I’ve been telling you all about how wonderful YES trips are for our youth for years; Youth Equipped to Serve comes to your town and teaches your kids what it practically and truly means to love your neighbor, and equips them to become servant leaders in your community.
YES sends leaders to your town and gathers your kids together and brings them face-to-face with the various kinds of poverty in your own city — but in a time of pandemic, leaders can’t travel and kids can’t come together, and being face-to-face is so tricky. The usual model just doesn’t fit our new reality.
I’m so impressed with YES leader Katrina Bitar and her team of wonderful YES staff, because they weren’t content to tread water until life goes back to normal. They could see that this is the new normal. This is what our today looks like, and it’s presenting us with new struggles and revealing our brokenness in new ways. Both our kids and our communities are struggling in a different and important way — and they are leaning in, allowing YES to grow with this and to take a new shape.
They’re not counting the days until they can get back to the old plans — they’re counting the ways they can inspire and equip our youth right now.
Today is Giving Tuesday. We’ve thanked God for our blessings, we’ve purchased gifts at solid discounts — today we give back. It’s a good tradition. If you’re able, please consider a gift to YES!
