Outreach Camp

July 2017

A powerful component of Young Life is leaders. These leaders, many of them volunteers, give their lives to serving Jesus by reaching His children. They show kids in their communities the love of Christ through selfless actions and a genuine desire to know them. And Young Life camp wouldn’t be Young Life without them.

Almost 300 kids attended the fifth Young Life camp held in Kuriftu, Ethiopia. This included 36 kids from Muslim backgrounds and 74 girls. Layla is one these girls and she loves soccer. Rahel, an Area Director in Addis Ababa, would consistently meet up with Layla’s team and play soccer with the girls. She always invited them to Young Life and eventually to camp. Layla and her friends came to camp and woke up early to play soccer before the day’s events. They noticed that Rahel, despite her busy schedule as a leader, joined them every time, just like she did in Addis. “Why? Why do they treat me like this?” Layla asked about Rahel and the other Young Life leaders at camp. “I am just an ordinary girl.”  But at camp, Layla realized that they did all this in order to show her the love of Christ. Because of this, Layla gave her life to Christ at camp. At the end of camp, Layla said: “I give my ordinary life to give glory to God.”

Another camper, Hassan, is in the 11^th grade, and his parents are divorced. This hurt led him to find family in a group of friends who drink and do drugs, causing Hassan to get involved in the same things. Before coming to Young Life, Hassan doubted the existence of God. But he attended club every single week because his leader was so committed to inviting him, and for the first time he felt a true sense of family. At camp, he felt comfortable exploring his questions and his doubts about God, and his leader encouraged him to turn to God in the midst of these doubts. They prayed together and, in tears, Hassan dedicated his life to Christ.