Exciting News!!

Hey to all our people! If you are reading this, that means you are one of us. You have laughed with us and cried with us during our years on this rock. You have been concerned when one of our community struggles with their family, you have been ecstatic when a kid comes to know a truth about Jesus and you have mourned with us when one of our own is lost. Before we go any further I want to thank you not just for loving us well but for being drawn to our community and supporting the work that we get to do in the high schools here. We know you could choose to invest in lots of different works in lots of different communities all across the globe…thanks for choosing us and ours. 

With that said we have exciting news. Our little work together has grown more than we ever imagined. Maybe you knew it would, we know God is not surprised, but we have spent six months trying to wrap our brains around what we are about to tell you…Young Life is starting to be a huge force of change and vessel for the gospel not just in Eleuthera but all over the Bahamas. 

Six years ago the Lord brought me to a little island called Eleuthera. I quickly fell in love with the people, the culture, and the beauty of this little island that God made. What I fell in love with most of all though was the vision God shared with me for the people of this island to know His love. I got to spend a few years watching the Lord pursue this island and then almost four years ago He invited me in. After praying and planning, I enjoyed the incredible gift of a year spent inviting each of you to share this journey with me. I got to dream with you about what God would do here and invite you to ask God if He was calling you to be a part of this journey with me. Together we built a team of people who felt God’s tug on their heart to get involved with a community of teenagers that needed the chance for a relationship with Jesus. 

Our team has consisted of people on the island doing work with us, people who have provided financially for the work here, and people who have taken this community to the feet of Jesus in prayer. Without each of you making up so many essential parts of this team, all of us as a whole would have missed the privilege of getting to be a part of the Lord’s plan for this island.

Last May we had a large majority of our second class of YL Eleuthera high school graduates head off to Nassau to go to school or find work. It was unsettling to hear stories of life once they got there. Nassau is a big city full of violence, crime and brokenness; just like ones many of us know in the US. We send our 17 year olds to the wolves (meaning gangs and drug dealers) and then struggle to find groups to pair them with. After talking to Marvin, my counterpart on Grand Bahama, I realized that many other islands feel the same way. Young life, in order for it to be consistent in the lives of the kids we love, was going to have to grow to all of the islands of the Bahamas. 

This is a big undertaking, but the foundations are already being built. We have begun to train committee members and potential leaders in Nassau, and Young Life is quickly and organically growing as we finally figure out the direction God is pulling us. In January we presented a new vision to my Regional Director and Vice President of Young Life International, with the goal of starting to look at the Bahamas as a whole and develop Young Life on all Bahamian islands. 

As we fleshed out what this would look like we came up with a few cornerstone ideas: 

• An area director per island is needed to oversee Young Life and Wyldlife for each particular Bahamian island including: 
• Nassau 
• Eleuthera 
• Grand Bahama 
• Abaco 
• Bimini 
• Long Island 
• Cat 
• Andros 
• Mayaguana 
• Rum Cay 
• Ragged Island 
• The Exumas 
• The Berry Islands 
• San Salvador 
• Inagua 
• Acklins and Crooked Island 
• A Young Life College director is needed for all of the college students in the Bahamas that will be based near campus in Nassau. 
• A Young Lives director and Capernaum Director based in Nassau and in charge of identifying and training leaders to specialize in these ministries on each island throughout the Bahamas. 
• A Bahamas Country Developer that would help grow the mission in the Bahamas and the support and training for it from the US. 

This is the new dream that the Lord has given us, that every kid in the Bahamas would have the chance to meet Jesus and begin a relationship with him. We believe that the ministry of Young Life can be an incredible vehicle for that because of the magnitude of changed lives we have witnessed during our time with this ministry on Eleuthera. 

Our directors, staff and volunteers have rallied behind this new vision and asked that we step into the role of Bahamas Country Developer. We have spent six months praying, seeking wisdom and counsel, and feel this truly is where the Lord is pulling us. We have begun looking for an area director for Eleuthera to take over our job and next summer I will step into this new role, sad to not be constantly anchored in our sweet community on Eleuthera but grateful for the chance to be a a part of what God is doing on each community throughout the Bahamas. 

This is an exciting new undertaking and we will need to grow a large team, both in the Bahamas and Stateside, around this vision. For our friends that have been with us as we have served on Eleuthera, we want to invite you to continue being a part of the Lord’s vision for the Bahamas by moving with us into this new adventure. This is an exciting time for Young Life in the Bahamas, and there is no one we would rather share it with than each of you! 

