All week long, seven youth pastors have partnered with the local outreach. They were excited to speak at the rallies, encourage the Christian clubs, fund the Christian materials, and are strategizing how to keep the campus ministry going for months and years to come.

Lodi High School: Between 400-500 students packed into the theater to hear local worship pastor Jeff share his testimony and why it is important to commit to Christ.  The students listened intently as he gave strong intellectual evidence for his belief in God as well as his own spiritual experiences.  He challenged the students not to ponder the shallow questions in life (like how to be “cool”) but rather question the meaning for their very existence.  As the students were leaving, one student expressed an interest in becoming a Christian, wanting to know how. The Christian Club President, Alyie is meeting with her on Friday to answer her questions.

Lodi High School this week has already given out 100 Bibles, and today pastors and other donors quickly brought together money to purchase 300 more Bibles for the campus to fulfill the need of the students’ interest.

Tokay High School: Today was an answer to prayer as the classroom was quickly filled with students during the lunchtime rallies. 100 students gathered to listen to Pastor Kevin give his testimony.  Pastor Kevin explained his high school experience and told of how, after trying to fill an empty space with drugs, alcohol, and popularity, Jesus truly filled him and made him whole. One student Marcos, (a student who heard the Gospel during yesterday’s after school witnessing) came to the rally to continue learning more about having a relationship with Christ. He said through this week he is understanding Christianity in a new way.

Jim Elliot Christian High School: After Emma and Kellee spoke to the students at Jim Elliot today, 5 Jim Elliot students came after school to help witness at Tokay High School. They were very excited to share their faith and help the Christian Club promote the rally, in spite of the fact that it is not on their own campus.

Prayer for tomorrow:

→   Please pray that everyone involved gets enough rest tonight and that they are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to go again tomorrow.

→   Pray that the students who have questions feel comfortable to approach a club-member, youth pastor, or advisor.

→   Continue to pray that the Holy Spirit speaks to the students that continue to come to the rallies.

→   Please pray that the youth pastors continue to work together and with the students to plan follow-up events

God bless!!

–Emma, Kellee, Kolby, and Taylor

Lodi High School:  Pastor Brian spoke today to the large crowd about why bad things happen.  He was able to connect to many in his audience as he spoke about losing someone in a car accident.  There have been many deaths due to car accidents at Lodi High in the past year.  The club members were encouraged by the amount of students that showed up and more Christian material was distributed.

Tokay High School:  Pastor Joe spoke at Tokay’s first rally and the club arranged to go witnessing after school.  They did a great job advertising for tomorrow and really spread the word around their campus!  One student called out to us to ask questions about the rally and about God. Two people involved in the outreach were able to spend about 20 minutes sharing the story of Jesus Christ with him and gave him some material to take home that he said he was very excited to check out!

Jim Elliot Christian High School:  A few students have become involved at the public schools, praying for them this morning and then coming to help the group go witnessing after school.  It was a great experience to see the students learning how to share their faith with other students.

Prayer for tomorrow:

→  Please pray for Kellee and Emma so that when they speak to the students at Jim Elliot tomorrow, they can mobilize and inspire more Christian students.

→  Pray for the club leaders:  Allyie, Rochelle, Charas, Izzy, and Annika.  Through all of the planning and all of the work that they have put into these rallies, they are beginning to feel the pressure weighing on them.

→  Praise the Lord for all of the students being reached and for the opportunity that the students have to do these outreach events!

→  Please keep praying that students keep coming and that God continues to soften their hearts to hear the messages.

We thank you for your on-going support.

–Emma, Kellee, Kolby, and Taylor

Check out what Pastor Joe had to say about the outreach:

Pastor Joe

Lodi High School:   The students put on their first rally yesterday during both lunches.  They put on the “Human Video” skit to the song “Everything” by Lifehouse and then Pastor Gary explained it by giving his testimony.  The students heard how a life can be turned around because of the power of Jesus Christ.  If you haven’t seen the skit before, I encourage you to do so.  It is amazingly powerful.  Throughout the whole rally, the students were SILENT!  This just shows that the students were being receptive.  A total of 222 students came to the events and 80 of those students left with Bibles!!! It was absolutely amazing.

