Is Twitter winning the teen popularity contest against Facebook?

“Too many adults”, “too much drama”. Global BC, and other media outlets, have posted an interesting article on research showing that Twitter might be winning the teen popularity contest over Facebook.

Curious? Take a look at this article on Global BC’s web site.

Position Opening: Kids worker for a summer theatre program

Golf Tournament Update: Be a Top Gun Pilot for a Day!

This could be you!!! We have a once in a lifetime experience for you, that you will never forget. Be a TOP GUN PILOT for a day!!!

A Top Gun Experience for One Person as a Fighter Pilot for a Day in a Military Aircraft

Estimated Value $Priceless

Do you have what it takes to be a Fighter Pilot for a Day? Imagine yourself scanning the skies in a real military aircraft in search of an enemy airplane. You spot the bogey at 3 o’clock, break turn hard and the fight’s on, up, down, and around, pulling G’s, making quick decisions until you out maneuver your opponent, put the gunsight pipper on them, squeeze the trigger and guns, guns, guns! The enemy erupts in smoke and you roll up and away, Victorious! Your aircraft is an aerobatic, Italian built fighter with the lines and handling of an aerial Ferrari with an onboard intercept capability for acquiring targets beyond visual range. Are you up for the challenge? You, as the guest pilot, will get to fly real military fighters alongside licensed fighter pilots in the cockpit. All aircraft are outfitted with three high-end digital multi-camera systems to capture your fighter pilot experience, as well as a tracking system that verifies an air-to-air “kill”. You will be briefed beforehand on basic fighter tactics, Rules of Engagement, and the physiological effects of G-forces. Then you’ll climb into the cockpit with an instructor pilot for the thrill of a lifetime! You will practice formation flying, basic maneuvers and engage in 5-6 dogfights. The entire experience is recorded on a mini-DVD from three onboard cockpit cameras. The tapes are used for de-briefing purposes and are yours to keep. Note: Complete list of participating dates and cities available upon request.

Your Top Gun Experience includes: • 1 fighter pilot mission experience for 1 person on the SIAI Marchetti SF260 or the Extra 300L, including briefing on the Rules of Engagement, the physiological effects of G-forces, practice with formation flying, basic maneuvers, 5-6 dogfights, and debriefing afterwards • A mini DVD that records your entire flying experience from 3 onboard cockpit cameras • If fighter pilot experience is not available or is not offered in your city, and travel is required, please inquire about air and hotel at 866-607-2616.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: Travel packages are non-refundable and subject to availability. Certificates/Gift Cards are not replaceable if lost, stolen, destroyed or expired. Participants must weigh less than 250 pounds and be no taller than 6ft 6in. Deployment dates vary by location. Dates are subject to change and new dates may be added. No pilot’s license is required for guest. First-come first-serve basis, so there is no guarantee that you will get your selected city; you might want to select a second choice in a nearby city, if possible. Some locations require a six month lead time to secure a date and time. Travel is valid for 12 months from date of issue.

Closest location to us is Seattle. Seattle, WA  Aug 10 – 25. Other venues available on different dates.

Register today for the tournament by clicking  http://www.youthunlimited.com/programs-and-locations/golftournament/

We’re matching donations until the end of May!

Exciting news – donations from people who’ve never given before will be matched up to $500 until the end of May! Please prayerfully consider partnering with me in this way. You can support our programs and staff by going to www.youthunlimited.com/donate

April edition of “a fresh CONNECTION”

Our April 2013 edition of a fresh CONNECTION is now available! Read on for some amazing stories.

Click here to download (PDF)

Post your comments on our Facebook page or tweet us on twitter.

24th Annual Golf Tournament

Our 24th Annual Golf Tournament & Auction will take place at the Redwoods Golf Course on Wednesday, June 5th, 2013.

This year you can register by print and through online registration!

For information and pricing, visit our golf tournament page.

