“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:9
I (Jake) have been reminiscing on the faithfulness of God recently. I have been serving with Youth for Christ for almost three years now. When I first showed up at the Hillyard Center, we had two or three students who were attending the ministry. That season did have significance since we could have deep and impactful conversations with the handful of students who attended. Yet, after having the same conversation with the same three kids every day for a month, I longed to see more students attending YFC.
It seemed like in those early months, everything went wrong. I made countless mistakes and questioned why God wanted me to do this work. Could I even continue? I remember calling out to the Lord, and his only answer, which resonated in my soul, was 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” I chose to be faithful to the Lord, YFC, and the students we served, continuing faithfully in prayer and petition for the ministry and the youth.
In the past two years since that personal dark night of the soul, Jesus has been faithful. I have seen him answer countless prayers for the YFC ministry, the staff, students, and programs. I have seen him encourage kids through incredibly difficult times. I have seen him provide in abundant ways beyond our wildest dreams.
One such prayer was our need for food to provide to the youth we serve. We prayed weekly for six months that God would abundantly provide food for our center. And then Feed Spokane reached out to us, offering us one hundred times the food that we were asking for. We were so overwhelmed with food that instead of worrying about what we were going to feed kids, we were worried about how we were going to give all the food away! God is faithful.
We prayed and labored to draw more students to our center. Our Hillyard center, which once lay empty, now boasts an average attendance of 48 youth per day with peaks of 75+. Where we used to struggle to meet 20 new kids a quarter and rarely had any enter the door of our center, with little effort, we had 64 new students attend programs in the last three months. God is faithful.
Where we yearned for students to come to Jesus, of the handful of kids attending, none knew the Lord, and few showed any interest in spiritual matters. Yet, this summer, we saw three kids baptized. We’ve also seen a radical transformation of students walking with Jesus, joining in S.O.A.P. (Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer) club, praying, and worshipping Jesus in song. God is faithful.
We have constantly been praying over the past few months that God would provide more workers. Since my time here, we have struggled to have more than a handful of volunteers at any time. Yet, even as we pray for this, we begin to see the Lord’s answer. Over the past few weeks, we’ve received more volunteer applications than we did in all of 2024. God is currently answering this prayer, and we look forward to seeing how He continues to answer it. God is faithful.
We have our fall fundraiser coming up in two weeks, Keys of Hope. We need provision to continue to do the work we are doing with the youth of Spokane. We are praying, knowing that “God will supply every need of [ours] according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Please join us in this prayer! God is faithful.
God’s not asking us to do something impossible or to go out and personally change the world. God’s not making outrageous demands on His people. As the Corinthians passage said, God is merely asking us to be faithful stewards of the time and talents He’s given us. Will you be faithful in this season of walking with Jesus? This is not a burden but an opportunity to serve with love and joy, rejoicing to delight in Him. Why? Because God is faithful.
For those of us who would like to see numbers:
- Hillyard Average Weekly attendance is 48 youth.
- Downtown Average Weekly attendance is 4 youth.
- Total Unique Visitors totalled 195.
- First-time Visitors totalled 64.
Thank you, for joining us in creating a safe place of belonging for students on the margins! Without you, this work would not be possible.
