It’s that time of the year when we sit down and reflect on all that has happened, and pray about all that we would like to do in order to move forward with the King’s business on this earth. We celebrate what God has done, but we are prayerful about all that He has yet to do in us, through us, and with the world around us.

We’ll gather for an early dinner at 4:30 in the Fellowship Hall, followed by the business session afterwards. This year will be radically different from last year’s experiment, and we hope to inform you about happenings, and dream together about our goals for the future. As always, new members will be approved and departing members will be dismissed, but our focus and passion will be on taking the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. Some interesting and exciting developments will be announced and discussed, and of course- a budget will be approved. Child Care will be provided so that all moms and dads can participate undistracted, and our entire meeting will end around 8:30 so that everyone can get kiddos home and into bed.

So be sure to mark your calendars, and if you have any pictures from happenings from the past year then please email them to me at kylagleason@aol.com so that I can include them in the Year-In-Revew video presentation.

(Note: The Annual Great Commission Meeting is an open meeting, and we welcome non-members of the Bridge to attend)

Bridge Baptist Church will have a booth at the upcoming Children’s Art Festival…and by “booth” we mean bounce house, and by bounce house we mean a giant inflatable Wall-e for you to enjoy. But prior to going for a bounce, Wall-e needs help beautifying the Earth!! So join us in painting a mural of a clean Earth for Wall-e to enjoy and learn to make crepe-paper flowers, then take a jump in a very happy Wall-e!!

The Children’s Art Festival is hosted by the Kamloops Arts Council and will be held at Riverside Park on September 18 from 11 am to 4 pm.  Admission is free and arts workshops and entertainers will abound!!

Church, if you’re interested in volunteering for this event, please contact me at kylagleason@aol.com.

More information about the event can be obtained from the Kamloops Arts Council.

From Ryan:

Hello! I was asked to write a bit about myself by way of introduction, in order to help you to get to know me a bit.

My name is Ryan Levi, and I was born November 24, 1991, in Temple, Texas, to parents Jeff and Tanya Levi. I have two older sisters, Christina and Mandy. I lived in Belton, Texas for my entire childhood and attended Miller Heights Baptist Church from age 4 until I moved away from Belton when I was 15. When I was six years old, during the Sunday service on February 24, 1997, I went forward and gave my life to Christ. It’s always tricky to know how much you understand or remember about things when you are so young. All I can say is that at that time, I gave everything I knew about myself to everything I knew about Christ.

As I got older and older, I continued in church, and I continued to be a leader in my Sunday School classes and then my youth group. However, the Ryan that was seen on Sundays and Wednesdays at church wasn’t exactly like the Ryan seen during the week at school and around my friends. I never doubted who Christ was or what He had to offer. I simply chose to keep the ‘church’ aspect of my life separate from the ‘school’ and ‘friend’ aspect of my life. The summer before I entered high school, I attended two camps with my youth group and God convicted me of the way I was living my life. He revealed to me that if I was to live my life for Him, then it had to be entirely for Him. I could no longer split my life into different sections and choose which “face” to wear depending on what situation I found myself in. When my first year of High School came along, I was brought to a fork in my life. I could either continue living my life the way I had been, or change and live it solely for Christ. The latter, which I chose, led to the majority of my supposed friends ditching me.  I was forced to make new friends and to re-evaluate what I was striving for to do with my life.

Everything took a huge turn when, during the middle of that school year, my dad quit his job and got another one three hours away in The Woodlands, near Houston. This completely rocked my world. At first, I didn’t understand why God would force me away from everything I had ever known. The move came, and I found myself in a place that I never even imagined I would be. This was a point in my life that I had to make a choice. I had a fresh start… I could portray myself any way that I wanted to… I could be anyone I wanted. I got really involved in the marching band and in activities at my new school. I decided to keep my faith extremely visible before others, always staying vocal about doing the right thing and not compromising my morals. This was a huge step for me. Little did I know, but this was just the beginning of the journey that would lead me to where I am today.

About halfway through my second year of high school, in a new town, away from all of my extended family, away from all my childhood friends, I began to have horrible double vision, and I began to get debilitating headaches. Unsure of what was going on, I went and saw an eye doctor and began eye therapy. Because I was getting headaches along with the double vision, they suggested I go see my primary doctor. When I went into my doctor’s office, I had no clue what to expect. After talking with me and about my symptoms, he ordered a CAT scan, explaining that the symptoms I had coincided with possibly a brain tumor or Multiple Sclerosis. This was terrifying to me. I might possibly die. I did more praying in those next few days then I had done in a long time. I began to think about how precious every second in life was, and I began really thinking about what I was doing with my life. The tests all came back negative, and it turned out the headaches were due to allergies coincidentally coming at the same time as my double vision. I went through eight months of eye therapy and my eyes were fixed. Despite the relatively calm turn of events, I was left with another choice: I could take this experience and continue my lifestyle of “bystander” Christian, simply living my life with my morals and faith, or I could give God my all and give every aspect of my life to Christ.

That next summer, I quit band, freeing up many hours of time, and I began praying and searching for what God wanted to do with me. Over the next two years I took on an active leadership role in my youth group, interned with my Youth Minister during the summer of 2009, and I took on a leadership position in the Christian Club at my school. Through it all, God continued to reveal to me that my purpose in life was full time ministry; nothing else I could do would come to anything successful. As a result of this, I enrolled at Ouachita Baptist University as a Christian Ministry major, expecting to go to college for four years and then see where God would lead me after that.