Erin’s Story

I first became a teen mother at 16. When I found out that I was pregnant I was unusually happy. At that stage in my life I was headed down a very dark path of alcoholism, drug addiction, and promiscuity. My perception of life was that I was useless, not valuable, and un-loved, therefore, I had absolutely no reason to change. The prospect of being responsible for another life however gave me a reason to want to change. I knew that I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing and that I would finally have someone who would love me unconditionally. I didn’t have a relationship with God yet and I hadn’t received unconditional love and desperately craved it. I am absolutely positive that this brokenness is at the root of why young women become pregnant so young. They are in need of love. REAL TANGIBLE LOVE.

My father was in my life until I was 7. During that time he was very abusive in all forms. My mother finally had the courage to leave him and she began the struggle of single parenting two young daughters. As the years went on there were other male influences in our lives but none stayed. This was damaging and my sister and I learned not to trust. However, even though I did not trust men I desperately sought out affection from them. Only, I wasn’t looking for a partner. I was looking for a father and that is exactly what I got.

Before I made my way to Stepping Stones of Youth Unlimited in Surrey, every day was a struggle to survive amidst drug addicted family members, emotional and physical abuse, and poverty. We were in such poverty we couldn’t afford to pay the gas bill and so we went through winter being able to see our breath in the air of our home. I would spend mornings boiling water over the stove so I could make a bath for all of us to use. Every Wednesday was spent in a food bank line up, outside in the cold with my three children. Lunches would be eaten at the native friendship center and for a long time dinner would be soup and bannock. I got so desperate I started stealing cheese and milk from the grocery store by putting it in the basket under the stroller.

I was 19 when I first received support from the Youth Unlimited staff and volunteers at the Stepping Stones program in Surrey BC, and they gave me new hope! By connecting with other teen moms and hearing their stories, I learned that I wasn’t alone. I had a new joy as I had something to look forward to each week. I felt like a better mom. I was accepted there, not judged, like every other place in society. Stepping Stones was able to love me and my children when we didn’t feel like anyone loved us at all, when we felt abandoned and cast out by society. The mentors at Stepping Stones showed me what life could be like, they gave me a new dream and something to strive for by taking us to places I only dreamed of taking my little family to. I remember going for picnics at the Vancouver Aquarium, and family camps just to name a couple of things. I remember thinking WOW, I am just like other moms taking my children to these places where they can learn and experience different things. I remember thinking life could be so much more than what I was experiencing. I knew that the women who were helping me loved and served Jesus and I wanted to have a relationship with Jesus so I could have what these women had. I wanted to be like them.

My hope now is that through Mission Stepping Stones, my story can be their story. That we can bring hope and love into this community through caring for, loving, and leading by example. There is nothing more powerful than the love of God, “his perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18) and “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Galatians 5:14). Our call is to “go out and tell the good news to everybody everywhere” (Mark 16:15). I believe it starts by loving people. Everything else will flow out of that.

I am excited to see how God will move in the hearts of young moms and how he will move in their communities. Will you consider being a part of that? We all have gifts from the lord, “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly” (Romans 12:6). How will you use yours? His word also tells us that we are a body made of many parts, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” We cannot do his work if we try to do things separately. Mission Stepping Stones NEEDS partners like YOU! According to scripture and life experience I have learned that we can never do it on our own.

Support Mission Stepping Stones

Dessert Night

Saturday, April 27th

7pm – 8:30pm

North Valley Baptist Church,

32715 Cherry Ave, Mission, BC

Erin Newton Smith will be sharing her hopes and experiences with the Youth Unlimited teen mom program she started in cooperation with the Scowlitz native band and the Sts’ailes Community School. She is seeking assistance to help meet the current needs of the program. There will be live jazz music, refreshments, guest speakers, slideshow and joys of the program’s successes shared.

During the evening Erin is hoping to raise financial support to enable her to work with the new mums, signup volunteers to provide mentorship and practical supports, driving, and childminding.

Ongoing donations of food and other household supplies for emergency hampers for the mums would be helpful. Teen parents often have no source of support other than their own parents. Erin hopes to provide some resources for new teen dads too in the form of sports equipment and food supplies for “daddy and me” breakfast.

Tongue Twisters

The time with the Teen Moms and babies has been celebratory.  For three consecutive weeks, mini cupcakes have been baked, decorated and consumed in celebration of three of the babies in the daycare: two celebrating their one year old birthday and one celebrating two years.  These are wonderful opportunities to celebrate life with the students and their babies.

Now, let me ask you “How’s your tongue?”

Sounds like a strange question but taming the tongue was the topic for the Christian Club meeting.  Students arrived in the classroom shortly after the lunch bell rang.  Each one had a tongue twister to share.  Let’s just say some tongues twist better than others.  Here’s a tongue twister for you to try:

She sells seashells by the seashore.

The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure.

So if she sells seashells by the seashore,

I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

Afterwards, facts about the tongue were given.  Three of these facts are: the tongue has 1000s of taste buds, the tongue’s color reveals a person’s health, and no two tongue prints are the same.  The meat of the meeting was studying James 3:2-12 about taming the tongue and how our talk would change if we tamed our tongue.  The acronym, T.H.I.N.K. was the application for the meeting.

T = Is it true?

H = Is it helpful?

I= Is it inspiring?

N = Is it necessary?

K = Is it kind?

The bell rang before I could play the song “Words” by Hawk Nelson but will do so at our next meeting.  Here are a few lines speaking about the power of words:

“Let my words be life, Let my words be truth,

I don’t wanna say a word Unless it points the world back to You.”

In closing, I pray that our words would point people to Jesus.

Praising Him,  Lily

Lifeteams: What we didn’t expect …

After only one day with this group of grade 11′s, our students wondered if they were doing something wrong.  Usually the kids open up fairly quickly and are willing to enter into all the students have planned for them, despite some fears.  This group was different. There seemed to be walls up – and even heart breaking stories they encountered about the lives of those they came to serve were met with stone faces.  But as the days past the walls began to come down and our students began to hear heart breaking stories from the kid’s own lives.  This particular class had, for the most part, been together since kindergarten and the amount of hurt they had inflicted on each other had built up through the years into an unhealthy place.  And from those places we have nothing to give to others.  So God used the homeless people – again – to break down some of the self-protecting walls and open up conversations about pain and hurt.  And on the last night at 2:00 a.m. kids were still awake at the Lifeteams building, scattered all around the facility praying for each other and repenting to each other for the way they had been.

God is doing a new thing in these kids’ hearts – reconciling them to each other and most importantly to himself.  We had planned a trip to reconcile them to the poor, but God showed them who the poor really were.

The EP Sponsorship & Families

People often wonder what difference does the $40 a month for sponsorship actually make. The answer is that it makes a big difference!

As the students in Kigali started a new school year in January, our colleagues in Rwanda have been busy updating all the information on the students who are part of the sponsorship program – updating information on the current students, and adding information on students new to the program. As we’ve worked together on this, some exciting news came to our attention. Three Rwandan families whose children have been supported by sponsorship no longer need the financial support of The Elevation Project Sponsorship Program!

This is exciting news. Not only does it mean that these three families financial situations have improved enough that they can now support their children’s education independently, it also means that there are 12 spots open for new children to participate in this life-changing program!

Sponsorship not only makes a difference in the lives of Rwandan families, it also has an impact on the Canadian families who participate as sponsors. Check out what one sponsor has to say about the impact it’s had on their family.

Sponsorship has changed our lives in a way I wouldn’t have expected. We initially sponsored Aimé as a way to explore the idea of giving with a personal cost. We agreed to set aside one meal a week to both pray for Aimé and eat a simple meal so that we can afford his sponsorship fees. While this has much benefit in expanding our family’s worldview and increasing our children’s personal self-discipline, some things have happened that we did not intentionally encourage.  Aimé has become a regular unprompted focus of prayer, hopes and dreams for our children. One of our kids has consistently put “visiting Aimé’s city” on their wish list. Another routinely prayers for him at unexpected times.  Sometimes I find the third looking at the side of the bookshelf beside his bed as he falls asleep, and then I realize that it is where the photo of Aime hangs.  Sponsorship turned into a way for me to glimpse the capacity of people (my children) to extended care and concern to someone outside their physical place.

Thank-you for making those lessons possible!

Almost all of the student’s on the program are matched up with sponsors for 2013 – we just have 3 more to go! Click here if you are interested in finding out about The Elevation Project Sponsorship Program.

If you’d like to make a donation to support The Elevation Project, click here.