First Semester in the Books!

Dear friends and family,

Last week marked the end of our first semester of HOPE afterschool and what a spectacular few months it has been! Our start was a bit rough; we had several forced breaks with conflicting school scheduling and a COVID case amongst our staff, but by the end we were hitting our stride. Towards the beginning of the semester, we were struggling to get more than four to five kids, leaving me a bit frustrated since our goal was around 13 (a full van load). Unsurprisingly, God had a plan and was simply giving us room to plan and learn what we were doing. After a few short weeks, I was approached by multiple students in the school who wanted to be a part of the program! Over the span of a month we doubled the size of our student body. Meanwhile, I was attempting to tread in a whole new territory for me. I’ve been doing Scripture or fun game related ministry for almost a third of my life but adding education to the mix was a terrifying prospect. The main thing I wanted for our program was to balance laughter and fun with the educational struggles of the kids.

We did this by having a time where we specifically worked on their one shared homework assignment, reading for thirty minutes a day. Besides the normal mix of students who either hate or love reading, we also found that many students were three or four grades behind in reading. Some are barely able to read at all. Thankfully, God had provided me with exceptional volunteers who were able to disperse throughout the group of readers. Which gave one on one attention to those that needed it and cheering
along those that simply needed the push. On top of this we wanted to change up their readings so that they weren’t monotonous. Some days we’d have them read normally, others we’d bring out piles of bean bag chairs to lounge in, and others I would read to them while they drew pictures depicting the story to flex their imaginary muscles. It was overwhelming to see the kids take off with the ownership of their books. All of them would take turns sharing with the group what was happening in their story. They’d celebrate as a group when a student finished their book. On the day of our Christmas party where we weren’t planning on having a “homework” time, they even asked if we could make time to do some reading.

Our educational activities such as science experiments, madlibs, math games, and craft projects also had a huge success rate. One of my personal highlights of the semester was the day we did our density science experiment. This involves piling different types of liquid (syrup, oil, water, etc.) into a clear jar and watching how each of them level out. Watching the kids light up when it happened and start wildly discussing how it worked was the sort of educational excitement I had hoped for.

As we wrapped up the year at our Christmas party all our fifth graders asked what would happen next year when they moved into sixth grade. I told them that our target was fifth and sixth graders so they could still come to HOPE if they wanted. All of them, ALL of them, shared a sigh of relief and started excitedly talking about coming back in January. The importance of kids on the Rez looking forward to something in the future, let alone a whole year away in the future,  can’t be overstated. I’m immensely blessed that God has worked the way He has in our fledgling semester, and can’t wait to see what He has in store next semester.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Trey

Wrapping up Summer and Looking to the Future

Hello friends and family,

            A word of warning, I have so much exciting news for y’all that this letter may run a little long. First off, I wanted to tell you what an absolutely incredible summer we had on the Rez. Despite Covid restrictions loosening we still weren’t able to do our average sixty person team weeks. But we managed to make up for that in some big ways. We still weren’t allowed to do Kids clubs here so instead we used some of our extra time to do multiple road trips to different reservations, most notably Lapwai, Idaho. There we made a connection with the Boys and Girls Club, opening doors to more kids, more visits, and more Christmas shoebox deliveries! On top of that we were able to continue our kids club deliveries from last summer, bringing Kids Club to over 200 kids every two weeks. We also managed to train a puppet team from our summer team and youth volunteers that did puppet gospel presentations on our Rez as well as in Idaho and Oregon. Additionally, we kept up with our mobile library project, Bookin it, and were bringing books to housing projects every week. At the end of the summer, restrictions even lightened enough where we got to bring kids from all over the community to our church and have a summer water day bash with everything from water balloons to giant water slide inflatables. So, by no means was this summer boring or slow, God made sure to keep opening doors for us.

            My favorite part of this summer though, was YoungLife middle school camp. I’ve gone the past three years but never have I seen God work so miraculously. We took 18 middle schoolers and I got the distinct pleasure of being with our 9 boys. While at camp the boys had the fun and shenanigans that I’ve seen so many times before, but that wasn’t all. This group of guys opened up to us in a way that I hadn’t seen before. They shared about their home life, asked hard questions about God, and truly lead each other towards seeking those answers from the church. On the last day one of our boys stood in front of the entire group and shared about the power of prayer and how it helped him. But this growth didn’t stop there, after camp this particular group of youth had a hunger for connection with the church. They began doing weekly work projects throughout the community cleaning up graffiti or weeding at an elder’s house. They began coming to church and youth group without wavering, even going as far as attending our worship evenings on Sunday nights. That particular youth I shared about openly prayed at church in front of the entire congregation. God clearly used camp in an intense, evident way with these kids and it has been humbling to see that growth continue through the summer.

