Youth Group

I've been so blessed to be able to lead and be a part of this adventure in Lake Andes. Last summer my friend Mandy and I decided it would be great to create and extension of the Sunday School program in Lake Andes.
A Little Background Info:
Every sunday in Lake, two big blue vans drive around the town and the "housing" area, pick up kids, and bring them to church for a short sunday school lesson and a treat. The former leaders of this event, Orville and Adeline VandenBos, who ran the program for over 30 years, have now "retired" from it and passed it on to my friends Mandy Chaplin and David and Ruth (VandeZande) Baker . (Orville and Adeline still help out quite a bit). It is really something that has blossomed. Some weekends over 80 kids come to sunday school to heard the Word! People from many area towns are involved in helping out, teaching lessons, and coordinating the efforts. There are people from Avon, New Holland, Platte, Geddes, Menno and more...
Our Adventure:
Sunday School has been highly sucessful amongst the small kids. But we noticed there were a group of kids (mostly girls) who continued to come, but who needed something more. These girls were heading into 6th and 7th grade, and we wanted to create a ministry that would meet their needs. For me, I love little kids, but my heart and my passion are for middle and high school age kids. For me, youth is where it's at! I love digging into the marrow of the Word with these girls and seeing them get a revelation and a true understanding for the first time.
So in the fall of 2007, the Youth Group was created. It has been such a blessing! The Pickstown Community Church opened their doors and gave us a room to meet in. There we have a pool table (though we rarely use it to actually play pool), room to play games, have lessons, praise and worship, snacks and just good girl time! Since we only have the 2 of us to lead, we limited our members to girls in the 6th and 7th grade. Right now we have about 10 girls...about 8 of them come regularly. We've really had some fun. Some of the activities we've been able to do with the girls include a pizza and bowling party in Platte, a Christmas party, a lock-in, and a trip to see GO ministries in Mitchell! This Friday I am hoping to take some of the girls to see Don Piper (author of 90 minutes in heaven) in Winner, SD. It should be great!! I am so excited!
Call for more workers:
The harvest is plenty but the workers are few. I have had such a blast with just our core group of teens/pre-teens. But I feel the Lord telling us to expand! We could use some men to mentor and teach the boys. We also need more women leaders so we can keep the girl's groups small. I think next year we want to open up the youth group to anyone in grades 6-8! Pray for our adventure!!

Not only have these girls' lives been touched. I think the one getting ministered to the most is me. God is so awesome!!!