Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. – John 12:25-26
May has been an encouraging month as we have welcomed hundreds of guests to LeTCC. Our new staff have been introduced to some very large groups and handled the pressure well. As usual, we are grateful for the dozens of volunteers who came out to help us serve our guests and to allow us to minister well. During our Memorial Day Weekend, it was incredibly busy, but the Lord provided for our needs with some very hard working folks.
God has sent us some special young people to work with this past month. We hired Jens and Sonya Loso about 5 weeks ago, in the roles of maintenance and grounds manager and groups coordinator/office manager. Jens and Sonya came to us from a camp in North Carolina. They are newlyweds and truly love serving others; it is obvious they have a passion for discipling young people. We are thrilled to have them on our team, and I’m excited to see them help train and bless our summer staff.
The WAY program, our summer youth and young adult discipleship program, had a tremendous start at our annual staff training weekend. We will be welcoming 12 teenagers and 8 young adults (18+) into the program. Many of the young adults will be helping with our day camps as counselors and teachers. We are thrilled with all these young people and are looking forward to pouring into their lives and leading them to know God and to make him known. Please pray for these youth and young adults as they lead, serve, and grow in Christ.
We have also been blessed to have three young men join our summer team this month. Lucas Holmes is a young adult who is preparing to lead some of our discipleship ministry for the summer. William Robinson is a young adult who will be serving in several areas of camp ministry, but especially in worship and summer staff accountability. Donivan Williams is the first young man to join our new internship program, which is an extension of THE WAY program for our summer staff and continues into the fall. He will be serving, gaining experience in ministry, receiving leadership training, and studying the Word through Biblical education and will be joined by at least one other young adult for the internship. Thank you for being a part of bringing these young people to LeTourneau to serve, disciple, and to be brought up in the Lord in ministry. The Losos and these young men have truly grasped the meaning of John 12:25-26. It is a blessing to see them sold out for the Lord.
God is blessing the ministry and our calendar continues to fill with small to even very large groups. Many churches and groups are enthusiastic about our vision and the future God is revealing. Some have even called to volunteer their youth groups or church groups for future work projects at camp. Others are excited about our vision for local and foreign missions and want to help reach the lost. I hope this aspect of our ministry will be even more evident by 2017.
Our LeTCC IMPACT events are being built up and have received a lot of good responses. We are planning on 10-25 campers per week during the 6 weeks of day camps; culinary camp being the most popular. We have been able to operate our paintball field for three groups now and have had a great response. We are moving forward with planning for our Outreach Teen Camp, Evangelistic Paintball Tournament, Youth Winter Retreat, and other events for 2016-17 (more info to come).
Praise the Lord for His works and for His guidance.
Jamie Fischer
LeTCC Director