The One Student

by Jonathan Lancaster, CFO

This summer, We Will Go had ninety-five children participate in our summer camp. Volunteers from all over the country came to Jackson, Mississippi to invest in the lives of children. Children had the opportunity to learn Bible lessons, swimming, reading, and art. We were blessed with an incredible staff of counselors, leaders, and kitchen staff that made the summer truly impactful for children.

Ninety-four of the ninety-five children that our team worked to get registered for summer camp showed up. What bothered our team, though, was the one absent child. Staff called all the phone numbers they had on file with no luck. After long days of camp, they drove to different local apartment complexes in the hope of finding the child. One day they stopped at an apartment complex where some children that attended summer camp lived. While playing with the children, they asked about the child that had not come to camp. The children said the child they were looking for lived in that apartment complex. The children ran up to the apartment and came out with the child and her mother.

Overwhelmed that she had been sought out, the child’s mother revealed her phone had been cut off, she had to move to another apartment, and she was having car trouble. With no way to get her child to camp, our team picked up that child every morning for the remainder of the summer. It was at the heart of our staff to find the absent child. Isn’t that a picture of the gospel? Our phones may get cut off, we may get kicked out of our apartments, and our cars may be broken down, but Christ sees and finds us. In a world where we feel alone, God sees us and cares about us.

When you volunteer or give of your resources, it is stories like this that you are making possible. Yes, you are giving to the ninety-five children, but you are also giving to the one missing child. We are grateful for each person that has invested time and resources towards the impact of individual families in our community. Continue to join us in being neighbors willing to engage our community with the love of Christ.