CYIA Committee Starting in Western Wisconsin

As a matter fact, they've already had two meetings!

I'm tremendously excited about this opportunity to get Christian Youth in Action® peeps involved in decisions for this area. It gives them the chance to exercise leadership with their peers, disciple other teens, plan and take part in recruitment for CYIA, plan get-togethers for fellowship and find ways to encourage their fellow workers in ministry.

It also makes my job much easier, hearing what they want to see in the future for ministry opportunities and get-togethers. This is how I know we're on the same page in our aims for Western Wisconsin's CYIA.

My new catchprase?

Next month I'm heading down to CEF headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri, to start some support-raising training!

But before I can do that, I need a new catchphrase uh, vision statement, in 20 words or less.

Three weeks of fair - over 300 kids!

Good News Club house sign shows the fun inside!

We had a variety of weather... cold
 and soaking wet to sweltering

Face painting (we were given some new
high quality paints by a woman at one of the fairs,
which was a blessing; it looks fantastic)

The Wordless Book Gospel story with the "magic bag"

Fair at night (post-rain)

Story in progress: please wait!

What we've been up to the last two weeks!

Here's a few testimonies from your friendly neighborhood Christian Youth in Action!

Building Our Lives on Jesus: Our first two weeks of club are over, and boy did we have some funny kids! One teacher asked for a review question, "What did...

There'll be stories like these all summer long!

Building Our Lives on Jesus: The Western Wisconsin blog

Here's the link to the Western Wisconsin team blog... we're starting it up again this year.

Building Our Lives on Jesus: The Western Wisconsin team: 2013: This year, eleven teens from our area will attend training camp in June and teach 5-day clubs throughout the summer! ...

Sooo... What DID CYIA look like this year?

Let's see if my brain has processed the two weeks of camp yet!

     There certainly were all kinds of adventures. There was serious car trouble when missionaries started heading out to 5-day clubs the second week. Then on our way home, two of our area missionaries got in a car accident that could have killed them, but they only suffered some bruises and sore muscles. The paramedics must've had an interesting night, because the two missionaries found the situation very funny and couldn't stop making jokes about it. God must have surrounded them with more than airbags in that car -- the front was completely smashed in.

So... we got back on Friday night...
that is Friday, June 22nd... and at least one summer missionary I know slept until 5:00 Saturday night. That's how tiring camp is, I guess.
It was intense.

So intense that...people had to write things down.

     The summer missionaries I worked with were mostly in the missionary class, meaning it was their first year and they would not be learning how to teach a Bible lesson. They would, however, learn everything else. :) Their requirements included presenting to their instructors all five missionary stories and segments, presenting the Wordless Book twice, presenting counseling for salvation, teaching a Bible memory verse, a 5-day club song, and a prayer teaching.

It was a lot of work!

Even more things written down.

     Our team of 9 young ladies was epic.

Their personalities are on all points of the... what shall I call it -- the personality spectrum. One of the girls has attended 5-day clubs as a kid for years, and she was passionate about learning how to share the Gospel -- not just for the summer, but in school too. She worked super hard, and finished her requirements with excellence!
     Another missionary had a harder time focusing. She's a people-person who likes to shake things up... not a good personality for finishing a task on time. But when she came back from her first 5-day club during our second week of training, she was excited to be actually reaching kids with the gospel of Christ. Her heart was touched by what God was doing in the lives of her students.
     These two missionaries are both first year students. But another of the girls, a 14-year-old second-year student, blew the rest of us away with her focus and hard work. Her skill at keeping things focused when others were pulling away was incredible to see. She is good at getting people engaged in the task at hand, and keeps things interesting so they remain focused. She's one of our four Bible teachers this year (meaning she had to present all five Bible lessons and at least a couple of the missionary stories, plus all the requirements of a missionary class student). Whew! What dedication.
It was an encouragement.

     So many new friendships were forged, and old ties from last year were strengthened. One of my friends, who started teaching about the same time I did, came back this summer -- she skipped last year, and we really missed her. She's gotten engaged in the interval (!!!), so of course we had to talk about that. I also got to counsel a cabin of girls who were leaving after the first week of camp -- meaning I lost my cabin halfway through training! -- and they were all super-friendly, uber-talkative people. No drama, no cattiness. Just new friendships and unity in our common goal. What a blessed year.

