It is sad but true, this is the final week here at Kanakuk Link Year. It has been an incredible year and the stories of fun, learning, and growth could fill pages and pages of this blog. This final week has been filled with cleaning out rooms, packing up bags, and soaking up knowledge in the final class sessions.
This week we have had a special guest speaker. Christian rap artist and co-founder of Reach Records, Lecrae Moore. This week Lecrae has been speaking to our students about the importance of a Christian worldview and how we are called as believers to redeem culture. It is a great message for our students to hear as they begin to leave Link Year and gear up to enter the their next stage of life. Our prayer is that our 31 students will leave here ready to engage the culture around them bring the redeeming message of the gospel of Christ to a hurting culture.
We will conclude this week with our graduation banquet. It is going to be a time to recognize our students and their accomplishment of completing our program. We are sad that this year is coming to an end but we cannot wait to see how our students will be used for the advancement of Christ kingdom in the next stages of his life.
What an amazing Monday we had. This Monday was a sports lalapalooza! First, the students met in the classroom at nine that morning where we divided the men into 3 volleyball teams and the girls into two powderpuff football teams. For the next hour the students played volleyball and powderpuff football. It was an awesome time of fellowship and competition and the students had a great time!
After, the competitions were over and everyone had showered up we met in the classroom again to hear from our special guest NFL Hall of Fame inductee Mike Singletary!
Coach Singletary gave hist testimony to our students and spoke on the importance of choices and direction. Coach Singletary stated how there are times in ones life where we must make tough decisions that will lead us closer to Christ and closer to who Christ has made us to be. It was a powerful morning and we were so thankful that Coach Singletary was able to come and speak to us and give us great insights from a very wise man.
This week at the Kanakuk Link Year was incredible! Austin Ochs, our speaker, spoke about the importance of being a good steward with what God has given us. He explained the importance of viewing life with an eternal prospective. "What we do here on Earth Echoes into eternity", was a movie quote he used to illustrate the message of Godly management of resources. Austin showed us how his family runs their business with a biblical and ministry minded foundation. He talked about the importance of sharing Christ in every type of environment, not just a non-profit ministry. We spent a good portion of time examining what it would be like to "run the race" for Christ and stay in the fight until the very end! In order to fight, we must have the right mindset and realize that life is a battlefield not a playground. The process of sanctification is long and hard, but the reward at the end is worth everything! Austin told some very inspiring stories of how he took the call of sharing the gospel very seriously and the steps he took to answer God’s calling. We have all been blessed to be a blessing to others. Everything we have is the Lord’s who has given it to us to take care of and manage wisely. My personal relationship with the Lord exploded with growth this past week. Austin’s message made me realize that no matter what I do as a vocation in life, whether it be a for profit or non-profit, business or ministry, my only calling in life is to grow my relationship with the Lord by seeking Him and I also have to tell others about His amazing gift that cleans our sins away. The world is a dark place, Jesus is the light of the world and God uses us to spread His message! How awesome is it that we get to be God’s tools to draw people into His Kingdom?!?
This week might have been one of the favorite of the entire semester according to feedback from many students. Jonathan Pokluda of Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas shared his knowledge and wisdom regardling relationships with emphasis on our hearts in the process. Discussion on the topic has filled every table at meals and come up in many conversations throughout the week. One guy (Shawn Cash), and one gal (Alexis Alston) have written a personal reflection of the week...hopefully this gives all you readers a little insight into the way that each group grew from the lessons...
Wow, this week has been one of my favorite weeks thus far, now I know that that is said very frequently probably but we just had 2 really great speakers come in this week! On Monday, our mystery Monday, we had what Mr. Seth the Beast called a Sportzapalooza and it was fantastic! The boys and the girls split and we boys played volleyball, but the greatest part of that day was that Coach Mike Singletary came in and spoke to us. He spoke on his life story and he used his story to talk about community and staying strong in college. It was such a sweet talk! It was a big blessing to have the Coach Singletary come and speak, it impacted allot of people including me. The speaker for the rest of the week was Jonathan Pokluda and his body guard (accountability partner) Connor lol. JP spoke a lot on some key points about not abandoning faith in college but a lot of his talk was on a topic that I think we all need to hear and people are afraid to give, but man oh man did I need it and it was sooo beneficial! He talked on relationships, sex, and sexual sins. The last day, Thursday, was the most impactful for me! Thursday he talked allot about sex and about getting stuck in sexual sins and the excuses we make to avoid being vulnerable and fixing the sins. Something that really blew my mind was when he was talking about pornography and how it fuels the slave/sex trade, he moved on to tell a story about when the NBA All Star game came to Dallas the people who own these slaves, aka prostitutes, flew in 50,000 prostitutes to Dallas for this big event and the average age of the prostitutes was the age of 11… that hit me and hit me hard and almost hurt me, slavery is still here and is bigger than ever before! The biggest thing I learned though was how to defeat those sins. The start of it is of course confession but I had never really understood the full magnitude of confession until he talked about it. He also gave us a method to defeating sin after confession and after the enemy no longer has hold of this sin, the method was called ANTHEM: Avoid, say No, Turn, Hold, Enjoy, Move. The method is such a big useful tool to me! I can’t really describe what the Holy Spirit did today through JP to me but man, it was soo amazing and tremendous! Stuff I will never ever forget! It was such a great learning week!
Yesterday, we had the privilege of having Don and Julie Steadman come and talk to our students about the importance of relationships.
They discussed with our students how we have been made for relationships. This need was made clear at the very beginning of creation. After making Adam and placing him in the Garden to take care of the His creation the Lord God said "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him," Genesis 2:18.
In Ecclesiastes 4:12 the author states "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A chord of three strands is not easily broken."
Proverbs 27:17 states "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."
The passages in the Bible for the importance of relationships are numerous and that is what the Steadman's communicated to our students. That in whatever stage of life they are in they need to have good, healthy relationships. Here at Link Year these students have been learning how to cultivate those all year long and they will know how to carry that on with them in whatever the next stage of life may hold.
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