By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
A group of visiting youth joined local Youth With A Mission (YWAM) members in a community outreach effort which saw graffiti removal and bridge painting last week in Oliver.
Youth With A Mission is a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups and Christian traditions.
The movement began in 1960 with a main focus on helping youth get involved in missions. Today, this focus remains but has expanded to include people of all ages. Globally YWAM has tens of thousands of staff (called “YWAMers”) from nearly every country, including places like Indonesia, Nepal, Mozambique, and Colombia.
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One of the programs YWAM offers in Oliver is called Mission Adventures, explains Chris Hagel, Base Co-Director, Mission Adventures Leader.
“Mission Adventures is a five day program that gives youth a taste of missions. We add within the program, christian disciplines (worship, prayer, bible study etc), adventure and leadership/team building activities, and outreach towards our local community (outdoor maintenance to local community, Gleaners, Senior care home visiting, etc),” he says.
The most recent group that came for one of these missions was from Anchor Academy which is an online Christian homeschooling community. Five youth – four boys, and one girl – along with two chaperones came together from various parts of BC to take part in the local Mission Adventures program.
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Hagel says they set up a local outreach to do graffiti cleanup which took place on Monday, May 5 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. “We got to paint the walking bridge across from the dog park by Lions Park in Oliver. We also got to clean the signs that were graffitied in that area as well as some benches.
“It was such satisfying work and the youth were right in there. As a ministry we want to make an impact on our community and it was wonderful to partner with the Town of Oliver – our team loved it,” he adds.
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