President’s Report

Newt and Susan with G and Neosha Lawhorn, Shaundra Battle and Randy Eberhard in Atlanta!

For 20 years, Harriet Henderson has climbed the steep hill behind her house in the early morning hours to pray over all that she can see, and she can see everything for miles. If you saw my recent letter to our financial partners, you know that Harriet’s vision of the valley includes a big disk on the front of the local high school with a mascot painted on it. Harriet asks the Holy Spirit to hit that disk every day like a target. In two decades, Harriet has taken more than 400 kids to Young Life camp from a town of 900. Her faithful prayers have led to sacrificial service and organic growth.

Harriet’s hill reminds me of the Master’s mountain in Matthew 28. As you might recall, the resurrected Lord gathered His somewhat disoriented disciples on a mountain in Galilee and spoke a word over all that He could see.

From His vantage point, I believe He could see everything for both miles and millennia to come. For instance, He could see Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost to pilgrims from “Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, the Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene,” including visitors from Rome. The Holy Spirit had been dispatched and the world had been conveniently delivered to Peter’s doorstep. Jesus launched a global mission from day one.

I believe Jesus could also see beyond Peter to the Apostle Paul sitting outside the city gate in Macedonia, sharing the gospel with a group of women beside the river. We read in Acts 16 that “the Spirit of Jesus” had kept Paul from entering Bithynia, but instead led him to Macedonia. One of these women was Lydia, who is regarded as the first documented disciple of Jesus in Europe.

The Savior could see clearly that day on the mountain in Matthew 28, and I believe His vision included a target on the front of a high school in Gainesville, Texas. Almost 2,000 years after

Celebrating with staff at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Jesus issued the Great Commission, His words continued to roll down the mountain, striking the hearts of men and women like Jim Rayburn, Annie Cheairs, Frog Sullivan and Kay McDonald, just to name a few of our early elders in Young Life. The faithful prayers of these and many others over the decades have led to sacrificial service and organic growth that now includes Young Life ministry in all 50 states and 104 countries around the world.

We may be relative newcomers to the movement Jesus started, but the mission is still the same: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” What a privilege it is to be included in God’s global movement through Young Life.

I look forward to exploring the opportunities for growth that lie before us still today, both in our historic U.S. core and beyond. Like Paul in Macedonia, we will defer to the leading of the Spirit, but the path before us remains the

Proud grandparents.

same: By God’s grace, our faithful prayers will lead to sacrificial service and organic growth. May the Master’s words from the mountain continue to compel us forward until we have hit every target He envisioned. It is a privilege to serve alongside you in Young Life.

In Christ for all kids,

YL2020 selfie!

Susan volunteering at YoungLives camp in Costa Rica.

The Lord has allowed me to be “on the field” as we assemble an elite team of amazing spiritual “athletes,” men and women in the Former Soviet Union, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Global Cities Initiative who have the fire, hunger, thirst, hope, trust and courage to do whatever it takes to get after the “next kid.” The joy of being on an elite team is inexpressible. — Dan Jessup