Young Life Cleveland West

Young Life feels like a party every week as kids gather for clubs, fall weekend, and Campaigners.  Christmas time – that’s the time when December starts that is like a party every day!  In Young Life, we step up our celebrations and it’s amazing. This year 50+ leaders and committee packed into a house and had the "party to end all parties."  We ate together, prayed together, and of course opened gifts together.  Of course, we played our usual Christmas game…except we changed it up this year and made it even more fun!  We shortened the time and doubled the fun, and it was so great. All our volunteer leaders also got a great Christmas gift from the staff and committee to thank them for all they give to love kids from all around Cleveland.  We believe our volunteers are the greatest gifts to us and the kids... And to quote Cousin Eddy in Christmas Vacation- “and they're the gift that keeps on giving all year round.” Thanks and Merry Christmas to all ou

As we turn the calendar to December, we are keenly aware that Christmas is approaching rapidly and that yet another year is ending.  On Monday this week we had our 88 th Annual YL All-Area Club.  (88 th has been the number since YL started in Cleveland in 1970!).  We saw nearly 200 kids coming from six clubs around Cleveland pack out our club room this year and it was super exciting.  We sang Christmas songs, like Feliz Navidad and Rudolf to 12 Days to a song called How Many Kings .  Kids laughed as they saw kids eat spaghetti, chocolate, and syrup as fast as they could.  A girl from Bay won it!  They saw our special guests, Elf Nemo - two little elves - who showed us how they got into shape as elves for the Christmas season.  Finally, they got to hear from Alex Meyers, our Lakewood Young Life Staff guy, as he shared about life.  Alex asked what it is we put our hope in, realizing that there’s no one we could ever hope in who's like Jesus.  It’s been a great year

Coming up soon, Young Life Cleveland West is participating in Giving Tuesday — a national day of charitable  giving  at  the beginning of the Christmas season. Please consider Young Life Cleveland West as you give this  December 3rd,  and stay on the lookout for more information about  YL Camping opportunities in our area!   https://giving.younglife. org/ CleWestGivingTuesday

This past weekend we had our annual Lakeside Leader Overnight in Lakeside, OH. Over the course of 24 hours we had about 40 leaders and friends of Young Life in Cleveland and Lorain County come together for encouragement, community, and teaching. This is the gist of what we did.  We spent time together.  We opened the Bible together.  We played mini-golf together.  We ate too much pizza together. We prayed together.  We stayed up too late together. And we went back to our schools recharged and excited to be in the world of kids, together.  The fall semester is well underway and we are running hard after our middle school, high school, and college friends. Would you join us in praying for opportunities to be with kids, depth in relationships with kids we know, spiritual and emotional health for leaders and our community, and for the good news and love of Christ to be proclaimed— remembering always that “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

We are finally catching up after our final camp trip of the summer! Our campers in Young Life Capernaum (our ministry for students with disabilities) experienced a week of God's unconditional love for them while enjoying everything the camp's beautiful property has to offer. Campers got to experience a taste of abundant life through camp activities each day, including a Disney themed day, pool party, talent show, and so many more fun events. Each morning the whole camp got to experience a club specifically catered to Capernaum students with songs, games and an incredible camp speaker. During the week, everyone at camp got the opportunity to memorize John 3: 16. It says, "F or God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Throughout the week, the leaders and buddies had time to process what this scripture meant to the campers. During one cabin time, the campers ha

Working alongside a local church to clean a neighborhood home This year, the local YL staff organized the first local discipleship trip in our region, the Cleveland Leadership Experience. Some of our goals in creating this were to: Serve local ministry partners in the city of Cleveland. Give students an opportunity to learn to lead and grow in Christ through service. Provide vision for students to stay local and make an impact in their city during and after their high school years. Create space for students to experience a different environment and to learn from leaders of diverse environmental and ethnic                                                                                    backgrounds. A text a leader received from a student two days later. All this was accomplished and more as we taught students the value of service and sacrifice and then put those values and our faith into action! Our friends grew immensely in this short overnight trip together and are