Whew! We finished another youth emphasis week! It was rough to pull this one off because of all the other activities that were going on during the week. We hardly had any time to prepare for it. Overall, it was a great week, though. I just hope to have more time to do it next time.
Yesterday, we went to the middle school in Atizapán. We walked into a classroom of 40 middle school students (12-15) with no idea of how they would respond to us. I am so proud of the seminary students. One of them told me before we walked in that they were nervous, but you could never tell it by their actions.
(Click here to view a slideshow from the activity)
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Last Friday, I wrote an email to our prayer partners to ask that they pray for the youth ministry students as they go to a public middle school to minister. Unfortunately, that event was postponed. We didn’t go on Friday. That’s why you haven’t heard anything about it.
However, today, we will be going to the school (at 3 pm our time). If you pray, please pray for us as we minister to these middle school students, beginning what I hope will be a great relationship with them and the school administration.
Today, I led chapel along with the youth ministry students for the first day of youth emphasis week. We did a Bible study on the life of Joseph, which included an object lesson with tiles, a hammer, glue, and other things.
Basically, we talked about problems that young people have in their lives (losing a loved one, divorce of their parents, discrimination, etc). Each person had a tile on which they wrote problems that young people could have. Then we took a hammer and broke the tiles, talking about how problems in our lives can break us. We then took the pieces and made mosaics out of them, talking about how God takes our broken lives and makes something beautiful out of them.
I think it’s worth mentioning that the pieces still remain, even though God constructs something beautiful out of them. I am in no way saying that our hurts and problems will always be ironed out and that we will live perfect lives. What I am saying is that God wants to transform the horrible things that happen to us into something good, and that we as the church need to come alongside broken people to help them during their crisis. Then, we can see the beauty of God’s restoration and healing, and we will be doing what God calls the church to do.
Click here to see a slideshow of the mosaics each group made.
