Love and Happiness in New Friendships

I am Henry Hakim, the team leader for Juba Na’bari Club in South Sudan. Ever since joining Young Life in 2019, Jesus has taught me to go and make disciples for him. This encourages me to step out every day and reach out to teenagers in my neighborhood. I go to schools to befriend teenagers around my neighborhood to share about Young Life and the gospel with them. Many students in my neighborhood just need someone to love and care for them, which is what a Young Life leader does. One of my best experiences in ministry was when we took kids from my neighborhood to a one-day Young Life camp earlier this year. This day is forever printed in my heart. I was overjoyed to see kids experience so much love and fun at the camp. Even while we were driving back home they were so excited about the joy they had experienced that they could not stop singing and dancing using camp songs. This is the heart’s pure praise to God!

The next day, club was huge and full of students who wanted to be part of the joy they saw in their friends the day before. It was a beautiful harvest for the kingdom of God. Since then, more students have been transformed by Christ and it has changed our community.

More than 50 kids attend weekly clubs at my home. We are hoping to get a bigger space for club, since both students and parents are becoming interested. My dream is to host an outdoor cinema about Jesus in one of our neighborhood football grounds, invite students and people from my community and share with them about the love of Jesus and Young Life. I believe this will encourage more teenagers and young people to join Young Life and be transformed. It is my prayer that we will be able to reach out to even more students beyond my community.