Impossible

Soooo...I really just wanted to spend some time and update you guys on what God is doing in my youth group and my life! And believe me is He doing some amazing things!

I started off my summer with a youth group full of guys and I was a wee bit, okay really majorly, freaked out! But boy has it been fun getting to know these guys and just all about their lives here in the middle of nowhere South Georgia. I have definitely learned a lot, and while they haven't successfully taught me how to skateboard, God has been teaching me great things through them. I must admit I was a little disappointed when I hadn't seen any girls about two weeks in. My thinking was that I would come in and be this awesome college girl that was helping for the summer and all of the girls that used to come to the church would be running back and want to do things with the youth group again. WRONG. Like I said, two weeks into my summer and I still hadn't seen but the three or four boys that consistently came. I was getting discouraged and couldn't understand why things weren't happening, but then God spoke through a guest preacher that we had at the church. He preached on doing the IMPOSSIBLE for God. The first step of doing that is surrendering, completely, whole-heartedly, totally, without a doubt, entirely to doing what God's called you regardless of whether or not you think it's possible. It was what I needed to hear and I felt like he was talking directly to me. A week after I began praying for God to do the impossible in this youth group, girls started showing up. It was amazing and it was all God. Now the girls are coming pretty regularly and I've gotten the chance to share my testimony with them and to spend a little time getting to know them better as well. And I don't think that bringing girls into the youth group was all that God has planned for the summer so I'm excited to see how things develop as we continue to do more activities with the youth.

The church does a lot of work with some of the rehab facilities in the area. The town I'm in is running rampant with drug and alcohol addiction. The statistics are just astounding and heartbreaking. A lot of the youth in my youth group are affected by it and most of the people in the church were not raised in church but rather started as new believers after overcoming certain addictions. Each Thursday night, the church does a program called Celebrate Recovery. It's a wonderful program for anyone who has hurts, habits, or hang-ups. The worship is amazing but the chance to serve others who aren't served that often is what warms my heart. Since I've been attending, there has been one lady who has made a profession of faith during this program!!!!! I can not put enough exclamation marks at the end of that sentence. The excitement that night was unbelievable!!!!!! There was a girl from the same facility who came to church with her a few Sundays later who also accepted Christ!!!!!!! (again not enough exclamation marks)

The next set of amazing events occurred during VBS. We had around 40 kids a night and for this tiny town of only 600, I feel like that's a pretty big deal. We had several more youth come in just to help out with VBS. A lot of times they got stuck with me in games which gave me a chance to get to know them and let them know about all of the amazing things God was doing already and all of the fun activities we had planned for the rest of the summer. But beyond having a wonderful turn out and a chance to meet new youth, we had three boys give their lives to Christ!!!!!!!! (exclamation marks) Four of the five people who have come to know Jesus will be baptized this coming Sunday!!!!!!!!!!

God is truly doing some amazing things this summer, not only in the youth group that I am working with but with the church as a whole. I have truly been blessed to be a part of this church that is just pouring out Christ's love daily to the people who need it the most. I am unbelievably excited to see what God has in store for the next few weeks! I know there is still a lot of IMPOSSIBLE to be done!