The first day of Stay2Serve 2014 was stressful, we were running scattered to get everything together for our first day of camp. We had met several kids the day before that had said they were gonna be at camp. 3pm came, it was time for camp to start and we had no one, zero kids from the community here. I was a little panicked, we sent half the students and volunteers over to the apartment complexes to remind the kids that we had camp for them. As soon as our students rounded the corner out of my visibility a flood of kids came running from the apartments, they raced across the street and immediately attached to our students as their friends. The next day we didn't need to remind them, by 2:30 we had most of the same students waiting to jump in, wanting to help set up whatever we were doing, begging to spend time with their new friends, our students. These 3 days matter, the love that the SecondStory students share with their neighbors last.

Samson

It was Christmas break and the worship team wanted to take the time off school to spend a full day practicing and getting ready for the New Year.  The band showed up at about 9:30 picked a set of songs and began practicing. The room was cold fingers and voices hadn't quite warmed up when we heard an extra voice singing along. "bless the Lord oh my soul ooooooo my soul, worship his holy name" we look down the stairs and there he is, Samson, singing the words to the worship song.

Samson is one of the young men that that we met at our first Stay2serve last April.

Some stories from the last year.

Jay, He was small for his age, I wasn’t sure that he was telling the truth that he was in middle school at first.  Jay was one of the first boys to get to Daycamp each day and didn’t want to leave at night. He loved the skits about the bible and thought our students were cool for acting them out. Jay gave 100% during the games. He even helped clean up. Stay2Serve was over, I saw Jay every week or so playing basketball across the street. We’d talk for a few minutes when we saw each other. VBS came and he showed up, begging to help. We had one spot left for summer camp the week after VBS. Some of the students invited Jay and told him how much fun it was. We gave him the paperwork (yes all 8 forms) and told him if he could get them filled out he could come, He said he’d be right back. We waited three hours. He didn’t come back. I took a couple students to the store to get some stuff for camp, there he was with his mom. We talked and the next day he was dropped off with all 8 forms, a new bible and camp gear. Jay made a decision at camp that week to follow Christ. And the young men and women that Loved him at Stay2Serve got to celebrate with him as he began his relationship with Christ.

Pray for more like Jay.