Operation Barnabas, the annual youth ministry and discipleship program that is sponsored by CE National, is underway. Orientation is being held this week at Grace Church, a Grace Brethren church in Lititz, Pa. (Ivanildo Trindade, pastor). On June 25, the group splits into two teams and each will travel throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana before concluding with a final program on July 28 at Polaris Grace in Columbus, Ohio (Mike Yoder, lead pastor). Below is an excerpt from today’s blog. Read the complete post here, where you may also sign up to receive regular email updates. GraceConnect will follow the travels of both teams and post periodic updates, as well.
June 19
The day began with the students having an hour with God. This was a first for our students here at orientation so far, so this time was refreshing and students came back energized and renewed. After the hour, we spent some time as a group sharing about our experience with God. This time was awesome and the students are definitely beginning to understand more about God and His Word!
From there, we split up into guys and girls groups to work on sermon and children’s story preparation. The students spent this time well and are getting more and more prepared to begin our Operation Barnabas tours… and it’s only day two! After our time with sermon and story preparation, we got the chance to spend more time listening to Ed talk about how to do outreach to people who do not know Jesus. We had lunch in between one of the outreach sessions and another, and it was an awesome time of learning and growth for our students. It is great to watch them learn about how to talk to those that have no hope in Jesus!
Team groupings were announced Thursday afternoon. A complete list may be found here.