WyldLife Clubs Launching and Camp Announcements

We. Are. So. Excited. 

CLUB IS BACK!

WyldLife (Young Life for middle school kids) Clubs are starting up VERY soon! (Below you will find the kickoff date for each WyldLife club) We’ve added all club dates to our website as well as updated it with important events coming up. You can find our calendar by clicking HERE!

What is WyldLife?

In WyldLife, we love middle school kids! They are full of life and yet experiencing profound emotional and physical changes.

A Party with 
 a Purpose

​Middle school is a time when kids make important decisions about who they are and what they believe. And so WyldLife leaders — who range from mature high school and college students to moms, dads, teachers and retirees — consider it a privilege to be involved in their lives. We seek to model and express God's love to our young friends by learning their names, hearing their stories and honoring their God-given desire for a life of fun, adventure and purpose.

Also -- stay tuned for a BIG announcement for ALL of our middle school friends, but we'll give you a teaser. Keep your calendars open October 28th....

If you also have a child at AHS, AMHS or ARHS, we are working to finalize the schedule for high school Young Life Clubs as they will be starting a little later in the fall. We will send that information out as soon as we are finished, and it will be added to our website calendar, too.

CAMP NEWS

Camp Sign Up Night

And, so you can plan ahead, on December 12, 2016 we will be offering a Camp Sign Up Night. There will be a special discount for signing up on this night, in person, only! Stay tuned for more details!

Camp Locations

If you're child is currently in: 

{click the links for a video of camp!}

6th grade, they will be attending Breakaway Lodge

7th & 8th grade, they will be attending Creekside

9th graders attend a special Freshman Only camp at Washington Family Ranch Canyon

10-12th grade attend Washington Family Ranch Canyon as well (a different week than the Freshmen)

YoungLives Camp (camp for teen moms and their babies to age 4): July 8-12 at Washington Family Ranch Canyon

Side note: we're always looking for childcare providers for our YoungLives camp! To see what that is all about, or for more info about YoungLives camp, check out this video.

Discipleship Camp (for 11-12th graders who have been to camp before) details are TBD, but coming soon!

All dates are currently being finalized. They will be released as soon as we have them.

If you have any questions please contact Whitney at the Young Life House. Phone 253-735-3247, e-mail auburnyounglife@gmail.com

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Guest Post: Beautiful Feet // Behind the Scenes of YL Camp

This is a guest post by area volunteer, Dawnelle Knott. Dawnelle serves as a campaigners leader, Auction Chair and countless other roles including dear friend to the Area Director. I am so blessed by her words and hope you are too. -Susie

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news”
Isaiah 52:7

Summer, it brings memories of swimming, warm summer nights, barbecuing, vacations, and for some of us, summer camps.  Each summer, Auburn Young Life sends over 200 kids to different camps all across the Pacific Northwest as campers.  Did you know that we also send out many high school kids, college kids, and adults to camps not as campers, but to serve? 

The servants we send are from our community.  We have watched them grow up.  We have accompanied them to camps. We have listened as they made life changing decisions to accept Christ.  We have lead with them in ministry and have walked alongside them as they have grown spiritually.  Going is just the next step in some of their journeys. 

And then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’  And I replied ‘Here am I. Send me.’  -Isaiah 6:8

Some of those we send are on staff and they serve in this way every summer.  Others are volunteers and it might be a once in a lifetime experience.  But, all of them have the same call from Isaiah 6:8 in common.  All of them leave their families and travel to wherever they are sent. They don’t choose where they go. It is chosen for them. They could be sent anywhere from British Columbia, Canada to Florida. They don’t choose what they will be doing. That is chosen also. They go with a blind faith, knowing they are being sent to the place that God has chosen for them. 

A typical camp “session” lasts from 3 to 4 weeks.  These hands and feet on the ground take on all types of roles and jobs.  Some are washing dishes behind the scenes, others are musicians up front. Some are overseeing groups of high school kids that are working. Some are the entertainers and emcees of a camp which, which are called “Program.” Some are recreation staff: they are boat drivers, lawn mowers, and dining hall servers. All come with the same purpose, to make sure that every camper that comes has the “best week of their life.”

Is it a vacation? NO! Do we get tired? YES! Are there tears? YES! Are there disagreements? YES! Do we get homesick? YES! Is there laughter? YES!  Is it hard work? YES! Do we come back more tired than when we left? YES!  Do we grow spiritually? YES! They all give up so much to go but in the end all of them would say “it is so worth it”!  Two of our college students served one session and then left immediately for new assignments!  How crazy is that?!

This year alone Auburn Young Life sent out the following to be the hands and feet of Jesus to over a thousand kids they had never even met:

Assignment Team
Work Crew Bosses (Roger & Mattie)
Program (Susie & Dom)
Musician (Scott)
Work Crew Coordinator (Ken)

Work Crew (High School Students)
Mikaila, Emily, Taylor, Spencer, EJ, Julian, Beth, Anna

Summer Staff (College Students)
Nina, Kyla, Mattie

Intern (Summer Long Internship at a YL Camp)
Nina

This past summer our family had the opportunity to serve at a camp for 25 days. This was our second summer of serving at camp on assignment. My Husband, Ken, was a Work Crew Coordinator.  That is a fancy title that means he had 5 “Work Crew Bosses” and 44 high school students that he oversaw.  Our daughter was a work crew boss in the dining hall, which means that she had 14 high school kids to teach and work with who served more than 400 campers meals, 3 times a day.  

