God brought me a sweet encouragement recently and it is a great testimony to how God's plans are not our plans and His ways are not our ways - they are much, much better!
The story begins in 1998 - 13 years ago. I was in jr. high and was going on an adventure with our youth group. For the first time our church got connected with an event called JAMS. This is where jr. high youth groups come to PBU and are trained in how to share the gospel with kids. They stay there all weekend and it is more like a retreat with a missions trip added. On Saturday kids are bussed in from the city of Philly and they have an interactive day, being partnered with a jr. higher - there are games, puppets, singing, etc.
The little girl I was partnered with that weekend was a little blonde girl from an area of Philly I had never heard of - KENSINGTON. She prayed with me to accept Christ at the end of the day and scribbled her address on a corner of pink paper that I had. She had written the city name as Kensington (which is why I remember this so vividly).
I wanted to write to her and follow up but at the time I had no idea how to write to her without a zip code and it took me a while to track down the info needed.
>> Fast forward a few years to the summer of 2001. I signed on to work at a camp called Victory Valley Camp that summer before my Senior year of high school. When I got to camp, I met lots of fun people including two guys named Jeremy and Jonerik. (Does that name sound familiar?) When I was talking to this kid named Jonerik I learned he was from KENSINGTON! I told him about the little girl and he explained that it was the neighborhood that was called Kensington (I was still a country girl). We became good friends at camp and I didn't know when I would see him after the summer was over, but we kept in touch through Instant Messaging.
I soon learned that Jonerik was going to Lancaster Bible College - where I was going!
>>Fast forward another 5 years to 2007 - Jonerik and I had kept in touch after college and that Fall we started dating. I had no idea what a beautiful thing that would turn into, just simple hopes and dreams.
>>Fast Forward 3 1/2 years to 2011 - Jonerik and I are married and where are we living? KENSINGTON!
Why am I writing about all of this?
Because in May, just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of helping take a group of children (including my 5 nieces and nephews) from Cornerstone to that very same event at PBU - 13 years later. Our church takes kids every year and the little girl that I was partnered with 13 years earlier was a little girl who most likely came with our Cornerstone. Sunbury Bible Church still takes a group of jr .higher to JAMS every year and this year was no exception. Kids that were just preschoolers and toddlers when I last saw them are now in jr. high and they are sharing the gospel with our kids!
The other fun piece to the story is that one of the couples that worked with the jr. high youth group from SBC when we went to JAMS are still working with the youth group and they were there! They have known me since I was born, but it is a fun circle to see how God has used them in my life and continues to use them in a ripple effect to now reach kids from Kensington!
The jr. high group from Sunbury Bible
Here are few more pictures from Kid's Day this year -
