RAMP Week

This summer tens of thousands of teenagers and families will visit a YouthWorks site, be introduced to a new community, experience YouthWorks programming and have the opportunity to be transformed by God through the experience.

 

One of the many facets of YouthWorks that we like to boast about is our summer staff.

 

Each summer around 350 college aged summer staff are welcomed into the YouthWorks family for the summer as they commit to leading and facilitating mission trips. Our staff members spend countless hours ironing out details, pouring into teenagers and families, tearing lettuce for salad, browning meat for tacos, sitting on porches with community members, acting as a vehicle for spiritual formation and opening up their hands and hearts to make room for the formation that God has in mind for them as well.

 

This week – the week of May 18^th – we take time to welcome these summer staff into our family.

 

We call this week RAMP (Region and Area Mission Preparation) and it’s one of our favorite weeks of the entire year. Our summer staff teams truly are the hands and feet to so much of what we do at YouthWorks. They are the face of YouthWorks for most Churches that come on site and for many of the communities we partner with.

 

These staff teams are absolutely invaluable which is why we take the time to officially welcome them well. This week however, is not all fun and games (although there is plenty of that too). In this week we pass off the baton. YouthWorks programming is in their hands now. The community partnerships that have been built are now in their hands. And the Churches that will visit our sites all summer long are now in their capable hands.

 

So we spend this week training, teaching, learning and developing. We spend this week praying, worshiping together and commissioning.

 

It is during this week that our staff teams learn how to find the perfect ratio of water to taco seasoning to make the ground meat just right for taco Tuesday. It is during this week that our staff teams learn the importance of entering into communities well – with open hands, minds and hearts. It is during this week that we communicate the importance of pointing to the cross and getting out of the way.

 

And so today, not only doing we welcome our new family members, we also celebrate them. We celebrate the path that they’ve waked that has lead them to YouthWorks and we celebrate the path that lies before them as they allow themselves to be used by God in communities across the United States. It is truly a grand celebration.

 

Would you join us this week in celebrating and praying for our summer staff as they are introduced to the work they will do this summer?

 

To learn more about what our staff are up to this week follow #yw2014 and #RAMP on facebook.