One of our YWAM teenagers overheard a conversation on her high school bus. Here’s the gist: Johnny Cool was bragging of all the designer chemicals he would inject into his bloodstream, the young ladies he would deflower, and the staggering blood-alcohol ratio he would achieve while partying over the weekend. His boasts were met with general approval until one finally objected: “Hey! You’re not going to throw your trash on the ground are you? You be sure to recycle those beer cans!”
Johnny replied, “Dude, of course not. I wouldn’t do that. That would be so wrong.”
Welcome to California, our new foreign mission field.
We’re working with a Youth With A Mission campus, to promote the Gospel of God’s Kingdom in the Mendocino Coast, a staggeringly beautiful stretch of Northern California. Someone dubbed our 29 acre property “The Lord’s Land,” back when it was a newly Christianized hippie commune. The name has stuck for almost 40 years. People have come here for decades, renting cabins to retreat and pray.
The Lord’s Land is turning out to be quite a tool in itself. People are drawn to this place, and they are hungry for the word of God. We’ve been hosting community potlucks, where people from all over the coast come to have fellowship and hear our teachings. We’re also beginning to host weekend seminars for groups coming to the land. It’s nice when the fish come to you.
When we’re not cleaning cabins, doing public relations, or tending to our understaffed facilities, we’re often networking. God has allowed us to develop relationships within the local churches much more quickly than we expected. The communities here are entrenched in drugs and occults, but the hope of God’s redemption flickers. We are encouraged by the hearts of the faithful few who are desperate for God to transform their communities.
This brings me back to the youth. Most of the churches are full of gray-haired saints and almost devoid of teenagers. Our allies here seem to think we are part of the answer to this problem. Thus, we’ve already led a youth retreat at our base and spoken at the local youth rally. More importantly, we’ve even taken one youth group completely under our wing -- one of the only successful ones, complete with kids who are either rock solid or stoned. It’s pretty intense.
Now more churches are knocking at our door. Can we start a youth outreach to the high schoolers who get high next to the Baptist church? Sounds fun. “I hear you guys are starting up a new youth group in the Presbyterian church?” Wow. That’s not exactly what we were thinking, but... More and more, it feels like we’re being entrusted with a generation.
So that’s what we’re doing here. Trying to figure out what we shouldn’t be doing. Lord knows there’s more to do than we can possibly handle ourselves.
Pray for us, will you?
Jason and Sara
(Jack has a skill for weaseling into pictures)
