Group Week of Hope 
Manassas, VA  

Our 24SEVEN Sr. High Students will be traveling to Manassas, VA this summer July 25th-30th to participate in a Week of Hope Group Camp.

During this week the students will be growing closer to each other, growing closer to Jesus and helping transform lives by helping on service projects across the Manassas, VA community.

During camp, the students will be studying the story of the Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15:11-32. This will give them an in depth look at each of the characters in this story and allow them examine each one's relationship with the father character. Through that lens, the students will begin to understand why Jesus told this amazing parable, and also have a daily opportunity to examine their own life and faith. This parable reveals God's greatest desire - having a relationship with each one of us. His love for us is amazing and...undeserved.

This will be a great week none of us will ever forget!

Typical Day: A "typical" day will involve serving others, "God Sightings", daily devotions, and inspirational/interactive worship programs.
Our camp schedule will look similar to this:
6:30 a.m. Breakfast crew begins meal prep
6:45 a.m. Rise and shine!
7:00 a.m. Breakfast
8:15 a.m. Morning program
8:30 a.m. Depart for project sites and serve in the community, eat lunch, have devotions
3:30 p.m. Return to the lodging facility
4:00 p.m. Hospitality tasks/free time/meal preparation
5:30 p.m. Dinner
6:30 p.m. Music Team rehearsal or free time
8:00 p.m. Evening program
9:00 p.m. Church group devotions
11:00 p.m. Lights out

Please download the schedule above to prayfully support Greg, Susie and Sophia Williamson while they are away in the Ukraine and Moldova. Dr. Greg will try to update the VALLEY blog as often as is possible so we can all follow the exciting, Kingdom building trip the Williamsons are on. Thank you for all of your love and prayers!

We are excited to let you know that we are in the midst of training our team of 4 people to be launched from Valley Christian Church into India. We have been meeting for a few months and are so excited to see how God is moving in our hearts to be able to go out and touch the lives of the people in India.  God is so BIG and He has called us together to go out and make Him known.  

I have been traveling to India and leading teams since 1996, when I first went with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). I have been to India four times and helped to establish woman’s educational centers in Gorakhpur and Bihar.  We also have established a school in Bihar India called Grace School where we have over 400 students and 12 teachers.  Anupam Yunas is in charge of this along with his wonderful wife Reena. 

We plan to leave New York flying 18 hours to Delhi where we will take a train that evening for 12 hours to Gorakhpur. From Gorakhpur, we will take a 5 hour jeep ride (give or take depending on traffic) to Bihar, where the poor village people live with population of 82.9 million. The most practiced religion there is Buddhism. Our trip will be 10 days.  It is at these two locations, where we will be investing most of our time ministering to the poverty stricken people who desperately need of hope. 

We plan to set up health camps were we will administer medication to the village people.  We will also hire a doctor for the day, and spend time with the children playing games and singing songs.  In 2008, Lisa Fasone and I took this same trip together and saw much fruit as we prayed for those asking for prayer and distributed many blankets to those with out shelter. 

We will also have the opportunity to speak at churches, schools, village home prayer meetings, and an orphanage, as well as many other opportunities to play games, share God’s love and giving our testimony. We are all excited and expectant share with others who God is in our lives and to preach God’s Word.

Please join us in prayer as we prepare for this awesome opportunity to make God known and to ‘transform our world, one life at a time’. 

Thank you so much for your prayers and support as we serve God together to make a difference one life at a time.
 
- Angela Kelly

In September of this year we went to the countries of Moldova, Ukraine and Transdnestria (a rogue country that rebelled in 1992 and declared itself to be independent of Moldova). While on this trip, we met with a group of pastors in Moldova in order to establish a regional branch of Christian Life School of Theology. We also delivered some degrees for our graduates in Kiev, Ukraine but spent most of our time in Tiraspol, Transdnestria where I taught a course for the school there. 

While in Transdnestria, we were able to go into the countryside and visit and pray with new converts who are the result of a new evangelistic thrust into the small villages. These villages surround the large collective farms of the Soviet System. Each village has a population of 200 to 800. They are located about 3 miles apart and circumvent these farms. There are about 5 to 8 villages around each farm. What I saw in these villages was extreme poverty and hopelessness. The people of these villages have no electricity, no running water (there is a central well in each village so most only have to walk 1/4 mile to draw water), and dirt floors. I met with teenagers who do not know the meaning of bath or shower. They clean themselves from a small washbasin with the whole family using the same water.

 The Holy Spirit has shown Pastor Yuri in Tiraspol that the way to the hearts of these village people is through their children. As the church has began to minister to these kids by outreaches involving health care - de-licing, haircuts, tooth care, and personal hygiene - parents have responded to the gospel message. These acts of kindness has resulted in several families being converted and the need to establish a central church in each village cluster. 

I was asked by church leaders to come to Transdnestria at Christmas and play Santa Claus for children in these villages. I was told that this would be one of the best opportunities for evangelistic outreach. We could give gifts and tell the real story of Christmas. I told them I would go home and pray about this. 

As I began to seek the Lord for His will, I began to feel strongly that I was to raise monies to build a church with adjacent bathhouses in the central village of each region. Also I felt that we should have gifts for 3,000 children to give away during this trip. I began to share this opportunity with those around me and even sent a letter to many friends and churches around the country. By  December 3rd I only received enough monies for our airfare. Janice and I felt that we were supposed to go even though we were way short of enough money to purchase gifts for 3000 kids (if we only spent $10 on each child it would total $30,000 besides the cost of shipping) and on the evening of December 3rd we purchased our tickets. The next day Janice received a call from Susie Williamson telling us VALLEY would be sending a very generous check to support our trip. This call was a real blessing and we were encouraged that God was going to do the impossible. 

On Tuesday December 8th I received a call from Natalie (our interpreter while in Transdnestria) who was in America visiting her mother whom she had not seen for many years. She asked me if I was going to come to Transdnestria to play Santa.  I told her I would be there and that we had already purchased the tickets. She was so happy because she had just received a phone call from someone telling her they had shipped Christmas gifts to Transdnestria for 3000 children and wondered if they would have a Santa to give the gifts to the kids. It cannot be a coincidence that I had sensed the number 3,000 and someone sent 3,000 gifts. God still performs miracles!!  

We leave on the 28th of December and will spend 2 weeks having the time of our lives. We can hardly wait to see what God will do while we are there! Please keep Janice, Shawnita, my granddaughter Amanda and myself in your prayers. 

Gratefully Commissioned, 

Dwayne Lusk