“This is exactly how Club should look ever y week.”
The Victory Chapel on this Wednesday night is loud, rowdy
and our ears ringing from all of the screaming students competing in obnoxious
games. Let alone on competing, a screaming match has erupted and this level of
noise and craziness has never been observed at Club at Fort Stewart. Recently
we had the awesome moment to experience God in full force at Fort Stewart Club
where the students reached a ‘new level of crazy’ during the midweek meeting. New
group games and crazy leaders alongside me throughout the night made this a
full-on madhouse. IT ROCKED!! The students were all in from the beginning of
the night. From a food challenge that had some cringing at others who had to
eat a piece of toast loaded with just about everything to a game of team
competing Taboo on an easel, energy was riding high all night in the room.
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| Our students playing a great game of "toast" together! |
In a bit over for short months, God has fully transformed
the people, climate and culture of Club Beyond here to what He had in store for
this place well before I landed in Georgia. Military teens that come in weekly
to gather with friends and get away from the issues waiting at home or school
who LIVE for moments like these. The worries of a parent who is currently
deployed or will be deployed to war soon melt away in the chaotic mess of fun
that exists on a night like this.
In addition to our wonderful students attending, we have a
superstar leadership team who shows up fully prepared to engage our youth week
in and week out, no matter what life brings us. Truly God has formed, sharpened
and created something amazing here in such a quick timeline. It has developed
into a team of leaders sharing their personal passions in each part of the
weekly Club experience.
As students continue to settle into the school year and
their surroundings, relationships grow and trust builds. That is especially
true for a trio of young men who get up way before school to come over and hang
out for bacon and Jesus. Specifically, one named Charles has grown quite the
affinity and friendship with me along the way well before we kicked off the
bacon breakfast. He quickly shared with me early on his personal strife in
losing his father early this year and recently losing his close grandfather.
Moments of having God’s listening heart and ear are pivotal to why we exist for
our students on regular basis. Charles has now gone to the extent to share with
others that I am his ‘mentor’ and has now invited a friend to come along with
him early in the morning to the bacon breakfast.
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| The "Goonsquad" horsing around at Walmart, a few of the guys who come to bacon breakfast. |
It’s not just hanging at Club or at my place for bacon that
brings guys like Charles around. We go hang at the bowling alley as the ‘trio
of guys’ fine tune their skills for their bowling league or we may go hang and
act foolish at Wal-mart in wee hours of the evening. Whatever it is we do, it’s
life. It’s being real around one another and feeling comfortable with moments
where we can talk about things that matter, like college, choices made over the
week or getting signed up for the ACTs in time. Relational ministry happens in
these moments. I see God show up in these moments.
Please continue to pray for the ongoing development of
relationships just like the one which has been full of amazing fruit like the
one I have with Charles. Pray for our leadership team to stay obedient to
moments where our students will open up and share their real lives with us, as
messy as life can be. Pray that our students are bold enough to step out and
share, knowing that they have people there who care and love them.
Family. That’s why we come together. Club Beyond here and at
other installations allows us to get rowdy, insanely loud and even calm to be
considerate and lend a caring ear and heart to one another. This month, we got
the chance to reflect on a lesson based out of Ephesians 1:5, noting how God
chose US. He decided that we are to be part of one large family, lifting one
another up and living life together. It’s how we roll in Club Beyond. One
family, multiple locations world-wide.
From the teens, leaders and my gracious heart, we thank you
for praying and supporting what God is continuing to do here at Fort Stewart
and Hunter Army Airfield. God’s plans here are developing evermore and His
purpose continues to grow here.
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