Field Day 2014

 God has been bringing so many young people across our path, so many that are searching. God clearly laid a youth ministry on our hearts several months ago. With Grupo VIPs, the age group we are focusing on is 15-25. They are becoming independent of their family, ready to make their own decisions about life... ones that will affect the rest of it. What a great time to meet Jesus! We love seeing God work in their lives and seeing them form friendships with others who want to serve the Lord. Youth ministry can be addicting!

  Josh and Jared were with us for 3 weeks. This was both of their second times coming down. Josh feels like God is leading him into full time missions possibly in Petén and Jared is Becca's brother. Becca just finished her Masters and is raising funds to start a deaf school in Petén. Jared wants to help his sister on the non profit end from the States. So, that was a quick summary. They came down with plans to help our youth group as their main focus. Among helping out with our youth services each week, their big outreach was a field day. They planned it all out really well! 

{Invitations}

 Jimmy, Josh, and Jared went from school to school, many times from classroom to classroom, inviting the students to our field day activity.

{Ready to pass out invitations}

Our town has a large square in the center and then another one kind of next to it that has a community center in the middle of it. Our church is right off that secondary town square. We hosted the field day there and then could walk to our church for pizza afterwards.   

The nice store we set up in front of let us use their power to hook up our speakers.  

{Community Center behind our early arrivers}

As people arrived they were assigned to a team. Here is the yellow team:

Each team had someone from our core group as the team leader.

 Everyone was calm in the beginning... but then they got vicious (in a good way)!

They fought to win! 

Jared and Josh had 4 games planned: Dodge Ball, Body Part Bingo, Barbarian, & Tag-a-Lot . They played each one for about half an hour. I was on the green team playing, so I didn't get pictures of all the games.

 I think everyone had a really good time! 

  We met over a dozen new young people from our town!

  Those who were already members of our youth group were proud to wear our t-shirts with our logo on them!

  I am so thankful for the youth that we get to work with!

 I'm also thankful for how kind they are to my children. Here is princess E getting all fussed over:

It was a hot day! We were praying for no rain. It was really perfect.

 There are two brothers that are a part of a family that just accepted Christ and started coming to our church. They have become best of friends with my boys! I am SO grateful to God for providing Christian friendships for my kiddos.

{Jonah & Geronimo}

Josh and Jared were really prepared and did such a great job planning this all out. That makes the difference.

Just in the few weeks since this activity, 4 teens have put their faith in Christ. I believe that number will continue to grow! So many seeds have been planted!

  

After it was over, the winning team got pizza at our church! The red team:

The team captain of this red team, Jose, was the first teenager we met from San Pancho when we started this youth group just a couple months ago. He is a Christian and wanted to have Christian friends. Well he keeps bringing friends to our youth group. Please pray that they will all come to put their faith in Christ very soon! At least Jose knows now that there are others like him that want to live for Christ!

The winning ladies:

 Josh and Jared ended up getting enough pizza so that all the teams could come to the church afterwards and eat. The red team did get all they could eat though, so there was something special about winning.

 It was a wonderful day!

 Thank you to Jared and Josh for hosting it!

 Please pray for Grupo VIPs, that God will use it to work in the lives of the youth of San Pancho and the surrounding villages!