 The assignment this summer was a little different than the last one because of the location of the camp. I went along with great apprehension.  I wasn’t excited to leave my other kids back at home. Young Life Camps typically have very little communication with the outside world.  Ken, on the other hand, was beyond excited! So, I took a leap of faith and went with him. What I went into dragging my feet ended up being 25 of the best days of my life. They were the longest days and also the shortest days of my life. I watched lives of campers as well as work crew kids being changed.  I made many new and lifelong friends.  I found ways to help and serve even though I didn’t have a job description.  Would I do it again?  Yes, with no hesitation.  Would I go wherever we are sent? YES!

 I believe that as a Young Life area we need to be a “sending” area.  We need to watch for and identify kids that potentially could go as Work Crew and Summer Staff and then we need to encourage students to go! There are also ways for adults to serve on work crew at short weekend events as well. We live in a society that is so caught up with “what can I get from it” and we need to be a group of people that turns that around and says “what can I give to it.”  Who knows: one of these servants might come away knowing that they are called into full time ministry.  Or it might just help them move further into a deeper relationship with Christ.  Either way we are doing exactly what we are called to do! As Robert Frost said in his famous poem “Two roads in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” 

P.S. Watch for ways and opportunities for summer 2017 that you can become involved to support and encourage these “hands and feet on the ground.”

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5 Days Until the Birthday Bash!

There are just FIVE DAYS until Young Life's 30th Birthday Bash in Auburn. We are so stoked. Today we celebrate the Risen King, and how fitting that on Friday we celebrate the thousands of kids who now know him personally, and together we will prepare a way for thousands more to to know Him. Resurrected life -- that's what we're all about at Auburn Young Life!

Thank you for your support, and we pray you will join us Friday. We still have seats available, so please call or email us to reserve yours. (253) 735-3247 or auburnyounglife.maindesk@gmail.com.

REMEMBER, this is our Birthday Bash, and we're celebrating in the fashion of the year we were born -- the 1980's! For your fashion inspiration, check out the following video (or simply come as you are).

FIVE DAYS until YL's 30th Birthday Bash! from Auburn Young Life on Vimeo.

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Video Series: Birthday Bash Blunders Part 2

Hello friends! We are TWO WEEKS until our big 30th Birthday Bash! We need your help. Have you RSVP'd yet? If not, contact us ASAP! auburnyounglife.maindesk@gmail.com or (253) 735-3247. Am I invited, you ask? OF COURSE YOU ARE! We want this room to be filled with new friends and old as we celebrate together, eat together, laugh together and are inspired together. Young Life needs YOU!

Young Life in Auburn is a 30 year-old ministry that reaches into the lives of teenagers through eight distinct clubs led by three young life staff and around 70 volunteer Young Life leaders. Currently, Young Life leaders are reaching kids at Cascade, Mount Baker, North Tapps and Rainier Middle Schools; at Auburn, Auburn Mountainview and Auburn Riverside High Schools and finally through YoungLives, a ministry for teen moms. Young Life in Auburn reaches roughly 500 kids a week through Young Life clubs and campaigners and Young Life leaders know personally more than 1,000 kids in the middle schools and high schools in Auburn.

It takes a small army to fund, feed, support and care for the leaders and kids involved in this ministry. We need your help! Please join us on April 1, 6 pm at Grace Community Church to hear the stories, see the faces and lives impacted by Young Life in Auburn. 30 years, thousands of kids and the best is yet to come. RSVP today.

And for your viewing enjoyment, check our our latest installment of Birthday Bash Blunders, Part 2 (because one certainly was not enough!).

Birthday Bash Blunders Part 2 from Auburn Young Life on Vimeo.

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Video Series: Birthday Bash Blunders Part 1

Our 30th Birthday Bash Dinner and Fundraiser is THREE WEEKS AWAY and we could not be more excited! Have your RSVP'd? If not, there's still time to do so! We would love to have people from all decades of Young Life's ministry in Auburn involved in this special reunion and celebration. It has been an incredible three decades, but the best Young Life is yet to come!

Enjoy this one minute video, Birthday Bash Blunders: Part 1 from Area Director Susie West and Young Life Senior Missions Specialist and Birthday Bash Speaker, Kent Williams. Remember...dress '80's!

wait...there's more! »

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We're turning 30 and YOU'RE INVITED to our party!

That's right, 30 years! Three decades of clubs, campaigners and thousands of kids to Young Life camps. 30 years of hundreds of leaders proclaiming Jesus in word and deed to thousands of kids in Auburn.

On April 1, 2016 we are hosting our annual dinner and fundraiser that will highlight our 30 years of ministry. Join us for Auburn Young Life's 30th Birthday Bash! In the spirit of the decade in which we were born, we're taking it back to the '80's, so dust off your neon gear and shoulder pads and get ready for a totally tubular night of celebration!

More details coming soon!

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