Over the past couple of months CSP leaders have had the privilege of partnering with students in the Chicago, Illinois area to support them in outreach. 3 HomeTown trips have gone back to the Chicago-land over the past 2 years, and now we are here in Chicago as the 4^th trip.

The Chicago Skyline view from the Lincoln Park Zoo

We are expand our ministry into the Chicago area, and this trip we are coming alongside high schools for the big move that Mark Hopson (CSP Staff) and his family is going to make to permanently start ministry here.  Our team for this particular trip consists of three staff members and four students from Azusa Pacific University. We are partnering with three high schools in the area: Bartlett, Palatine and Lake Zurich.

Leading the trip into Chicago this time is Ryan, the Strategic Partnership Director for CSP.  Alongside Ryan, Bethany, the Director of Media, and Betsy, the Director of Finances, are excited for this expansion. Natalie, Ashley, Kyle and Nicole are all students working with CSP in the Azusa Pacific University Chapter. We are all so thankful that God provided us the way to Chicago and look forward to the plans He has for us as a team.

Nicole, Ryan, Kyle, Betsy, Natalie, Ashley, and Bethany

This week we are all expecting great things to come out of meeting with these high schools, supporting them in their planned rallies, and connecting with churches and colleges locally. One goal is to be able to host a Celebration Night to have students share their individual experiences and encourage them for their plans for the coming years on their campuses. We truly believe that God has huge plans for Chicago and want to see this city changed by its youth.  There is power in the amount of impact that our high school students have and it is an amazing opportunity to come alongside them to encourage them to step up and change their campuses. We have seen changes already, and are encouraged by the amount of students that are on board for this new chapter of our ministry!

Would you support us by being in prayer with us about this upcoming week and the expansion of our ministry? Thank you to all of you that helped make this trip possible.

By Dana Point Beach where the sun rises and sets on the horizon is South Shore Church, a community that frequently welcomes Biola to hold events and retreats. This is where the California School Project (CSP) held their second semester spring training for Biola and Azusa Pacific mentors, a 2 day training time to prepare for the semester ahead. For the first day Friday February 8^th, both leadership teams met up at the church where students and leaders regrouped and caught up with one another since the fall retreat of October in 2012. Friday evening was full of games and activities for the students to get to know one another before the actual training began the next day.

After breakfast February 9^th, the training began with Michael Towson, Biola Chapter Director,  giving a testimony on how God led him to join CSP during his time at Biola University. Michael did more than give his testimony and speak about the CSP mission but how to do it for the glory of God and with a heart to serve high school students.

Biola and Azusa Pacfic students had the chance to connect and informed each other of how some school’s were doing. APU Student Director Collin Barret, 21, gave feedback on the pros and cons about the relation with both universities “Between myself and Biola, it has been a great relationship because I have been here for two years now but mentors cycle in and out so we are constantly rebuilding and restarting the relationship. Every time we come to a retreat…new mentors come in the semester so we have to start all over so these retreats are a very big help for it and they do cultivate a good relationship. It is just that sometimes it is not sustained because new mentors come in.” Despite the difficult commitment levels, APU has been able to recruit more mentors in the past few weeks. “Right now, we have 20 mentors, the most committed we have ever had, and obviously the more involvement we have the bigger our sphere of influence gets and the more people we can reach as far as recruiting goes….as we add more people, we gain recruiting areas in the school.”

Mentors have been doing their very best to plan events with their high school club leaders as well as getting them ready for Go Conference February 16^th. Biola freshmen Abi Cissel, 18, gave  insight on how her school is progressing. “Gahr High School…it’s their first time working with CSP. It is the student’s first time ever doing any kind of evangelism. They have always been kind of introverted so it is really exciting…they are embracing and going full out for the three day rally this coming week.”

A major part of our outreach philosophy here at CSP is that it’s important to have the community fully aware of what is going on on these campuses. So tonight we held what we believe to be an essential starting point for an outreach week. We like to call them Kick-Off events. Kick-Off events help to introduce the community to the different schools and students, while allowing the students to share and hear the other schools’ outreach plans and ways to be praying. The goal: bring as large a portion of the community of believers onto the same page as possible. Tonight accomplished just that!

Students shared their rally plans in a
fun Interview style.

The success of tonight, and the outreach in general here in the Chicago suburbs, has been largely made possible due to the efforts made by a local church in the South Barrington area to unite these clubs, known locally as Uprisings. Tonight students from 13 Uprisings came out to start this week right. Three of those Uprisings will be doing outreach this week and around six of the others have either already hosted an outreach this semester or will be hosting an outreach in the weeks to follow. Along with the students, parents and other community members were also in attendance, bringing our head count tonight to right around 96: the largest Kick-Off event any of us here on the trip have seen! Praise the Lord! The students got to share their outreach plans and prayer requests with everyone in a fun interview format, while the audience got re-familiarized with the Uprisings and introduced to CSP.

