Louisiana Teens Sponsor Shine Africa Youth Radio Backpack

After hearing about the new World Mission Broadcast Shine Africa Youth Radio strategy during a Faith Promise at her church, Rev. Dee Boyt, pastor of the Cenchrea Church of the Nazarene, felt challenged to get her teens involved.

“I believed from the time God spoke to me during our Faith Promise here at Cenchrea,” says Boyt, who is also the Louisiana District NYI President. “I believed that our Louisiana teens would rise to the occasion and we would meet the goal.”

Boyt challenged the youth from her state to raise the money for a portable backpack studio during their district youth camp.

“We presented the need and took the first offering, which we collected in a backpack,” says Boyt. “After the first offering, we had a little less than half the goal. So we told the camp that we would take another offering the next day.”

The next morning before the offering, Clint Rowland, a teen from the GracePointe Church of the Nazarene in Shreveport, approached the camp director Rick Babin with an incentive to help reach the goal: Clint offered to shave his own head. This was the all the incentive needed to surpass the $1,100 goal.

“Some of the students gave up their Snack Shack money and did without snacks the rest of the week,” says Boyt. “We ended the camp on Friday, shaving Clint's head while some of the parents who had come to pick up their kids watched with horror! It was really quite funny to see their reactions as we tried to explain to them what was going on.”

“The students really seemed excited about the idea of sharing with other teens in this way. They are so into technology that they thought the idea of the backpack was a great idea. It was an awesome camp. An unusual pouring out of the Spirit from start to finish.”

Twenty-five teens responded to a call to ministry during the camp.

--- Brian Utter, World Mission Broadcast

For more information about sponsoring a backpack visit the Adopt-a-Project section of the World Mission Broadcast Web site.