The school year is officially underway! This is my absolute favorite time of year! I love everything from the changing colors to football season but I especially love all of the "New" that comes with a new school year. While this school year looks different than ever before, Brittany and I are excited about what God is doing in churches all over the state and right here in Youth Alive!
A couple of updates:
- Recent graduate and current Youth Pastors at Albany Neighborhood Church, Grant & Chryssi Hawker celebrated their marriage! What a great time to celebrate all that the Lord's done and will continue to do through these young Pastors!
- Our returning students are stepping into new roles as full fledged interns at their respective churches... Alexis is the Associate Youth Intern at Relevant Life Church in Salem (where we attend!) and Sarah has taken on the Children's Pastor Intern role at New Life Church in Springfield. Both of these young ladies are being mentored and challenged by the entire Pastoral staff at their new home churches. We are beyond grateful for the investment from these churches to pour into these young ladies' lives and future ministries.
- New students, Kaity and Adonai have officially joined Albany Hope Church. as part of their Job Shadow experience. Both of them have done well integrating into the various aspects of ministry at a large church and are both being stretched to think and serve differently.
- The Youth Alive Oregon Coast Forum took place in September. This was an opportunity for youth and children's leaders from all over the state to dream and pray together about how to relevantly and successfully minister in post-Covid world.
- It hasn't been an easy month for our ministry students; Starting classes at Northwest University Oregon, stepping into ministry roles, weekly OYAMA meetings for coaching, teachings and leadership development on top of balancing regular work hours, families and personal growth has been tough for the students but God has been in it all and is revealing things to each of our students. There's been a theme of what it looks like to be men and women of Godly integrity that has permeated the first month of our time together. Praise God!
Some things we're looking forward to:
- Do to the Covid restrictions, ministry events have been few and far between but we are preparing for some smaller but no less impactful events to be a part of in the coming weeks.
- The Lord is opening opportunities for Brittany and I to share all about what the Lord's doing through Youth Alive as we have many services we'll be speaking at over the next month and a half!
- More and more guest speakers speaking at OYAMA! We are blessed with a Network of Ministers who genuinely care about the next generation and are passionate about seeing people fulfill the call God has on them!
I seriously can't say thank you enough to all those who support the ministry of Oregon Youth Alive and especially us at OYAMA! Your prayers and financial support allows us to continue putting out quality leaders and blessing the communities of Oregon. Brittany and I NEED your continued prayers. Please pray for fresh vision for our students, pray for wisdom and discernment in leading this ministry, pray that the Lord would continue to speak to and through us as we encourage the Church all over Oregon.
As always, you can join the team at https://giving.ag.org Type in 282345 as the ministry code.
God Bless!
