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