It was  S O  M U C H  F U N.

What will CYIA look like this year?

This year, nine young people from Western Wisconsin will be training to reach kids with the Gospel. They'll be training with two team leaders, who have taught 5-day clubs for years and are now willing to share what they know with the younger teens. 

Here's a few things that these summer missionaries will learn this summer...

At the risk of being over-obvious...

They'll learn how to teach! And not just during the two-week training. One missionary said last year, “we were having difficulties teaching [at club] because of the large variety of ages and there were 36 kids. So we split the club, and it worked.” Another teen said she learned that God “can empower me to teach 25 kids just as well as 2.”

“I am excited to learn this year,” says another returning student from La Crosse, “and to review my lessons from last year.” She adds, “Watching those kids [last year] understand and accept the gift God has given was so cool.”

Some Good Reasons

  After you've done something once, the odds of you doing it again usually increase... even when you have a bad experience!

  My first year of Christian Youth in Action® (CYIA™) was not the best -- when people asked me, I said I doubted I'd be back for a second year. However, God had other plans. :)

  Some of our summer missionaries this year have questioned their own motives, and struggled to find God's voice in the tumult of everyday life. But from what I've heard them say, they all have excellent reasons for coming back this summer...

CYIA Winter Retreat!

This weekend a group of us came together for a Christian Youth in Action winter retreat. It was a time of refreshment and fun for everyone who came, though I think our visitors from down south felt it was a little chilly (and it was)!

Ready for lunch! And what a delicious lunch, too.

Conversations with CYIA-ers

            This week I had a wonderful conversation with one of my Christian Youth in Action friends, who is looking forward to her second year of training. This young lady can’t wait to learn how to teach a Bible lesson, although she has taught a couple in a Good News Club already—and quite well, I might add! She’ll also be joining the teens and adults for Good News Across America in the future, to “blitz” cities with 5-day clubs. She said she’s never done anything like that before, going away from her family for such a long missions trip! 

         Another of the CYIA teens I talked to recently is thinking of attending TCE (Teaching Children Effectively) class this year. 

Western Wisconsin, here I come! -- Oh wait. I'm already here!

I've just come on staff with Child Evangelism Fellowship.

This is crazy exciting!!

Keeping up with Testimonies

Unless you, dear reader, know a hardcore CEF/CYIA participant (and I happen to know several - what a coincidence), you may not have heard testimonies recently of the great work God is doing through CEF in the Midwest region!

My coworker's comment when I told him what I was doing was "wow, I haven't heard of CEF in a long time. Are they still around?"

I think Child Evangelism PR needs a reboot, maybe. But you didn't hear that from me.

Hopefully you (dear reader) know all about what CEF has been doing in Western Wisconsin over the past few years. But just in case you haven't, I've compiled a list of links to check out for testimonies, news, and some all-around fantastic pictures of teens and kids and grown-ups serving the Lord.
Check them out!

* Testimonies from Western Wisconsin hosts, parents, teachers, etc.
* A photo gallery of CYIA 2010 
* Quotes from children (what this blog is really about!)
* For old photos (I mean like ancient, ancient, 2008-2009 photos), see here and here

Check out the stories. Are you excited? :)

Exciting Stuff!

265 children were reached during the La Crosse Interstate Fair with 85 professing faith in Jesus Christ. Exciting?? Yes!

One more exciting thing: they were reached by teenagers from Western Wisconsin!

When you put those two things together, you may see what I see...

Teen Mentorship

A study by the Barna Group indicated that 6% of teens listed “pastors or other religious leaders they know personally” as their top role models, while 6% listed “entertainers (including musicians and actors)” - an interesting similarity in statistics.
But even with parents excluded from the role model survey (they had been the top response at first), a "close relation" to the teen came out at the top (37%).

Unfortunately, as the president of the Barna Group pointed out, "teens rarely identified spiritual mentors" in the survey.
 

Well. A new opportunity and call has presented itself this spring.

Over the past three summers, I've been training and teaching with Child Evangelism Fellowship to spread the gospel to kids in western Wisconsin. This year I won’t be training to teach kids… I’ll be helping train their teachers!