He knows whats up...

So the only reason I am doing this is because my minifeed on facebook (in reference to Chris Girardi) said...

Chris is man that's so great, any way you could rewrite that at some point on our blog it's too good not to share.

HAHAH. That is so funny to me. I'm always nervous for the day where it says..Kristen is Andrew Addison and the world will know who I am stalking...o wait. opps...(jk jk)

So last week before Stake and Egg I was walking over to Wilson from the metro and just had the normal sense of, "Oh great, what am I going to do now that I am here." This sense of uncertainty and awkwardness doesn't seem to ever fully disappear and I have realised the best way to cope with it is truly pass it over to God. I had level 1 contact work in my head, just be there to be seen. I knew that the Lord would just have it pan out according to his will. Anyway, I also started praying to see our campaigner kids, and for some reason Abby popped into my heart. Abby is someone who doesn't have any set beliefs yet but she is great because she is so open to finding as much information as she can to make her own decisions, and eventually have a faith of her own. So, as I was thinking of Abby, the school bell rang at 3:15, and Abby was the first kid out of the high school that day. I literally bumped into her trying to enter the school while she was leaving. She quickly asked what I was doing there and I think I said, "I don't know, hanging out? Wanna go to stake and egg with some of us?" She was game and then spent rest of the afternoon really opening up. Chris told me that she signed up for the ski trip on facebook and I know she seemed pretty into too. Also, she is a kid who is not afraid to introduce us to her friends...which is BOMBBBB. I just really think it is so cool how I had no real clue of what I was going to do at Wilson that day, then the Lord put Abby on my heart and then literally had me bump into her two seconds later. He knows whats up...

Future of Campaigners/ Club/ few other things

Hey guys, So it looks like November is going to go down as the month we didn't have Campaigners and were forced out of our comfortable bubbles to do some major contact work at Wilson.

I'm going to go through the C's and give you a brief update for our Wilson team
Contact Work- Praise God Kristen Fagley started helping out w/ coaching the swim team, and that we found an awesome opportunity to help out Monday-Thursday after school from 3:15-4:15ish handing out snacks to kids taking after school classes.
It's a pretty sweet C.Work opportunity so if you're free any of those days M-Thursday let me or Kaleah know and feel free to join us.

Campaigners- We will officially not start Campaigners back up again till the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. It turns out they have one last play rehearsal on Wednesday so if any of you guys are around Thursday I am planning on meeting kids from the play over at Steak and Egg after school.
I also had a cool meeting with Ms. Miles at the IJM office in Virginia this week and we are in the planning stages of a small fundraiser with them next year which we hope will serve on two fronts as an opportunity for our kids to become more knowledgeable about some of the injustices going on in the world they may be unaware of and also as an opportunity for us to reach out to some kids at Wilson who may be opposed to Christianity but can't argue with a good cause. I will keep you posted but for now we are planning on having some one from IJM come out to share on December 17th for Campaigners that will be followed by a Christmas Party / White Elephant Gift Exchange.

Camp- For those of you who couldn't make Leadership this past Friday the main thing we talked about was that even though we have a great goal of getting to know 200 kids by name this year and getting 25 kids to camp that ultimately what drives us is having a direct impact on even a single kids life.
I gave out a sheet with some practical suggestions for how to make an impact and Disciple a kid and Kaleah and I have attempted to match you up with somebody so if you don't know who your kid is ask Kaleah and she'll hook you up.
What this has to do with camp is that I want you to start by contacting your kids parents and telling them about our ski trip Jan 30-Feb1st price $200 and deposit of $50 due by the end of the month if possible (price is negotiable for those kids we think need the help).
Bottom line here is we need to act now especially with those kids we already know well and who have been to camp before to get them signed up and get their friends signed up.

Club- As we've talked about before one of our goals this year is to kind of transition some elements of Club and Outreach events into our normal Campaigner group and opportunities to just reach out to some new kids.
More on this soon but just be praying about a harder push towards getting Club started when we get back from Camp in Feberuary and some cool outreach events leading up to it in December and January.

contact work

for your enjoyment...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSuUXMqHSmE

Sacrifice

I've been thinking about that word for some reason over the last week.

