TEAM VINELAND!

So these are my team members! Thats right, a couple of hometown girls like myself who are proud to be from Vineland! These girls are a huge part of my life and I love them dearly. This is us at the Upper Deck Youth Drop-In Centre during our halloween party (hence the bonnett....which I DO NOT wear on a regular basis) where we all work.
Becky (far right) is the the new director of the centre since Julie (far left) went on maternity leave. Jenna and I volunteer on drop-in nights. I love serving in this ministry with these girls and many other volunteers. Over the 3 years that its been open, we have seen many kids come and go through the centre. This past year especially we have seen some huge growth in some of the kids lives. In addition to running an open drop-in night every Friday and Saturday, we have started a program called QUEST which runs on Wednesday nights. This program was originally started by Becky, Margaret (another volunteer) and myself and was called 'girls group' where we discussed life issues and shared what was going in our lives with girls. This year the group took an unexpected turn as we prayed through the idea of introducing a video series made by Youth For Christ called QUEST. The videos are specifially designed to stimulate conversation about spiritual issues from a Christian perspective. As the weeks went on in the fall, we decided that since we weren't getting a consistent turn-out from the girls, we would open up the night to any kids from the centre that wanted to come. It was so exciting to see how God blessed this decision because we saw many kids come out and not only that, they were becoming more and more interested in what the videos were talking about as the weeks went by. And the ironic thing is that by the end, we had almost all guys showing up. As leaders we were so encourged to have the kids engaging in spiritual conversation, something that we had never experienced with them before. Our closing week we gave them all bibles as a Christmas present and some kids even liked the idea of doing some bible studies after the holidays. This is a huge thing for these kids who have rarely stepped foot in a church and rarely spend time even thinking about who God is and our bigger purpose in life.
So this ministry is a big part of my heart. I have grown and been stretched so much over the years as I have spent time with these kids. And God is working here at the centre. He is beginning to soften kids hearts and allowing them to see the love of Jesus and want more for their lives. I'm excited to see what will happen in the weeks and years to come.