Awesome Thursday!

Yesterday was Thursday. Thursdays at the youth center are designed to be less structured – more of a free – time for those who come. One of the kids who came this week had accepted the Bible memory challenge. Now anyone who knows JR. High kids knows that given the choice between studying and playing games they will choose studying every time (who wouldn’t), but not this guy. We began talking about the Bible memory challenge and then we began memorizing together. I helped him memorize one verse, then another. Then we started working on the books of the Old Testament. We worked on Memorization for almost two hours and as he got more and more things down he got more and more excited about it! One of the other kids in the room, one who I’ve had some of the greatest challenges with since I began this ministry got jealous of how well he was doing and began memorizing as well.

God is well at work in the lives of these young men, and as frustrated as I’ve been I’m seeing him move in the lives of the kids at the youth center. Exciting times.

-Timbo

Bible Memory Challenge!

Today I placed before the kids a challenge to memorize 80 Bible verses and the books of the bible in order in 6 months. All of them are fairly basic verses for the average Sunday school kid to know – ranging from the essential gospel to the Ten Commandments with a few proverbs thrown in. I should mention that this challenge was presented to a group of kids who, until meeting me have had little to no experience handling a bible or hearing from one so when I presented them with this challenge I was not surprised that many of them laughed at the idea. But I was only looking for the few – Those few who would be excited to take it on and run with it; and I found them.

3 Kids stepped up and made a commitment to begin hiding God’s word in their hearts (Ps 119:11 – The first verse on the list!). I am so excited and cannot wait to see what to see what God has in store for these young men. They still have a long way to go and they are going to need a lot of help along the way and I am all to eager to give it to them!

Their motivation for memorizing these verses is that I will take those who complete the challenge on a trip to a high ropes adventure course in the area. (This will provide for the next step in their leadership and team building experience.) And following that I will open the youth center for them one extra time per week where I will spend time raising them up as the student leaders in the group. I am eager to see how this challenge goes and I cannot wait to see how God moves through their lives as a result.

-Timbo