VIDA Abundante (Abundant LIFE)

Last night’s meeting with the youth was a lot of fun. They arrived at 5:30 and are really getting into playing catch with an American Football. I wasn’t playing with them this week because of a sore back, but they developed their own fun game of “keep-away.” It was neat to see all the girls getting involved too. At around 6pm, we had everyone come in and we started the evening’s message. We’re looking at the book, Chazown. It has to do with having vision in your life, or purpose. We focused on the beginning of the first chapter as a review because they’ve heard some of it already. It starts out talking about when we are in our last chapter of life, what will we be doing on our death bed? What will we be thinking about? Will we have no regrets? Some regrets? Or will we be full of regrets? We focused on the verse of Matthew 9:36 where Jesus had a compassion on the people because they were lost and “like sheep without a shepherd.” When we don’t have vision, or a sense of purpose, in our life, we are just like lost sheep without a shepherd. We just “exist” and get from one day to the next. Some of us may not even realize we’re lost.

We finished the evening with a video from Alex Campos. It’s a testimony of a young boy attending a military camp who makes some really good friends. One day while listening to a Veteran of War talk about the opportunity of having a Heavenly Father, he’s reminded of his own father who was very mean, disinterested in his life, and in a fight, killed his mom in front of him. So, he hated his father, “the last thing I want is another father!” Just about everyone received the invitation of having Jesus enter their lives except him. After they graduated, his friends went one direction and he another and felt abandoned once again. He hit rock bottom, looking for freedom and happiness. One day he received a note in the mail calling him to the front lines of the war. As he went met up with the soldiers, there were his two friends that he had made, it was a really special time for him. They shared with him about Jesus, but he never wanted anything to do with him. One day, out on the battle field, one of his friends stepped in front of him guarding his back from enemy fire and took a bullet in the chest, saving his life. He then realized what they always had talked about—the love of Jesus. Just like his friend taking the bullet in his place, Jesus died in our place. He then accepted Christ as his personal savior and was transformed. In the end, he went back to his invalid father and forgave him.

It was an amazing 18 minutes. Silence in the room. And I know that many of these students could relate to the guy in the video and his relationship with his father. We had a very good discussion in the end and had a time of separate guy’s prayer and girl's prayer. It was a great evening!