What does it mean to sacrifice? What kind of sacrifice is pleasing to God? How much should we sacrifice?

In general the Lord has been prompting me to get more specific with how I define vague Christian terms like sacrifice, and "living for God", "doing his Will", "reaching people/kids"....what do I mean when I say those things?

I make these kind of statements all the time with out really thinking through the specifics of what it's going to cost or what I'm going to have to sacrifice to "reach a kid" for example.

The fact of the matter is that when I'm honest with myself I know that when I think of truly reaching a kid and having an impact on their life I want to see a kid who has gone from Death to Life. I want to see a kid's life transformed. I don't want to just see a kid who tolerates Jesus, I want to see a kid fall in love with him so much so that he can't help but tell his friends about him.

I would give up knowing 200 kids by name and taking a gazillion kids to camp in a second for the privilege of seeing this true transformation in even one kids life.

So what does this have to do with sacrifice?
Well I'm realizing that to have this sort of impact on a kids life I'm going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice and lay down my life.

This is what Jesus says in my all time favorite passage of scripture from John chapter 15 (the one my Mom read at my wedding that made me weep like a baby)
13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

To try and sum up what I am feeling right now it's that knowing 200 kids by name is still a great goal that I think we can accomplish together this year as well as getting 25 kids to camp , and getting Club going strong at Wilson.
However the goal that is going to cost us everything is going to be "laying down our lives", for one kid and seeing that kid walk from Death to Life a brand new creation!

One last thing and I'll shut up. Sacrifice is one of those kind of trigger words for feelings of guilt, like you hear about what you should be sacrificing and you even read this blog and feel bad about not doing more than you have so far and that is not what it means to sacrifice.

Guilt has no part of it!

And it's not doing something for the recognition of others in fact through out the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5 Jesus says to do things in secret so as not to be doing them out of wrong motives ie. so people pat you on the back and take notice.

What it is however will cost us, it will inconvenience us, it may annoy us, it will be uncomfortable, it will take time we don't have, and it may even be painful But....I think this is what we all signed on for.

For the chance to see a life change and I'm speaking to myself right now , I know that for me to see that kind of change I can't just go up to the school casually hoping to run into a few kids or calling a kid up once every few weeks to go to the movies.
I need to be intentional the way Jesus was about including at least one kid in the every day parts of my life, my work , and my family. ....

I need to know their family, everything about them, and not in a stalky creepy kind of way but in a way that says I am investing in you and like the women at the well said of Jesus to her community , "Come see a man who told me everything I ever did".



I know I'm preachin it right now but I can't help it. I'm fired up at the thought of each of us having this sort of relationship with a kid.

If you actually read this whole thing I'm impressed and hope it made some sense.

I love you guys and hope and pray that we will all be a part of something huge and transformational in the life of a kid.

Frank

Last week a young man by the name of Franklin was shot and killed in D.C. This young man went to Wilson High School. I didn't know him at all I didn’t even recognize his face. But when I came to AVID tutoring the day after, I notice right away that one of our students was upset. When the teacher asked her if she was ok she quickly blurted out that she knew the young man that was killed and that it happened on her street. She heard the shots, saw the sirens, saw his body get put into the ambulance, and got the news later that night that he was dead. I got to hear this story from her and hear all about her friendship with Frank in AVID class. It grieved my soul to see her pain and sorrow. Not only was I sad for her but I was sad for our community as a whole. Sad that kids had to witness firsthand the epidemic of violence. It’s an epidemic that stretches so wide in the U.S. It stretches to my home town in Richmond California where one of my friends a year ago was murdered at the age of 21 leaving behind a 2 year old daughter. I wonder just as the kids wonder; will it ever end?
However, in a world that seems rotten, it is that we know the one who preserves it. And know that God has called us to be salt and light in this world. It is an honor to pursue kids like Lauren who have been bruised by the tragedies of this world, and an honor to hope and believe that her world can be changed through Christ. This is why we do young life so that kids can be saved not just from hell, but saved from the hell they go through here on earth. And although we cannot fix their problems we can introduce them to someone who can. I didn’t get a chance to reach Frank but I pray that I can reach Lauren, and that we in Young Life D.C. can change communities one kid at a time.