To start off the year, we took 11 students to Twin Rocks Friends Camp in Rockaway Beach, OR for our annual “winter” retreat DARUDE. This trip was fully funded by CAC attenders who generously gave money to allow students to go on this trip completely free of cost. In the beginning of this year we introduced and fully solidified our student leadership program which welcomed 5 high school students into the middle school ministry to help lead and love these kids!

 

            In early spring we also held our first middle school all-nighter. We had over 50 middle school students attend this event which went from 9pm - 7am! Our leaders were exhausted but kids had a blast and we plan on doing it (or a version of it) again in 2023. In late June, Nick led a group of 6 students up to Malibu Club in Canada through Young Life. 

 

            After Young Life camp, summer came and went real fast. Pastor Nick and Taylor welcome their new baby boy, Milo in mid-August and then before anyone could blink, the new school year had started and the youth group was back up and running.

 

            This school year welcomed a few new elements: Metanoia (our Sunday morning program) returned and has been running smoothly since, our leadership team has now grown to 9 with an additional 4 high school leaders, we have brought back meals for the students every Wednesday night, and we had our annual movie-marathon in October (Harry Potter).

 

            We ended the year with the enormous 7th annual Yuletide Spectacular- our Christmas party that we throw alongside Canby Young Life. We served almost 150 kids at what was the greatest Christmas party they will ever attend. We had an army of leaders, chefs, security, setup teams, teardown teams and everything in between. The sheer amount of man-hours it took to put this together was staggering, but it was all worth it as kids from this town came pouring in to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

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            We look forward to 2023 with hopes of continued growth, outreach, leadership development, spiritual maturity, but above all else, strong relationships with students. Since we are in large part an outreach to the city of Canby, relationships between leaders and students must remain our focus since most of these students are not affiliated with a church. It is the blessing of a friendship with a safe adult with no prior agenda that we believe will assist each student in their discovery of Jesus, saying “yes” to Him, and ultimately walking with Him for the rest of their lives. We are so grateful for this beautiful facility, generous donors, a congregation that gives and gives and gives and loves loves loves, and an admin and elder board that firmly stands behind our leaders, students, and ministry. 

 

Thank you for such an incredible 2022, and here is to an even better 2023.

 

With love and in Christ,

Nick, Lindsey, Nicolle, Josiah, Adam, Kasey, Sailer, Riley, Tommy, Zach, Jordan, Gage, Carter, and Cade.