Tokay High School:   Tokay got everything approved and they are very excited to start their rallies today.  After school, they put up all of their posters and made last minute arrangements for today’s rally.

Jim Elliot Christian High School: In addition to the awesome things that are happening at the public schools, we have also had the amazing opportunity to make announcements at the local Christian high school to try to get them involved in witnessing and praying with the students in the public high schools!

Prayer for today:

→ Please pray that the students have the opportunity to share with their classmates.

→  A few of us as well as the students have been getting sick recently.  Pray that God protects our bodies as well as our minds.

→  Pray for the speakers, that they may speak truth to the students.

→  Please pray that the students come back to the rally and that their hearts are open to receiving the messages.

→  Pray that more students catch the vision to pray over their schools in the morning.

→  Please pray that when Emma speaks during Chapel at Jim Elliot Christian High School tomorrow, the students feel the call to join with the Christian clubs at the public schools.

Today, we were able to make a LOT of posters and talk to a bunch of the students that are in the Christian clubs on the campuses.  It was very encouraging that 25 students came, much more than we had anticipated.The students immediately got to work, using their artistic abilities to advertise their rallies and spent time together as students of faith.

Next, we discussed what the themes would be for each day and discussed that our goal is to reach the non-believers and be a light to them.  We wanted to make sure that no opportunities were missed. so our theme for our training was “Don’t miss it!”  We know that witnessing and answering students’ questions can be scary and intimidating, so we introduced the kinds of questions they would be subjected to and practiced answering questions in different scenarios.  We reflected on Matthew 5:13-16 (which talks about being the salt of the world and the light of the world) for encouragement and ensured them that according to statistics, 900 out of the 2,500 students at their school would be opened to discussing the gospel! We also spoke about the importance of starting conversations with others in order to open the door to talking to non-believers.

One student expressed her excitement for the upcoming outreach by saying that she had been waiting for an opportunity to share the gospel to her classmates but didn’t know how to start the conversation.  After today, she said that she was going to take full advantage of the outreach week.

Lodi High School:   60 posters were made to be put up around campus this week and many students challenged themselves to be intentional about giving Bibles and tracts to their friends and peers that were provided by some of the churches that they partnered with.

Tokay High School:   30 posters were made to be put up around campus and students also took materials to distribute to their peers.  One student named Chris took a rather large stack of Bibles, tracts, Jesus films, and Gospels of John with the intention of passing them out to his friends from school.

Prayer for tomorrow:

→   Pray that administrations gives final approval on the location of the rallies at Tokay High School.

→   Please pray that we can wake up early, refreshed, and ready to start tomorrow.

→   Please pray that the students find opportunities to talk to other students and see the fruits of their labor.

→   Continue to pray that hearts are opened to the message this week!

So here we are!  Lodi, California.  We’re preparing for an exciting week of high school outreach.  Today is a lot of last-minute planning and organizing to start our exciting journey.  We will be working with the Christian clubs at Lodi High School and Tokay High School, two public schools in the area.  Their theme is “Why?”  They want to challenge the students at their schools to consider Christianity by asking a lot of important and thought-provoking questions.

Lodi High School- In addition to passing out pizza, ice-cream and cookies, the club has speakers who will talk about subjects such as why do bad things happen?  Why believe?  Why choose?  And why me?

Tokay High School- With pizza, rootbeer floats, and hot chocolate, the students have arranged for speakers to address the following topics:  Why care?  Why choose?  Why change?  Why commit?

We are very excited to get started!

Prayer for tomorrow:

→ Please pray for the students as they speak with their congregations and that the congregations get behind the clubs in prayer.

→ Please pray for the poster party that we will be having tomorrow.  Pray that a lot of students come so that we can do training with them, and that our time together will be effective.

→ Pray that the students would become excited and encouraged to share their faith with their peers.

Thanks for your support through prayer!

–Emma, Kellee, Kolby, and Taylor