Where we are going in 2010

God has given us several new opportunities in 2010!

This coming January 2010, Ambridge Youth Ignite is sending a team to Lima, Peru. The team will work along side a team of Peruvians to provide a one week sports and arts camp for the youth who live near San Mateo, a church in Lima. The one week camp will be used as a launching point for a new youth ministry to take shape at San Mateo.

In April of 2010, our leadership team has also been invited to lead the middle schoolers at New Wineskins. This age group has been overlooked in the past and the organizers desire for us to create a mini-missions conference for the students.

This summer we will hold our 7th Sports and Arts Camp. The camp will continue to be our catalyst in serving and connecting with the community as we try and reach more youth with the love of Christ.

The three leaders who started the fall arts classes are all hoping to continue them during the spring and we maybe adding several more. We also hope to connect with a specific sport in the spring in an effort to connect more youth with Ambridge Youth Ignite during the school year.

Our discipleship groups will continue to meet every week during the school year. Our hope is that through the discipleship groups as well as the Ambridge Sports and Arts Camp and the Peru trip that we will see more and more high school leaders stepping up to lead us into the future.

It is truly amazing to me to look at the leaders who are heading up our new arts classes and our girls' discipleship group and see that none of them are mine. God has brought new leaders and planted dreams in their hearts, and they are stepping out in faith to show the youth of Ambridge the love of Christ through sports and arts.

Sports & Arts Camp in Peru

During the spring of this year I read an article in Relevant Magazine on homeless children through out the world. The article focused on homeless children in Central and South America whose parents had left them to move to Spain with a desire to make more money for their families. In most cases the parents never return and the children are left to themselves.


The article reminded me of the poverty that I saw in Lima, Peru where my team went on Josiah Project. Our team saw children and families living in a desert, where they moved because they couldn't make it in the city. In an effort to create a home they picked up everything they had and made makeshift homes in the desert. They have water, which they had to pay for, delivered in trucks. As we walked around the makeshift city (literally thousands of people lived there), we saw children playing on piles of garbage.


Through the article I thought and prayed and wondering whether God wanted us to go to Peru and run a sports and arts camp. Why a sports and arts camp? As I look through the ministry that exist for the children and their families, there are many that offer food, shelter and finances but not necessarily a place for children to have fun and be children. What better place to have a sports and arts camp. Lastly, I wanted us to go to help out the missionaries who are already there and I found that our desire and the missionaries match up.

With all of that, I am telling you that we are headed to Peru this January 2010 (its summertime in January in Peru) to run a sports and arts camp for a week, as well as leading an Intro to Youth Ministry course. The missionaries in Peru desire to create a youth ministry at one of the local churches from the youth who attended the week long camp and with the Peruvian leaders who lead the camp along with us.

It is an amazing opportunity that God has given us, pray for us as we prepare.