            Looking to the future we have even more exciting news! This Fall I will be starting HOPE afterschool (Healing, Overcoming, Praying, Educating), which will be an afterschool program held at our church building. To start with we’ll be focusing on 5^th and 6^th graders at our local elementary school. Some of you may remember that over covid we brought students to our building for their online classes. Continuing with that momentum it was clear that we needed a revitalized afterschool program when covid restrictions allowed. I didn’t know it then, but God would soon be calling on me to lead the program. In the months since, He has made His intentions for the program clear as well as make my replacement for Children Ministry apparent. Tionna, a young lady who was raised in the church here and has worked with the ministry for long before I even knew what Sacred Road was. We’ve begun sharing responsibilities of Children’s Director as I train her to fully take on the role by next Spring. I could not leave children’s ministry better hands. I look forward to sharing more about HOPE afterschool soon, but if you would like to learn more about it now or give you can go to our newly updated website at https://sacredroadministries.org/after-school. But please be praying for it’s start, growth, and flourishment in it’s first year as well as pray for Tionna as she takes on a new role.

I pray God blesses you as He has blessed me beyond my wildest expectations,

Trey

Books, Eggs, and Aliens, Oh My!

Dear Friends and Family, 

The past few months have been a whirlwind of activities with our state slowly beginning to open back up. If you’ve followed my updates over the past year, you know the immense changes we’ve had to make as a ministry. Yet, in the midst of those changes God was faithful to keep our ministry fruitful. Creating a trend of success and growth in our outreach that has remained evident into the new year. After a momentary setback at the end of 2020, we were finally able to start holding in person services again. Although our attendance has been smaller, the blessings of getting to worship again can not be overstated. Furthermore, we started holding Children’s church last month. Honestly, I had forgotten how sweet it is to teach scripture to our kids. Starting back right around Easter was an absolute gift from God as we got to tell the kids how much God loves them in such a clear manner. In a time of such uncertainty, we got to cement the lengths at which God goes to keep His promises and how far He went to keep His ultimate promise.

Speaking of Easter! We also got the green light to do our annual Easter egg hunt. After skipping it last year it was amazing to see all the giant smiles and hear the laughter from our kids as they ran around our property searching for candy filled eggs.

Despite our state opening more we still weren’t able to have our normal spring teams (as was expected) so we got to do another round of kids club deliveries. Many kids and parents alike jumped right into our ridiculous antics as they remembered all the craziness, we had last summer during the deliveries. Our helper’s alien costumes were a big hit and brought a lot of laughter. Additionally, we’ve been doubling down on our efforts to find ways to remain present in the community and love on our kids in their own neighborhoods. One such way is Bookin It, our mobile library. Run by one of our own youth, Bookin It aims to bring books every week right to the housing projects we serve in. As has become normal in my life now, my expectations for this outreach were blown out of the water. Multiple children started bringing their books back regularly to trade back and receive new ones. Their bright yellow book bags became a beacon that they had remembered us and were looking forward to getting new books. Sometimes they would bring those yellow bags to events we hadn’t even planned to bring Bookin It to. On one such instance, while doing deliveries a child brought his book to me. After I told him we weren’t here with the library but instead to give out Kids Club goody bags, he seemed slightly disappointed. But he was quickly cheered up by the knowledge that the very next day we’d be in his neighborhood with our mobile library. It’s truly been amazing to see the overwhelming response the kids have had to the library.

Prayer Requests

I’m quickly approaching my three year anniversary of moving to the Rez, (May 2021). Honestly, it has felt as though time has stood still while I’ve lived here. Like I just left Florida yesterday. At the same time, I do notice that my roots in WA have grown substantially. As is the way with growing up and cementing my feet more as it were. I find myself needing more support. For the beginning years I’ve made do with whatever I’ve gotten from my generous supporters. But as I look to the future it becomes apparent that I need to raise more funds to sustain my living here. Expenses like health insurance and saving towards renting/buying my own place means I need to stabilize and grow my base support levels. If you already support me, I can’t thank you enough and am not asking you to double up on your support or anything. Instead, I’m asking for prayer that I can find new donors and that God will open more doors. Please pray.

Also, please pray for the summer. We are still figuring out if we’ll be able to hold our normal summer teams and kids club programs. Please pray for wisdom on our part in deciding and safety for either outcome. God has a plan for this summer and no matter what happens He will accomplish it.

Blessings,

Trey