However, this summer I got the opportunity to spend six weeks in Canada as a part of an Exploration Team with the Canadian National Baptist Convention. Our team traveled over 8,000 miles throughout British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, and the Northwest Territories. We visited a few churches, but mostly we went into “uncharted” territory looking for needs, what Christian work was already being done, and we scouted for places that would be most fertile for church plants in order to proclaim the Gospel. We started our journey in Kamloops, BC where we were scheduled to have a few days of orientation at Bridge Baptist Church with Pastor Josh Claycamp. I began to immediately see the need there in Kamloops and the surrounding areas, and this is when God began speaking to me about working in Kamloops. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37) We left Kamloops for 4 1/2 weeks on the road. We traveled as far north as we could drive, then my fellow teammate Dwight Payne and I boarded a small, four passenger plane and flew to the northernmost community in North America, Tuktoyaktuk. Throughout the 8,000 miles of travel, I could not get Youth Ministry and the Bridge Baptist Church in Kamloops off of my mind. I had never really considered doing youth ministry feeling that I wasn’t cut out for that sort of work. God confirmed that I could not do it, but rather, He could do it through me. After returning to Kamloops, I talked with Josh about further opportunities that might be available for me and told him where my heart was. After quite a deal of discussion over lunch at Boston Pizza, Josh told me that he would look into the possibility of me coming up in order to serve. He promised he would try to help me, and make some phone calls and would get back to me. While there were many things running through my mind, I felt a peace about what was taking place. I truly felt that God was leading me to serve in Youth Ministry in Kamloops with Bridge Baptist Church.

When I got home a million questions were asked of me regarding the trip, my plans for college in the next month, future plans, etc. I had to carfully word my responses in order to not lie, but not let on to the fact that I was looking into going back up to Canada. I didn’t want a lot of people to know before I knew for certain that it was going to happen and I had the chance to talk to my family about it. Long story short, I talked with my parents, sisters, and grandma, who all supported me 100%. With Josh’s much appreciated and needed help, I got approved to be a Semster Missionary through the North American Mission Board from September to May of 2011. I have felt such love and support from those close to me and God has continued to encourage me and confirm to me that this is where He wants me.

So this is where I am. I’m not sure what these next couple of years hold exactly, but I have faith that God has a plan for my life and that He will take care of what needs to happen. I have given Him control and I am excited to see what He does with and through me. My goals for the future are simple: I want to grow in my walk with Christ, allowing God to use me in reaching others for Him and helping others grow closer to Him. I don’t view myself doing anything other than full-time ministry in my future, and I feel a strong pull to Youth Ministry with teenagers. I know what it’s like to be a teenager in some really difficult situations and I have a passion and drive to tell teens about the love, mercy and strength that are found in Christ. So here I go…I’m not exactly sure what this next year will hold…all I know is that I’m going and that God already has everything planned out, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28)!!!

Date Change! Logan Lake Kid’s Club will now be held July 5-9…more details: http://thebridgekamloops.com/kids-clubs/logan-lake

Volunteering on Canada Day is a long-standing tradition for Bridge Church! Although we won’t be passing out water bottles this year, we will still be volunteering in a variety of capacities in Kamloops, and potentially in Logan Lake too.  This will include both the evening before Canada Day, June 30, and Canada Day itself.  We will be partnering with other community organizations.  This is a fantastic way to connect with people, serve our community, and demonstrate the love of Christ to those outside the walls of our church.  Talk to your Life Group leaders for more details about these opportunities, and let us know if you’ll be able to give a few hours of your time during this holiday!

I need your help!  Decorations, name tags, signs, crafts, class rosters & schedules, and probably more items, all need to be prepared before our two July Kid’s Clubs! Will you join me Monday, June 28 at 10:00 to work on these? As we learned from last summer’s water bottle label mix-up, the more hands we have, the quicker it will all go-and the more fun we’ll have as we work on it together!!  We’ll meet in the fellowship hall at 10:00 and break for pizza around noon, then press on to wrap it all up early afternoon. Even if you won’t be able to be around to help with Kid’s Club, this will be a fantastic way to contribute to these two events!

The Ganton Life Group would like to invite you to join them on June 12 for their Car Care Clinic.  This will be held on our back parking lot from 11-3 and include free car care advice, hot dogs, and bounce houses. Tell your friends! More volunteers are also needed.  Speak to Clay or Carolyn for more information, or to volunteer today!

Mark your calendars today!  Our Logan Lake Kid’s Club will be July 12-16.  This year, our annual VBS-style kid’s day camp will be held in the Vandean home again at 144 Jasper.  Sign-up today!!

For complete information, click here!

Our two Kid’s Clubs are quickly approaching! As I’ve said before, we have many volunteer opportunities as well as supply needs that you can help meet!  Here’s a list of what we know we need at this point:

Supplies (will be returned):

• Bright-colored blankets
• Wicker baskets
• House plants (real or fake)
• Canopy tents
• Chains
• Bible-time costumes
• Water jugs
• Any other Island or ancient Rome style decorations or supplies!

Donations:

• Large pieces of styrofoam
• Black spray-paint
• Dried fruit

You!

• Preparation work of making decorations, costumes, promotion, set-up, etc.
• Leaders for Logan Lake Kid’s Club: July 12-16
• A variety of volunteer opportunities for Kamloops Kid’s Club: July 19-23

Talk to me Sunday, or email kylagleason@aol.com if you can meet any of these needs!

Monday, April 20, prior to the Vandean Life Group, we will have a meeting for information and planning regarding this summer’s Logan Lake Kid’s Club. (The meeting will be at the Vandean home in Logan Lake.)  We are in need of all kinds of volunteers: ones to work with children, decorate, lead classes, adminstration-your skills can be put to use for God’s Kingdom through Kid’s Club!  Anyone who has the slightest interest is encouraged to attend.   Send me an email if you’d like more information or aren’t going to make it to the meeting!