A FRESH START!

Hey Everyone, I hope your new year has started off well. I got back from Christmas and started work at full speed. With our New Years Eve party we were able to connect with dozens of new youth and have seen many of them out on the weekends. We started a new series for our Tuesday night Bible Studies called Gospel Journey Maui that has drawn out a lot of new youth as well (typically 45-50 youth). It is a series that has 7 young people from across North America with different faith backgrounds discussing deep questions of life such as ‘is there a higher power?” and ‘what is the meaning of life?’. Since New Years we have seen such a softening of hearts in our youth and it is so exciting to have God lead us to be apart of this journey with our youth in discovering who they are and who they were created for. Please continue to pray for our youth and our staff as we join them in this journey.

Also on Saturday nights we have been running the series during our drop in hours for youth who are unable to attend on Tuesdays. This past Saturday we had 16 youth join us in watching and discussing the video. This is so exciting as God has awed us at the youth He draws in. This past week 4 girls who we often catch drinking in our bathrooms joined us for the study and were so focused and captivated by it. God often reminds me to stop limiting God to what youth I think He can change. He has been so gracious to me this month in gently reminding me that He has the power to soften the hardest of hearts.
Another girl who was in my small group on Tuesday talked to one of the other leaders from our group on Friday about how she wants to become a Christian after our discussion on Tuesday. Please pray for her as this leader walks her through what it means to be a Christian.

Some of our amazing youth and staff helping with an annual food drive in October!!!

Another exciting thing that has started since Christmas is creating a new start for our student leadership team (SNL= Service N' Leadership) . The main leader moved after Christmas which was sad to loose him but exciting to be forced to think outside of the box and revamp how we run student leadership. It is just starting up but it has been exciting to approach youth to be apart of the team and to tell them what potential we see in them. God has created our youth with amazing gifts and talents and we believe by teaching them how to lead and serve that God will also draw them into a greater understanding of who God has created them to be and who He is. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in a few weeks.
We truly believe God is moving in a fresh and new way this year at Joe’s Place and we are excited for what this year of 2009 holds for us. Since January we have added 3 new full time staff to our team which increases our ability to reach the youth of Moose Jaw. Thank you for your continued love and support and partnering with us in as we are blessed to be apart of God’s work in this city.
Hope to talk to you all again soon
Love Always

Leanne