Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I pray that the end of the year finds you well and brings joyful reflection. Looking back on my own year I find that it has been full of God’s blessings. Starting off with my sabbatical towards the beginning of the year. I got the rare opportunity to spend substantial time with my family and gain plenty of spiritual rejuvenation. It certainly added a spring to my step for the ladder half of the year! Which I was apparently going to need.

HOPE was hit with some substantial staff/volunteer changes during the beginning of the fall semester. In all honesty, I was left scared of how we would continue the program. But God is good. Instead of having less help than last year we ended up having more! Causing us to add fourth graders to our age range and almost doubling the roster size. What a joy to see how the Lord grew the program overnight. Little else capitalized this point like our Christmas party. We had seventeen of our twenty students show up for it. Ted, our resident wonder chef, cooked up an amazing meal that the kids loved. We played a bunch of Christmas games. Lastly, we had Santa (also played by Ted, he wears many hats) show up and deliver our gift to all the students. The joy on the fourth graders faces made the Santa experience extra energetic this year. But the moment that stuck out to me the most was a text I received during all the chaos. One of our students had gotten sick that morning at school and had to be taken home early. As such, he ended up missing our party. He apparently insisted that his mom let me know that he was sick and felt terrible about missing the last day. That just really tugged at my heart. He’s one of our fourth graders that never misses a day and while he’s suffering from a stomach bug the first thing, he thinks about is how he has to miss being at HOPE. Our goal for the program is always to make the kids feel loved and seen. Seems like this student, and hopefully all of them, feel that. God is good. 

My second big update is that we got to hold another Kids Club in Lapwai, ID! This year we’ve had to cut back on some of our trips due to scheduling conflicts and funding issues. Even our preceding trip was rougher and left me feeling slightly discouraged about our continuing relationship there. But just like with HOPE, the Lord worked despite my doubts. We brought two vans to the boys and girls club. One full of presents and one full of SRM staff and volunteers ready to love on kids. As we carried in the supplies to the gym, the students were lined up along the bleachers as the staff told them about Kids Club. As soon as they saw us, a cheer erupted through the gym. The closest comparison I have for how deafening it was, is an NHL Hockey game I went to once. These kids were over the moon that we had come back. I felt pretty bad for the staff that were trying to quiet them down to continue their assembly. On top of this, I had more story volunteers than I knew what to do with. The club staff sent in extra volunteers to help us which was greatly appreciated. Two of them were starting another boys and girls club on another reservation town and excitedly asked me if we would be interested in doing a Kids Club there as well!

Last year I mentioned how many of the students hadn’t heard the Christmas story before and what a surreal experience it was to tell it. This time may have matched that experience. As we were preparing our story helpers, I heard students quietly whispering what story we were going to the other students that had missed last year’s Christmas kids club. What a wonderful experience to see the change since last year.

For both HOPE and Lapwai our events ended with the same question from the students. “When will we be back?”. Different contexts but the point remains the same. These children love the church and all her many forms. Whether it be an afterschool program or a quarter yearly outreach event. As 2024 begins I can’t help but be excited to think about what the new year will hold. Kids Clubs at new reservations? Longer Lapwai visits? New HOPE students? Only the Lord knows, and I can’t wait to be a small part of it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Please continue to pray.

Blessings,

Trey

God is our Shepherd (Spring Teams 2023)

Dear Friends and Family,

Here on the Rez we just finished our Spring teams. This year we had four back-to-back weeks of college students from all over the country coming to work and serve the community. Heading into this season I found myself feeling worried and tired by the daunting task ahead. Certainly, it was exhausting and I’m grateful for these past few days of extra sleep and rest, but it was also profoundly encouraging. Having RUF college students come is always heartening just by the presence of so many young believers. This time around though there were two specific interactions that were clearly blessings from the Lord.

The first one happened towards the very beginning of the month. Last year we had a high school student who made sure her young siblings were at kids club every day of the summer. Even on the one day she missed, she made sure another teen from the house brought the little ones to kids club. Towards the end of last she year passed away. Entering this year’s kids club I was conscious of the possibility that we wouldn’t see those little ones without their older sister making sure they came. For the first three days there was no sign of them. On the fourth day their mom brought them and hung around for a little while as they played. After twenty minutes or so she pulled me aside and asked if we could just make sure they got home safe and if we could, she trusted us with their care. “Of course!”, I practically shouted.

After that it became routine that she would drop them off every day and we would drive them home in our van. As the weeks rolled on all three kids came out of their shell more and more. One of them who I could never get to say one word to me, began a regular game of chanting my name as she flew on the swings. During the last team week our van became overloaded with other kids so we didn’t have room for them to go home on it. I told the kids it wasn’t a big deal I’d just walk them home, (they lived maybe three houses down from the kids club site). As we walked one of them loudly questioned whether or not I even knew where they lived. Before I could answer the oldest sister, who yelled my name from the swing, said. “He knows where we live! He always picked up our sister for youth group!”. It is an incredible encouragement to see their trust in the church growing this spring. I can't wait for the day they follow their older sister's footsteps and I get to pick them up for youth group.

The second interaction came towards the end of the month. On one of the last days of kids club I noticed two high school girls approaching the park. As I went to greet them and welcome them, one of them chuckled to herself and said, “man you’ve gotten old.” In that moment I recognized her as one of the kids I had met and bonded with as a team member seven years ago. It had been probably five years since the last time I had seen her. I laughed and said I remembered her. She was shocked I still knew her name. As she looked around kids club she remarked how it still looked the same as when she was a kid. Both her and her friend ended up helping run our jump rope station that day. I keenly remember playing with her and her brother at foursquare on the Friday before I left as a team member. Seeing her jump right back into kids club and playing with kids after being gone for five years was an encouragement to me beyond words.

All our bible stories the last week were about God being our shepherd. I feel as though God was laying that truth especially hard on my heart as I looked back over the spring. Even in hardship, the passing of time, and death itself. God always takes care of His sheep and brings them back home.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” John 10: 27-28

Blessings,

Trey