Hi everyone, just a few quick notes as we are getting ready to wrap the week up.

Jr High Campus Life

Good times at last night’s club. We played the bucket game where everyone stands on buckets in a circle and holds on to a rope also tied in a circle and then try to be the last one to not get pulled off their bucket. It is a whole lot of fun. It was Daniel’s birthday and we made a cake out of malt ball’s for him and yelled the happy birthday song. Good fun!!

On the ride home a couple of the boys and I had a very meaningful discussion about life’s hardships and how to handle fighting at home. I pray that God spoke through me to them and that God uses these moments to deepen the relationship with these young men.

It’s always a good club when you can see God’s hand at work and that was certainly the case last night. During the free time, the talk time and the games there was moment after moment of God revealing Himself to each kid. I’m glad that I get to be a part of it.

Quail Point Rotary and the Phoenix Youth Center

The Quail Point Rotary was a substantial part of helping us get in to the youth center with a $1000 donation at the beginning. They met at the Youth Center on Wednesday to get an update on the ministry and it’s place in the community. I’m happy to report that the meeting went exceptionally well. They are a great bunch of people and very easy to talk to but even beyond that it was great to get to relay to them all the good things that this youth center is doing for Phoenix and Talent.

Prayer Requests

• For God to invade our high school club tonight
  
• For safety on our snow trip tomorrow
• For a young girl who told me that she has just started experimenting with marijuana
• For God’s hand in the financing of Phoenix/Talent Campus Life

   
   

  Thanks for your concern and God bless you

  Isaiah

   
   

Oden Playing Guitar Hero with Eddie

Recently, our HATS program teamed up with Oregon Mentors at an event called Greg Oden’s Summer Slam. The event was designed to be fun for kids and to raise awareness of the need for mentors all over Oregon. The kids were excited to play basketball, guitar Hero and Ping Pong with Blazers center Greg Oden and adults saw first-hand the positive results of being a mentor. They saw that caring adults are making a difference! The goal for Oregon is to facilitate 20,000 new mentors by 2010 through existing mentoring programs like HATS.

Playing Shootout with Blazers

The Blazer Mascot and HATS kids

Phoenix/Talent YFC is a group of ministries built around the concept of a relational gospel. That is, that by getting to know my story a student comes to see God’s story and wants to incorporate that into his story. So we run clubs, drop-in times, a mentor program and (eventually) a youth center all with the goal of each student conecting with a caring responsible adult who will deliver the gospel within the context of the relationship that they have built.

My intention is to write here weekly. That will happen soon. But let’s talk mentor teams…

We just finished our three month calendar for Talent Friends Mentoring. I am excited about how things are turning out there. The mentors are really doing a great job of fighting through the hard early months of trying to establish a relationship with their kids. We have fishing, hiking and bowling trips planned on top of the regular group and individual meetings. Sounds like fun and a good opportunity to build relationships.

I am currently working with a number of other churches in phoenix as we build towards a community full of mentors from within the individual churches. I am increasingly excited as things are growing and building. The foundations took a long time to lay, but I think we are ready to start the building.

We have just begun the planning for a mentor-mentee summer camp. Bud, Clem and I have been charged with making it a success. I believe this is a really important aspect of what we are doing with HATS Team mentoring. Please be praying that God will give us wisdom as we are deciding what camp ought to look like.

We just finished our big Spring Concert Fundraiser with Rebecca St. James and Tampa Bay Punter Josh Bidwell. We did this in conjunction with Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It was really cool that we all had the opportunity to work together to do something bigger than either one of us could have done alone. I had a great time there and I hope that any of you who made it enjoyed yourselves. A bunch of people got to hear about a couple of great organizations and what each is doing in our community. Josh is a great speaker and Rebecca St. James did a fantastic show.

That’s all for now, God Bless you

Isaiah

It’s time to really get excited about the possibility of a youth center in Phoenix. We are in talks about the building. We have a long ways to go when we consider funding, but a little hard work and a lot of blessing from God makes me opptimistic about the venture.

My job at Talent middle School is turning into a whole lot of positive relationships with kids who will be in High School in the next couple of years. Hopefully, these will be the ones who populate our Youth Center in the years to come. They are already filtering in to the HATS Mentoring program. So, we are becoming a very positive influence on the community and we are growing in our scope of influence. I really believe that God is doing good things in Talent and Phoenix.

The next big issue is one of fundraising. The more things that we do as a ministry, the more time I need to put in. Right now the total time that I am capable of is limited by the need to work at Safeway to cover for not being full time at YFC. That means I need to raise at least $500 more a month to support me at full-time. If you feel God leading to contribute toward that goal, please contact me. This is becoming more important as we ramp up the Phoenix/Talent Youth Center.

Don’t get me wrong, many of you have been very generous in your support so far and I very much appreciate that. I pray that God has been and will continue to bless you for your generosity.

For those who are praying for Phoenix YFC, here are a couple of needs that have come up lately:

• A High school boy who was raised a christian but isn’t sure if he still believes.
• A High school senior who is struggling with the age-old question of where she belongs,
• An emotionally stunted middle school girl who has a hard time expressing herself.
• A middle school boy who sometimes makes bad decisions and feels like he can’t control himself when he does it.
• That I would be diligent in fundraising.
• That God would bless my wife

Thanks,

God bless you

Isaiah

The more involved I get in lives of kids, the more I find messy lives. Sad story after sad story. Sometimes they were dealt a raw hand, sometimes bad decisions they had made could be blamed and still other times there was no easy explanation. The common thread was a path of chaos and no words that would “clean” it all up.

My friend Kyle is 17. He was raised in church and sometimes he even prays, but he’s not sure that God exists. When he found the courage to tell me he sheepishly explained to me “Your not going to like me after I tell you this.” We talked for a while about apologetics and why I was certain that there must be a god and that He must be a loving God and how Christ is the only possible fit. His problem was not one of apologetics, it was one of relationship. His family life was less than ideal and love was just too hard of a concept for him to hold on to. There wasn’t a set of words that was going break through into his experience. Instead, God has allowed me to be a piece in the redemption process. Kyle and I are building a relationship. Kyle is learning about love. Kyle is finding himself fulfilled in a God that he wasn’t sure that he believed in. The incredible miracle of Kyle seeing Christ in me.

Sad stories are only sad until God redeems them. We get to be a part of God’s redemptive plan! This is our goal in every aspect of ministry development in Phoenix/ Talent Campus Life.

When you contribute to Campus Life, You are contributing to the development of lifelong relationships that are geared toward pointing kids in the direction of the redemption that God offers through Christ. Thank you for your concern for kids and for your action on that concern. Thank God for His redemption and his plan that includes all of us. Isaiah Gannaway

Welcome to my web log. This is the place to find out about all things Phoenix/Talent Campus Life. I may also post odds and ends theological thoughts and links to what I think is good artistry. There will be pictures and anything else you might want. This site will be entertaining and valuable to students, mentors, donors and the casually interested. Thanks for visiting. Please stop by again.