- September 12, 2019
A group of older teens traveled to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada to help Brad Young with teen and family camps for a week.
The first part of the week was teen camp, with a long weekend of family camp to follow. Groups attended from five area churches including Community Baptist Church. The whole trip provided a sweet time of learning and fellowship with other believers. Pastor Steve, Jude Leary, and Seth Hobi's teaching sessions prompted many discussions, and several teens made decisions in their spiritual walks, a few even resulting in salvation. Please pray that spiritual fruit continues to grow from these seeds!
Lincoln Knutson did a great job running game times and played the piano for singing. Jude, Seth, Lincoln, Jeremy Pierce, and Julianna Frank served as counselors, building relationships with campers in order to speak God's truth in their lives.
Below are some pictures and specific reflections from team members on the trip.
Jude Leary:
It was such a blessing to help minister to teen girls across 5 churches in Saskatchewan, Canada! Brad and Christina Young were excellent hosts and the food Mrs. Jill made was superb!
The biggest blessings I was able to have or experience on this trip were:
- I was able to witness to a Sikh dentist on one of the planes to Canada. It was a great conversation and I was able to learn more about the Sikh religion while sharing John 14:6 with him.
- Although I didn’t see any conversions among the teen girls, I was able to help answer a lot of questions they had about Catholic theology (Canadian tax dollars go toward both public and Catholic schools, so many of them go to Catholic schools and are confused by Mary worship, prayers to saints, and purgatory), questions about doubt and assurance, and questions about how to handle gray issues with wisdom. I believe about half of the girls were likely unsaved, so please continue to pray for them.
- A huge encouragement for me personally was to hear Pastor Steve preach to the young people. He spoke on living for eternal purposes in light of the Great Disciple-Making/Teaching Commission, challenged these youths to consider service in the local church as the unique and high calling that it is, and answered their questions about several issues that were on their hearts including questions about sexuality and gender, questions about Catholic theology, questions about music, etc. My main takeaway was how blessed we are as a church to have both Pastor Steve (and Pastor Mike who I’ve had the privilege to sit under for much longer) for the next 25-30 years if God in His grace chooses to delay His imminent return to Earth.
I also connected very well with many of the parents. Many shared their testimonies with me and several kids and parents added me as their Facebook friends. Please continue to pray for contacts we’ve made on these trips, for salvation for the kids and parents who aren’t saved, and for steady growth for those who are.
Praise the Lord for all He is doing and has done in our church and in the churches of our Canadian brothers and sisters in Christ!
Lincoln Knutson:
The missions trip to Canada was a blessing in many ways to both me and the people our group served. Three youth group members along with our youth pastor, Jude, and I went to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada to help staff a Christian camp lead by the Young family. I directed games and played piano, and the three other youth group members and Jude counseled while our youth pastor was the guest speaker. As the piano player, I was convicted by how singing and worship were prioritized. Additionally, near the end of the week of camp with the families having arrived, a bonfire was held in the camp’s “teepee”. Testimonies from the week were shared and songs were sung together. Even though I didn’t know most of the people there, the teepee filled with over 80 people felt like family. The singing and testimonies were sincere and heartfelt, and me and the others from the youth group felt closer to God. Overall, the camp was a blessing to both the Young family whom we helped and the youth group members that helped to staff. I also believed it helped me personally grow a little bit closer to God.