I will be calling my monthly financial team over the next few weeks to talk this over with each of you. If you are not on that list but would like to join us, please email me at sarah.s.starr@gmail.com and I would love to talk with you. This will be my final blogpost at “It’s All About The Adventure”. If you are not currently getting our email updates and wish to, please send your email address to sarah.s.starr@gmail.com. Our new blog can be found at www.bahamasyl.com. 

As Ben and I have prayed over these decisions and transitions one thing that we consistently come back to is how much the Lord has blessed us both through our home community here on Eleuthera and our community with you guys all over the States. Home is a beautifully messy word for us, resting geographically both in Gregory Town and Raleigh but emotionally in the homes and lives of each of you as you have stood with us in bringing life to this vision for the Bahamas. Thank you for letting us into your hearts and stories, please join us as we write more of ours with Young Life in the Bahamas. 

Summer Updates (including CAMP!!)



 Right now summer feels like it was a million years ago. We are now fully in school mode with two weeks of classes and clubs under our belts. While life has resumed it's frantic pace, this morning I am cherishing a stolen moment to look back and share with you all the sweet memories and adventures of this summer!!

 

We started off June with graduation parties for a few of our seniors, sniff sniff, and a trip home for vacation and Anna's graduation. It was a wonderful time with our family before the craziness of summer took over.

 

Before we knew it we were back on island and started putting the finishing touches on our plans for the FIRST EVER Eleuthera Young Life Camp! On Saturday June 28th we welcomed twenty six volunteers for our work crew from all over the US to our little island. We dreamed, planned and prayed together and then they immediately got to work. These friends MADE camp! They came alongside our leaders so beautifully, making sure that kids felt loved and free to encounter Jesus. It was a huge privilege to have Chris Lassiter as our camp speaker for the week. Chris's wife Emily is on staff with YoungLives and their five kids came to help the work crew as well. Their story and passion for Jesus was powerful! Our kids got to here the Gospel presented clearly, some for the first time. Camp was five full, jam-packed days of life well lived. Kids lives were changed forever in the light of the Gospel being lived out well by our US team and island leaders! Here are a few of the pictures and a YouTube video with more:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx4XEDca86c&feature=youtu.be.

 

 

Our next adventure took us to TrailWest Young Life Camp in Colorado. I was the Work Crew Coordinator and Ben worked by day and led Round-Up (the middle school and high school camper times) each night. It was a full month of 5am mornings and midnight bed times, and being stretched beyond what we thought we could handle. It was also a month of reconnecting with what God is doing through Young Life outside of the Bahamas and the privilege of getting to be a part of all kinds of people meeting Jesus. I have never seen 36 high school kids work so hard in all of my life. They reminded me what a privilege it is to get to offer ourselves and our lives to the Lord so that others may get the chance to know Him.

 

 

 

In the midst of everything going on this summer, Ben and I made some pretty awesome decisions that have been a long time coming...stay tuned for the next blogpost to find out :)

As always, we are beyond thankful to get to share this journey with each of you! Our island is changing because you all decided to get involved with ministry to a forgotten people...thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being in this with us!

End of Year Updates

As we wind down the 2013-2014 school year and I look back over the past semester I am reminded over and over again how faithful the Lord has been to us and to the dream He has given us and each of you. Young Life is PLANTED… stake in the ground, not going anywhere kind of planted! This is exciting, not because it is Young Life (though we all know how much I love this ministry), but because adults are loving kids in the name and GRACE of Jesus and watching them move from darkness to light!

Before I give an update I want to share with you a verse that we talked about in our last club at Central: "When they saw the courage of Peter and John, and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus." (Acts 4:15) 

We had just finished a semester of a semester of talking about who Jesus is and a couple weeks of what sin, the cross and the resurrection mean for us. Alot of our high school friends have been to church before and have heard scripture read but Jesus is not the focus...they do not have a clear picture of who He is or what the cross means. A relationship with Jesus is a foreign concept to most, but it also the most life-changing when it is grasped. Jesus is being made tangible; kids can relate to him. We are getting to demonstrate this scripture to kids as ordinary people that offer extraordinary love because we have been with Jesus. And kid's hearts are opening up to the idea of what it means to "be with Jesus" themselves. Pray that these awesome conversations continue and we look to the Lord continuously for direction as we walk through this with our friends.

And now the updates J: At Central Eleuthera we are growing by leaps and bounds! At the end of the semester we have a rocking club, two awesome small groups (campaigners) covering three settlements and a BAHAMIAN leader going through training to start it in another settlement! Please continue praying for more leadership to join us! Specifically a girl and guy leader for Governor’s Harbor and a guy leader for Palmetto point.