Uprisings Kick-Off
Night 2013

Our resident photographer/videographer DJ (Daniel Jansson) has put together a small video of some pictures and an interview he filmed with one of the Uprising leaders tonight at the Kick-Off. Follow the link below to our Vimeo account to view the video. Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/56843704

Prayer Requests:

1.  Tomorrow we will be attending some local home groups for youth following church, please be praying that we can continue to form some friendships and great community relationships here.
2. We are continuing to meet with schools that will be doing outreaches even after we leave to give them some additional coaching and mentoring. Please be praying for these meetings that we would be able to be a great help to the students and really equip them well to be able to be the lights on their campuses.

Bonus Feature!

For those of you reading this faithfully we thought we would include an additional video for you from last night. Here is the link to an interview with our team leader Kolby.

http://vimeo.com/56843705

This past weekend CSP held two banquets, one in Mission Viejo on Friday and the other in Brea on Saturday. The banquets were a culmination of worship and vision, celebrating what has been done and what’s coming in the future.

“When I was having conversations with Warren and Mark and Kellee a few years ago all this was just a dream,” Cliff Cox, a CSP supporter said.

Daniel Jansen at the Brea Banquet telling about how God works in big ways.

 Jansen, one of the speakers, felt burdened to tell us that we so often underestimate God and do not push far enough or expect big things from him. Daniel was one of the very first high school students to be impacted by CSP in high school, putting on a rally that infected his whole school with the Gospel. He shared a story about how he had a list of five people that he prayed daily would accept Christ. One of the five he prayed for was his best friend Ryan. Daniel said, “Amazing things happen when we pray, expect and then act.”

Daniel’s best friend Ryan was the next speaker at the banquet that night. Ryan accepted Christ because of DJ and went onto become a pastor, a full circle of the fruitfulness.

The whole night was masterfully crafted together, abounding with story after story of how God has faithfully shown up. It was a huge testament to the fact that we serve a mighty God who acts on our behalf.

From getting a Saints player on the day of a rally to replace the speaker who became ill, to literally moving rain clouds for the exact amount of time for a rally to bringing even one person to know Christ through witnessing events, God is at work in this ministry.

“That’s the kind of God we are partnering with in this ministry,” Collin Barret, the MC said.

Guests were asked to plant their ideas about what the world would look like when every student had heard.

Billy, the Christian club president at Covina high spoke about how the Gospel and CSP have changed his life. He shared about how his family life was very rough growing up and he had a lot of anger and sorrow when he moved here from Texas. He saw the effects of those angers on not just his face but on so many faces around him. Through his involvement in the Covina Christian club and meeting CSP leaders like Collin and Kolby he discovered who God really was.

“I began to play an active role in God’s work at Covina High School. I began to see lives change,” Billy said, “He’s not my number one, He’s my everything.”

The charge is that there are 1000 schools with two million students in California. California Project has been faithful with what it has been given so far. If we think of where we have come from just imagine where we could go with God’s provision.

The last speaker challenged everyone at the banquet: What would happen if each of person had a list of five friends who do not know Christ that they prayed for everyday. We ask you the same: What would happen if all of you readers took that challenge?

Rejoice that 350 people heard about great things happening in CSP last weekend.

Kimberly, one of the student speakers asked for floods of prayers for La Hambra High School.

Pray that students no longer walk onto their high school seeing it as a normal school day but as a mission field.

A band plays for the rally audience during Tuesday's Hope rally

Yesterday was an amazing day. After prayer in the morning, the Calaveras Faith Club hosted their second lunch rally in their gym to talk about Hope. A live band from a local church came to play music to attract a crowd, and during the last few minutes, two Faith Club students stepped out in faith to share about their theme. In front of over 100 students who came to the rally, Lora introduced the topic of Hope to the students in the gym, explaining how the loss of hope can be painful and leave anyone in despair. Cody then came forward to explain how people tend to put their hope in a lot of different areas like relationships and school, but putting Hope in God will not leave you disappointed. He asked his peers to accept the free gift of Jesus as a way to experience God’s love.

The Calaveras students praise God in song together at the Unite service Tuesday at Burson church

A very unique and exciting aspect about the Calaveras community is the opportunity that the Christians have to know each other and build each other up. Calaveras County is a small community where the youth pastors interact often and the students have all grown up together. Because of the nature of the community, the churches have partnered together during this week to host unite services each night. A different church is opening their doors to the community every night to encourage and embolden the Christian youth as well as to invite those who attended the rallies to come to church. Yesterday’s unite service was held at Burson Church and was a night full of worship to God for what he’s doing in the community and a message from the youth pastor exhorting the students to follow God whole-heartedly. There will be two more unite services this week as well as a Celebration Night to celebrate all that God is doing in the Calaveras community.

Today, the Faith Club rally will be about Love. Please pray for the speaker and the Christian students to have boldness to proclaim the Gospel. Pray for the students who come to the rallies to learn open-mindedly about God. Also, praise God with us for the rain here today! Not only is it good for the earth, it will also likely bring more people into the gym for the rally! Thank you for your prayers!

–The Calaveras Team