APEX Missions in Kansas
After leaving Ghana unexpectedly, I was left a bit shaken and uncertain if missions was still for me, but in 2021 Summer God helped restore my heart for missions in Kansas of all places with this missions organization known as APEX!! Here I was able to lead youth groups on missions trips at the amazing Bridge of Hope Community church, and it was such a fruitful season that God used to restore my heart for missions again!
A Team Covering the Nation
The APEX Missions team was such a blessing to be a part of!! APEX is a 6 week summer program that allows for college aged staff members to go and lead youth groups on missions trips in 5 different cities throughout the USA!! There were sites located in all of Minnesota, Kansas, New Jersey, Florida, and Washington D.C.! Personally, I was stationed in Kansas and loved it, but we started our whole journey with an incredible training with everyone in Minnesota and we also gathered together at the end to celebrate everything God had done! It was so powerful to be part of a team that was doing God’s work all throughout America!
A Man Transformed By Grace
Pictured here you can see Pastor Luther, the man who is in charge of the Bridge of Hope Community Church in Kansas City!! This is the spot where we led all of our youth groups on missions in Kansas, and Luther’s testimony deeply spoke to them in mighty ways! Luther had a super rough upbringing and had previously lived a life as a drug dealer on the streets, but then the Lord met him in the midst of the chaos and has given him a heart for the people that are marginalized that the world often forgets about or looks down upon!! His church is specifically organized to reach people who are former addicts, homeless, widowed, or in any other difficult situation, and the main thing our visiting youth groups would participate in as they came through was a summer day camp for younger kids who came from broken families. Luther’s story is truly so deep and moving and it gives kids hope that their lives can be transformed as well by God’s amazing grace!!
Leading Powerful Devotions
Throughout the time spent in Kansas, we would have different youth groups come through each week, and we had youth groups come from all over the Midwest!! In total, we had groups from all of Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Michigan, and Iowa! It was incredible seeing how each group that came in brought some incredibly unique perspective! Each week I was blessed to lead the youth in morning devotionals about the Justice of God, and it was so cool to see young people and their perspective on what true justice looks like! This was an awesome way to start each day of ministry!
Teaching Lifelong Skills
In the afternoons, I was also blessed to teach the youth groups powerful messages each week! We had 4 different core messages that we taught during the time in Kansas, and these messages were known as the “APEX Tools”. The first one was the ALTR Tool, which focused on teaching about how true worship looks like Sacrifice. Then we had the Friendship Star, which taught about the love languages from a biblical point of view. Next was the Prayer Hexagon, which showed the youth how to learn how to pray based on the model of the Lord’s Prayer! And finally was the Study Tree, which gave some tips on reading Scripture! It was so powerful to teach each of these messages with my own creative spin on them, and it helped me grow a lot as a leader!
Equipping Youth to Lead
Between our morning devotionals and the afternoon teachings, the youth groups would help with the kids day camp in Kansas!! The youth didn’t solely come to learn or to have a fun youth group vacation, but they truly came to serve and lead themselves, and they all did so well at this!! Each week they would prepare different VBS style activities including arts and crafts, Bible stories, skits, and games, and they were truly able to touch the younger kids who have grown up in broken families and have never had people to love on them this way!! Each Thursday would always be so sad as it was the last day of day camp, and even though the youth groups only stayed one week each, you could see how deeply connected the kids would get to them each time. They truly did an amazing job! Also in this photo, you can see one of the youth groups training to learn the “Church Clap” dance, which was the absolute favorite of all of the local kids haha! It’s a super fun time!!
Meaningful Follow-Ups
The absolute coolest thing to me about my time with APEX was that it didn’t at all stay confined to that 6 week timeframe of my serving, but I was actually able to reconnect and stay in touch with many of the various youth groups after the summer of seeing them serve in Kansas! Pictured here you can see the very first youth group that came to Kansas, the Constance Church Youth Group that is rooted in Minnesota, and shortly after I finished my APEX Debrief, I got invited to one of their houses for a celebratory reunion bonfire!! It was absolutely incredible to see these young people who are so on fire for Christ even after their missions experience, and I know they’re continuing to do amazing things for God’s kingdom even now and into the future!
Lives Forever Changed
Finally, the other youth group from APEX that I was able to have a super meaningful follow-up with last year was the youth group at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Northern Wisconsin!! This church is only 4 hours north of my hometown in Waukesha, so I took a drive up there for a meaningful weekend in Minocqua, and when I got there, I was amazed to see how many amazing fruits had come for this youth group after their summer with APEX!! Pictured here you can see one of the students from the youth group named Anna, and she actually decided after her APEX experience that she wanted to get baptized!! In addition to that too, the youth group from Faith Evangelical Free even decided to begin incorporating some of the worship dances they had learned in Kansas, such as the Church Clap, at their own church’s children’s ministry! You could truly see that these awesome youth had been transformed and stirred to even deeper missional living even in their hometown!! This is why I truly loved my time with APEX; it wasn’t just an isolated 6 weeks of impact, but it truly has caused people’s lives to be changed forever!
APEX Newsletter Archive
During my time with APEX, I brought back my newsletters and this time they came out on a weekly basis!! Each week of my APEX journey is well documented, and it’s a beautiful journey through the way that God healed my heart for missions after having things in Ghana end so unexpectedly. So check these ones out to see the inward healing God was doing in me, as well as the outward work He was doing in Kansas City!
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