth and the youth leaders have really been a blessing this year. They are pulling a lot of weight and are taking initiative in directing where the youth group should be headed. This type of teamwork is such a blessing, especially compared to other years!

We are deeply grateful to be able to continue working in this capacity thanks to your prayers and support,

Jessenia and Raúl

Family Camp

Family Camp

Youth Scavenger Hunt