There is no road to travel,
without Christ’s guidance,
No enemy to face without Christ’s grace.
There is no joy to celebrate
without Christ’s laughter,
No sorrow to bear without Christ’s care.

The prayer above was part of our Youth Sunday Service this year, which took us on The Road to Emmaus. Perhaps even more than most, this was a year full of joy and sorrow. The road brought many detours and cautions, but also much beauty and grace, and Christ was with us all the way.
Our KFC program (for children in 3rd through 6th grade) continues with it’s monthly meetings and the kids had a wide variety of events and programs over the year. Some of the highlights were a trip to the Minnesota Zoo, Sever’s Corn Maze and to the movie theatre to watch a Veggie Tales on the BIG screen! For many kids this was their first trip to a movie theatre. We also had parties to celebrate Valentines Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Several of the members of my youth class have been regular volunteers at these events and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.

TLC, the church’s group for youth in Jr. and Sr. High School, was a little bumpier this year. We had been meeting with House of Mercy for over a year and the groups got on well together, but at the beginning of the year I noticed that there were very few and often no First Baptist youth attending our Sunday night meetings. Finally, in late January, I asked the youth what was going on. It turns out that most of them were committed to two other programs that met for a combined total of five nights a week. They were completely overbooked! So we decided to take a break. From February until September we cancelled our regular weekly meeting, and just got together for special events. When we came back in September I gave the kids a survey to find out when, how often, and for how long they would like to meet. The overwhelming answer was every other Friday for two hours. Since we’ve changed to that schedule attendance has risen dramatically and they seem to be enjoying the meetings much more.
This doesn’t mean TLC wasn’t active this year. Besides our regular TLC meetings, the youth have also spent an afternoon at Como Park in preparation for Youth Sunday, gone to Valleyfair, a “haunted” cornfield, volunteered at Feed My Starving Children, worked with the Merry Martha’s on Operation Christmas Child, participated in a 24 Hour Famine, plus had parties to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
There are three quick things I would like to share about our youth that makes me especially proud. First, our Youth Sunday service was especially difficult this year. The day before the service was the day that Pastor Bill’s daughter, April, passed away. Many of the youth knew April, but they went on with the service. Even Melissa, April’s sister, chose to participate. The story they told, of meeting the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus, was especially poignant and I believe helped the church to grieve. Secondly, after April’s death, her sister Nina who had been teaching the younger section of Jr. Church, needed to take some time away. Several girls from the youth group have filled her position. They not only lead the younger Jr. Church, but also plan and prepare the lesson and craft. The leadership they have shown has been really remarkable and I’m very proud of them. Finally, my youth Sunday School class has decided to take a cue from the miracles of Jesus and have started raising money this year to feed 5,000 children. Feed My Starving Children can provide a meal for a child for only 17. By collecting $850 dollars the youth will be able to feed 5,000. They have already collected over $300 toward their goal.

Jr. Church continues strong on Sunday mornings. Between the two Jr. Church services we regularly have between 75 and 100 children. In the older Jr. Church (Jr. Church Next Generation) there is actually a bulletin and we follow an order of service very similar to the adult church. The children do Responsive Readings, say The Lord’s Prayer, sing The Doxology, take an offering and take turns reading the scripture lesson. This is all to help them transition to attending adult church as they get older. You may have already noticed (for better or worse) that a number of the children are already saying the Responsive Readings in the service already.
One special event the Jr. Church had this year was a book fair. The Family Place received a large donation of books this year and gave over 400 of those books to First Baptist. Ann Fitch helped me immensely in setting up all the books and it was a huge success. Each child had a chance to come and choose up to four books to take home with them. Everyone seemed to walk away very happy. Thank you very much to Family Place for their generosity. The Jr. Church has also participated in our services for Palm Sunday, Rally Sunday, Children’s Sabbath and the Christmas Program. I have been so proud of them during these services as they sing for joy. At the Christmas program the sparkle in their voices was only matched by the sparkle of their halos as over 100 children and youth joined together to tell us again the old story and to remind us of the true “Secret of Christmas”
Personally, my year was also full of highs and lows. It was very discouraging to have to cancel our weekly youth meetings early in the year, but I feel that God gave me that time to help me concentrate on the difficult job of writing and editing for the Quest camp curriculum. The work seemed especially taxing this year, but the reward was great. Many of the kids said that this was their best year of camp ever. It’s great to see the kids so excited and energized about their Bible studies. Another high for me this year was preaching my first (and possibly only) sermon. I felt like God had given me something to say and I was very grateful to Pastor Bill for giving me the support and the opportunity to say it.
Finally, I just want to express how much all of you have blessed me. Thanks for all the support and prayers that you have offered for me and for the children and youth of this church. Without this support and prayer our work would be for nothing. But most of all I know that, although, like those men on the road to Emmaus, we may not have always recognized him, Christ has been on this road with us all the way, guiding us, protecting us, laughing and crying with us. And that has made all the difference.