Timothy Project Graduation

I meant to write something else for this post, but I had to change my mind. Last Saturday night, we had the graduation dinner for the Timothy Project. In case you can’t remember, the Timothy Project is the 3-year discipleship retreat ministry we’ve started at Camp.
In the years I’ve been working for the Mission, we’ve had two parents show up at our end-of-the-year parties. I can name the two. In 7 years of parties, I’ve seen two parents come and eat a free meal with their kids to celebrate the end of a MYC year.
Last Saturday night, when we had the dinner, we were honoring five girls for completing the “rigorous requirements of the Timothy Project Curriculum.” Do you know how many parents showed up? Four! Now wait, I need to explain one more thing. Those five girls represent four families. Two of them are sisters.
That means we had 100% involvement from the parents! I can’t tell you how exciting that is for us!
Mark Loftin stood up at the end of the dinner and said that during his stay in Chicago, at a similar ministry, they could only get about 10% parental involvement. He didn’t mention the almost 0% we’ve had here.
So, the obvious question is “Why?” Why did they choose to come support their girls in this, but we can’t get parents involved in other things? I don’t know. But, I do know that this is one blessing God has already given us through the Timothy Project.
Please pray for these five girls, the continued effectiveness of the course, and for all those kids in our ministry who may have never seen their parents at an end-of-the-year party, a ballgame, or even a parent-teacher meeting. They desperately need someone praying for them.