November 05, 2008

Student Post: Maig Tinnin

Club Beyond:

Aretta Zitta is the coordinator for Club Beyond, a youth group program that she leads on the American Military Base near Amberg. It’s really a partnership between the military, the chaplaincy, and outside ministry groups like Youth for Christ. She invited us to come on Tuesday evenings to hang out with the high school group during their ‘fun night’. Now I have to say that helping with a youth group is not something that I ever saw myself doing. I’m comfortable helping in Sunday school classes with younger kids or in other service areas but I have never even considered involving myself with this sort of program. Part of it stems from the fact that I am really not much older than these kids, and another factor is my views on how a youth group should/should not be organized and operate. But for some reason I decided to go ahead and volunteer anyways. It guess it just seems that if God has brought me half way around the world, has provided me with so many amazing opportunities, then why should I be greedy with my time here? Why shouldn’t I just walk through one of the doors that God has opened? I am so thankful that I did.
Club Beyond ministers to military kids whose fathers' are either deployed right now or are preparing to deploy within the next few months. A majority of these kids do not come from churched-homes; they have either been brought there by friends, come for the free food, or are bored and come for the games and all around craziness. Tuesday night group is about building relationships. There is always a lesson/discussion which instills the purpose of the program, but most of this time is dedicated to building honest relationships with kids who are dealing with even more struggles than the average teenager. It’s such a blessing to run around the Military base with these kids, to play messy jell-o games with them, to be able to talk to them about their life, and to laugh at their jokes.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails