Bahamas Update: The 12-Day Countdown

Our kids working on homemade thank you cards !!!! 

Just 12 days out, here are 10 facts about our Bahamas trip. 

10. Our youngest kids' passport came in the mail yesterday! That was (almost) the last big barrier to being fully ready to go. 

9. This is actually my second trip to the Bahamas. I went in 1996 as member of the Shenandoah University men's basketball team. (For those of you that know Jeremy Hartman or Mandrel Stuart, can you find them in this picture collage?) 

8. Waynesboro Chick Fil-A helped us with a big fundraiser. Our five kids were also unofficial  Chick Fil-A workers for the day. It was cool to see them putting in effort toward their trip. 

7. THIS IS NOT A LASSITER FAMILY VACATION!  We're actually going to serve with the ministry of Young Life in the Bahamas.  Lee Corder, who heads up Young Life mission work on the Western Hemisphere, sent me this encouraging e-mail as we prepared for our trip! 

"This often comes up around our Caribbean work. Just remind people that we don't drive from airport to resort, we stop before the resort in small towns and villages with all the same issues of poor nations everywhere.

Where you're going is poverty, despair & hopelessness all covered by a sunny climate. The descendants of West Indies slaves live in a world of licentiousness, religious bondage and superstition where the good news of Jesus' deliverance and freedom are desperately needed. Your willingness to serve is profound and crucial for our dear kids there."

6. I will be the camp speaker. I know from a distance most people only see the Photoshopped, cleaned-up verison of me, but I know I'm a mess. (I've got hang-ups like dial tones!) I'm thankful that God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines, and that He specializes in accomplishing His purposes through broken people.  P.S. Here's one of my favorite sermons on that very topic. 

5.  Father's Day really made me think long and hard about the legacy I want to leave my kids. I'm so glad they are coming with us this year. 

4. In the past few years, I've been to Uganda, Bermuda and Hawaii as well. The truth is, however, I don't really need to travel. I'm pretty much like Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit. 

3. I'm a big picture person, but horrible with details. This trip would never happen without my wife! 

2. So many family members, friends, churches and ministries have come together to make this trip a reality for us financially. We could never say thanks enough! 

1. We still have a ways to go financially and 12 days to get there.  You can make a tax-deductible donation by clicking on this link:  Thanks everyone. Every penny helps! 

"Tryin' to make a dollar out of 15 cents"... Connecting Students to Resources

  I tell people that the students I work with at Robert E. Lee High School are the funniest kids anywhere.

Even the most routine conversations are comical.

A few years ago, we were helping kids raise money to go on our annual Young Life fall weekend trip. Here is how a conversation played out with one particular student.

Me: How is fundraising?
Student: Not good, C! I made minus five dollars ...
Me: Minus five dollars? 
Student: Yeah, the only lady I asked ended up asking me for five dollars!!!

While that story remains one of my favorites, the truth is we've had success with fundraisers. This week, we're doing a Lee High stadium clean-a-thon to help kids pay for our 2013 Fall Weekend Trip.




The fundraiser is really simple:

Students must:

1. Agree to clean clean up the football stadium for 30 minutes or so after Friday night's football game. (We try to pick things that benefit the school).
2. Try to find 12 sponsors that will give them 10 dollars each for the clean-a-thon.

Not only does the fundraiser help kids with the financial aspect of paying for camp, we help them learn three important lessons.

•  Students have more resources than they think. So often kids see the price tag and believe they can't attend because they don't have the money in their piggy bank.  While they may not have the money in their bank account, they may have the resources to go get the money if they think creatively. 

• You have to have some ambition in life. There will always be road blocks to success, but that doesn't mean it's time to give up. You have to find a way above, under, around or through the road blocks in life. Our hope is that as they raise their money for camp they see that they can find ways through other road blocks to success as well. 

•  No one should be more invested into your success than you. At Young Life, we NEVER want to the reason that kids don't go to camp to be a financial one. And, in some cases, we help kids cover the cost. However, our first aim is to always to have a student invested in his or her own trip so that the student can learn lessons on being successful in life. 

There are plenty of other ideas out there for connecting students with resources, including a Urban Youth Workers Institute talk given by Kitty Fortner entitled 10 Proven Ideas for Fundraising Beyond the Car Wash. You can listen here. 

Chris Lassiter is a Christ-follower, a husband to Emily (read her guest blog here), and a father to five wonderful kids. He's written for The News Leader, HipHopDX.com, Rapzilla.com, Young Life Relationships and other publications. Recently, Moody Publications just published his first book, You're Grounded, which you can read about here.