Ladera Eats the Menu

When WyldLife takes over McDonalds

Sunday night we had our first Club of the year at Ladera Ranch WyldLife! We did an event called "Eat the Menu" at McDonalds. It was a huge success! About 40 kids showed up ready to party, and a disgusting amount of McDonalds was consumed in a frighteningly short amount of time!

It is amazing how powerful laughter can be, and that is one of our biggest tools in WyldLife. We aim to give these kids a place where they can be the messy middle school kids they really are... and be with caring adults in that place. By giving kids a place where they can laugh, have a blast, play games they haven't ever played, and go nuts, we earn the right to enter into their lives and bring the love of Jesus with us. 

Club is about building friendships with kids. It is about loving kids where they are at, not asking them to change in order to earn our love. In WyldLife we set out to love and care for kids in the name of Jesus no matter what their response to Jesus is. We pray that every kid comes to meet Jesus, see how truly wonderful he is, and begin a life-long growing relationship with him... but, if that never happens, we aim to love and care for them just the same.

We will be having Club on the following dates this semester: Nov 2, Nov 16, and Dec 7. Club will be on these Sunday nights from 6:30-8. We are still working on locking down a location (hopefully a clubhouse) and will pass that information along as soon as we are set.

Each team started with this

Game face!

Team 1pigging out

Jay was the one of the MVP's for the night

6th grade boys getting after it

It was a total WyldLife take over

After

Pizza Olympics and Young Life

High school is such an interesting stage of life.  More responsibilities are given to each student, but they are still told that they are not adults.  They want to grow up, stay young, and define themselves as individuals all at once.  They want the most out of life, but they also want to feel needed and safe. These students are told that they are no longer children, but they still want to have fun.

It is into this space that we bring YoungLife.  We want to give these teenagers a fun place where they can express their desires, be cared for by adults, and where they can simply belong.  We build all of this in order to show each student the love of Jesus.  Sometimes it looks a little wacky, like having a race between three different pizza delivery guys, but everything we do is in order to build a place for high schoolers to feel welcome, know that they are loved, and hear about the life that Jesus Christ is offering them.  

In our Pizza Olympics club, we had 29 high school students, games including human musical chairs, a Pizza Delivery Champion named German, the biggest ice cream sundae you've ever seen, and a talk about who Jesus introduced himself as.  All of these pieces seem separate, even disconnected, but each leader and I plan these events around the simple fact that we are building a time and place where teenagers will have the best time of their week.  It's about caring for them, and introducing each and every high schooler to Jesus himself.

High Rollers is Back!!!!!

High Rollers is back in action and having an awesome time! We have had 2 clubs this year so far and had a good times at both. 

This year a new friend named Benny* came to club for the first time. He had happen to be at the bowling alley the same time one of our leaders was there. Our leader had struck up a conversation with the student and his family and ended up telling them about High Rollers. 

Benny showed up to the first club of the year a little apprehensive and unsure of what to expect. He hung outside with the leader that invited him and myself while peppering us with question on what to expect from the evening. As Mark and I answered his questions to the best of our abilities, I was excited for him to experience Young Life for the first time.

As we finally went upstairs to start club Benny eyes lit up, I could see Young Life was something he had never experienced before. That night we played a game that consisted of eating as many mini donuts as possible. I'm pretty sure this is something he has never had a chance to do. The night ended with myself being able to introduce the fact that we would be talking about Jesus at High Rollers all year. I excited for Benny to hear about Jesus and that he means something!

Benny had an awesome night. He was fully engaged and interacted with everyone. Thank you for allowing kids like Benny to have a place to experience life like he has never before! Thank you for helping us provide a place for Benny and so many other students in South County.

*Benny is not his real name
-Dave

Winding Up- Young Life Club

Winding Up

The first day of school is a pretty big deal.  Classes begin, athletes train, friendships rekindle.  The school campus comes back to life and bells start ringing.  I’ve been preparing and praying over the San Juan Hills campus for months now, recruiting leaders and calling kids.  It’s all leading up to the start of Club, the start of fun, games, friendships, and sharing the Gospel. 

We’re starting with a pool party tomorrow night, September 30^th.  The goal of the night is to get as many high schoolers as possible in one place, to have a great time, and to gain momentum for the year as we host more events and clubs.  I’m excited to start this process of winding up to new beginnings, a new school year, and a new YoungLife club!

-Josh G

It's on! Ladera Ranch WyldLife that is.

Ladera Ranch WyldLife kicked off the new year with campaigners about three weeks ago. It was so great to see all our friends from last year again, especially those we didn't get to see over the summer. 

It was the typical Friday morning set-up: pigging out on doughnuts, playing a big group game, and then talking about Jesus. 

We did not know what to expect as far as how many kids would come, but it's safe to say it was more than we anticipated, and it's only gotten bigger each of the three weeks so far. Last Friday we had about 65 kids! 

It's pretty amazing that these kids are so amped to wake up super early on Friday mornings to come hang out and talk about Jesus. I'm even more excited about the new leaders we have this year, and how amazing the leaders from last year are doing. With a group this big, I am in uncharted waters and having such a great team of leaders with me has been a huge gift! 

One of the challenges with the rate that we are growing is doing our best to make sure we are at least trying to go deep, trying to make a personal connection with each kid, and trying to give everyone an opportunity to experience the love of Jesus. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement and pandamonium of 65+ middle schoolers, or that we are growing so fast, but that isn't the point. The point is to share Jesus, love these kids, and give them the opportunity to meet Jesus and have a growing relationship with him. So I ask that you pray that we would be open to what God has for us, for this mission in Ladera Ranch. I ask you to pray that God would give me discernment and that I would be able to keep the first things first: Jesus and loving kids in his name. I ask you to pray for more leaders, and parents to come around and support what is happening. 

It's been a crazy ride so far and we are only three weeks in! Praise God.

Thank you for all your support and prayers, they are more valuable than you may know. If you would like to stay connected with Ladera Ranch WyldLife, we have a weekly blog at: http://laderaranchwyldlife.blogspot.com/

Transitions and Growing Up

This Fall is going to be a bit different for Capernaum in South County Young Life. This is the first semester with our Beyond Capernaum Club being part of Mountain View Church.

Our hope and dreams for this happening come back to what Young Life's whole goal is for every kid. Young Life is here to reach the furthest kid, build a relationship, share the Gospel with them, and help them get plugged into a church body.

This is something we have been trying to do for years with our able-bodied students and last year we were asked to try this with our older Capernaum friends. This Fall marks the first year of our friends getting plugged into a church body, allowing them to be able to grow in their faith beyond what Young Life can do for them, and lastly give them a place they can belong to FOREVER.

Please continue to pray with us for this transition. That this transition will truly be a blessing to not only our friends with special needs but the families involved.

For more information please click the link below

Refuge at Mountain View Church

-Dave

MARCO WYLDLIFE KICK OFF!!

Hello all!


I have a  few updates for the upcoming EAT THE MENU club as our first kick off for the 2014 year! We are super excited about this year and are so looking forward to hanging with the middle school kids of this area. FIRST CLUB OF THE YEAR IS OCTOBER 13TH! Location for the eat the menu club is TBD we will send an update for that.

Club will be on Mondays this year from 5:27-6:27  and will be in different homes of our middle schoolers throughout the San Juan area. if you are interested in hosting club this year please let us know! you can sign up here to host a club

if you have any questions please contact Dustin Martnick

email: dmartnick@gmail.com
cell: 949-292-6940


Dustin Martnick