At Windermere our combined Wyldlife/Young Life Club is going great and we have exciting plans to start a Young Life small group in the fall! This was a bittersweet last club for me because it will be my last time leading at this school…bitter because I’ll miss those kids but so so sweet because it means that our leadership team there is ready to take over fully. I am beyond proud of them and the way they love Jesus and those kids, please join me in praying with them this summer as they prepare for this new adventure!

In other exciting news, we will be starting two new clubs this fall, one in Spanish Wells (led by a potential new staff) and one at North Eleuthera High School. We have had people praying to get Young Life into these two schools for years now and the dream is becoming a reality! Please join us in praying for more leadership to come alongside these schools specifically and for us to be sensitive to how the Lord is leading us in these places!

I will follow this next piece of news with a separate blog post when we have more details in place but what we do know is that after two years of people in Nassau praying to get Young Life started there, the Lord is showing us that the timing is right. I just interviewed and went through training with our new friend Tyrra, who will be our first ever staff in Nassau! Please pray that the meetings we have with committee and potential leaders there on June 1^st go well and that the Lord’s direction is clear as He leads us in these next steps!

And finally, a personal note. Thank you so much to each of you who have been so supportive of Ben and I and our family and we walked with my Aunt Brucie to meet Jesus face to face. She was such an incredible woman and her legacy is that she loved well and unconditionally, the same way she knew Jesus loved her! She taught us to do the same. Her loss is unbearable at moments for our family but friends like you guys have loved us so deeply and pointed us to Jesus and His promises…and for that we will be forever thankful!

It has been a big end of the semester and I am still amazed and thankful that Ben and I get to be a part of all that the Lord is doing here! Thanks for being in this with us, making our work here possible through prayers and financial support and for being a part of getting to walk with kids into the incredible LOVE and GRACE of Jesus!

2014 Begins With A Bang!!

Hello from Eleuthera Young Life! I apologize for the delay in blog posts...2014 has proved to be a very busy year for Young Life on our little island! We got back the beginning of January from our whirlwind Christmas trip and training and hit the ground running!!

Our Young Life club at Windermere started right away, and it was so good to catch up with all the teachers, leaders and students after their Christmas break. We are starting a Wyldlife at Windermere this semester and combining it with the existing Young Life Club for now. This gives us two separate sets of leaders for the younger and older crowd as well as beefing up our club numbers. Club is always more fun with more people there and at a school as small as Windermere that can be a challenge! Pray for direction as we experiment to figure out the best way to grow here! It is an exciting time at Windermere as we begin to transition to our leaders there taking full ownership of Young Life at their school!!

At CEHS (Central Eleuthera High School) we started club back in the beginning of February and our students grades 10-12 came out in full force! Starting week one we gave some of our Grade 12 friends different responsibilities at club and they made all of us sooo proud!! They led games, helped work the equipment and helped their younger or new friends feel right at home! This is exactly what every leader dreams about: High school kids are catching the vision of Young Life and growing it...and that is SO SO AWESOME!

We started small group in Gregory Town back up the beginning of January and have loved to getting closer and closer with this amazing group of kids we love!

Keith and Lori Doster, two of our Central Leaders, began meeting with their JC/Hatchet Bay small group in February and are so excited to grow with that group of High School friends.

Small groups (in the states we call them Campaigners) in each settlement are going to be the key to lasting change on our Island. Because it is so long and thin, transportation is extremely difficult for everyone especially high school students. Having the support and community that a small group offers right in your settlement makes a HUGE difference. We are asking people to pray for future Young Life leaders that live in Governor's Harbour and Palmetto Point. These two settlements have a ton of kids involved in Young Life Club but no leaders from their areas to do a small group specifically for them!

Another piece of huge exciting news it that we will be doing our first EVER Eleuthera Young Life camp this summer. We are pulling together an expeditions team from the states to help put the camp on. They will do everything from serving meals to leading games, freeing the YL leaders up to bond and grow with their high school friends! All of us are so excited about this opportunity!! We still need quite a few volunteers so if you would like to be a part of this, please contact me and I will send you information and a link to apply! Please pray that we have enough volunteers sign up to make this week truly an excellent one, setting a great precedent for years to come!

In other news, the Lord has opened up many doors this last month to partner and connect with other Bahamian adults who are passionate about ministry to young people! I can't even begin to describe what an incredible feeling it is to be in the room with these friends and know that the Lord is pulling all of us together for His good will! Please pray for these relationships to deepen and grow and for wisdom in how to bring us all together!

The Lord has showered Eleuthera Young Life with blessing after blessing these past couple months and Ben and I are so grateful to each of you for being such a huge part the work He is doing here. Thank you for sharing your lives, resources and passion with us and allowing us to do the same!