What fun it is to get to do YL for a job...

This summer has been such a ridiculous blessing! I can barely believe that this is what I get to do for a living!

It is officially fall...and with that, it is time to get back to the big work of planning the semester, club, campaigners, leadership training, art class, coaching, conferences, meetings, fundraisers... And, so happy to announce special discipleship training time for some of my close guys and gals who went to camp with us this summer.

This is going to be a big year...

Stay tuned...

Summer is here...time to start blogging again....

Yep...it's been months...

Since we last caught up, the school year ended, Lindsay left, my admin moved back stateside, and we went to camp... It's been a busy couple months...

Here is an update from camp.

We did it! We are through Young Life Puerto Rico's first big camp trip...and it was absolutely incredible!!!

As you know, we were diverted from our original plans of going to Crooked Creek in Colorado. In the 6 hours that we spent in the Charlotte airport, the decision was made to go to Windy Gap, which is only three hours from there. After a great many hours on the phone, I got our plans set as best as I could, and off we went on our newly rented bus, driving into the hills! From the first few minutes on property, I knew that we were meant to be there. This was the week that God planned for us! Our students had never seen anything like this place, and honestly, neither had I! As if the beauty of the property wasn't enough, the staff, volunteers, and other campers, went out of their way to make us feel like family!

I have been on a lot of camp trips, and I can honestly say that this was one of the best! Windy Gap was already full before we got there, so they had to fit us in where they could. This meant that the girls got to stay in an upscale assign team housing, and the boys and I stayed in a room meant for only ten people. Eight of us slept on mattresses on the floor! Looking back, we would not have it any other way! It was perfect!

Additionally, during all of the travel fiasco, I had camp supplies, and volunteer leaders meeting us in Colorado. To my surprise and great joy, one of these leaders, Austin, flew from Denver to Ashville to spend the week with us and bring all of our supplies!

Through the course of the week our students were given the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus presented in a way that was easy to understand and relate to. As days went by, Susan, Austin, and I got the chance to spend one on one time with each of our students, which is always some of my favorite parts of the week. During these times, and at various other points, many of our students made the decision to accept the free gift of true life through relationship with Jesus. Scripture tells us that there is rejoicing in heaven when one person comes to know God...while we were at Windy Gap, heaven had some serious parties going on!

Since returning to San Juan, I have met with the majority of our campers EVERY DAY! We have been walking through a book that goes for thirty days. The faithfulness of these campers has been so exciting to see! Every morning we meet for breakfast, read through the days message, and have a great time of discussion, questions, and prayer. These past two weeks of meeting with our campers have been some of my favorite since I left doing direct ministry with students in Austin!

Thank you for your support of Young Life in PR! Thank you for your support of me! Thank you for believing in what God is doing in San Juan and around the island! I am truly thankful for your friendship, and your support!

Please check out the attached printable update letter for a few pictures of our group at Windy Gap!

Please pray for us as we continue to walk through the next 15 days together.

Also, please pray for our finances as we continue to look over our budgets and pay off our extra camp costs that we incurred during this big trip. If you feel called to help with these costs, I would love to go into further detail personally. Feel free to call or email me directly.

If you feel led to financially support our continued work in Puerto Rico please follow the link to our Website:

Give to Young Life in Puerto Rico

All my love,

Matt

Matching Fund

Dear Friends and Family,

I am writing you today from my native city of Houston, Texas! I am on the road to do some fundraising before our big summer events begin. As of now, I have 20 high school students signed up to go with us to Crooked Creek Ranch, a premier (and my favorite) Young Life property in Colorado. That trip will happen in late June. Then, we have another trip in late August for at least 12 of my kids who do not speak any English, to our Latino Week at Saranac Village in the Adirondack Mountains. These two trips, and our summer camp follow up activities, will be life changing experiences for our kids and new volunteer leaders! I am so excited to see what God does through this summer!

As you know, I have been living in San Juan for over a year and a half now. What an adventure it has been! The foundation that we are being able to build for a lasting ministry is incredible! However, this past year has not been without it's hardships and heartbreaking discoveries. For many, Puerto Rico is primarily seen as a tourist or resort destination, but it can be an entirely different world outside the hotel door. Though I have rarely felt in extreme personal danger, I am very aware of the violence that is happening all around me. Last year there were close to 1,000 violent murders on our island. The Daily Sun spoke of this in an article written this past December,

"Police data shows that as of Dec. 25, there have been 962 reported violence deaths, 72 more than in 2009 and on pace to creep to the thousand plateau.

By comparison, in 2009, there were 13,600 murders in the entire United States, including its territories.
That’s mean that Puerto Rico accounts for almost 8 percent of all violence deaths in the U.S. despite having less than a fraction of one percent of its population."

This year the death toll has already risen past 340 in just a few months. I tell you this not to scare you, or make where I live seem overly dangerous, but to inform you that our sunny island is not an easy place for our students to grow up. Puerto Rico is known throughout the Latin community as one of the most over sexualized places in the world. Every type of media outlet is teaching our kids that they should find their worth through sex. Sexual imagery is everywhere! On top of all of that, drugs and alcohol usage is commonplace. I know that this is no new concept for those of us who work with high school students, but unlike in the states where it is somewhat criticized and overseen, here there is little to no law enforcement regulation. Additionally, and possibly the most heartbreaking for me, is that though Puerto Rico has a great many church buildings, there is a dramatic absence of people demonstrating what a Christian life should really look like. Sadly, most of our churches are filled with kids and adults who believe that Christianity is just about rules and what "not to do" or "where not to go," instead of presenting freedom, and teaching people to love those around them.

As I live on the road this week, I will be attempting to raise money to help build a lasting Young Life program in PR, to give our students, their families, and their communities, hope. I believe in the way that Young Life reaches teens, and I have seen God change families through Young Life. I know that great things are yet to come in our city, and throughout our island.

This week I have an incredible opportunity. I have a donor, and friend of Young Life, in San Juan who believes in what we are doing. Young Life is new to him, but he is excited about how we are reaching teens in San Juan, and is wiling to put up his own finances to help us. This man has agreed to match, dollar for dollar, what I raise this week for Puerto Rico. This is where I need your help.

For those of you who are supporters of our ministry through your prayers and finances, Thank You! Thank you for believing in our vision to reach kids for the Gospel of God, and to see their lives transformed.

For all who are reading this, whether you give monthly, a few times a year, or are not a financial partner with YLPR, we need your help this week. If you can find a way to give to Young Life Puerto Rico this week, we will have every dollar matched! Please pray about your involvement with our ministry. I would love to share more with you about our needs, and where the money will be used. Feel free to email or call me. Know that a major need is for camp. I will be spending over $15,000 this summer to take kids to camp alone!

If you would like to be a part of this matching gift, please visit the Donor page on our website, and follow the link.

http://sites.younglife.org/sites/PuertoRico/Donors.aspx

You can give by using a Credit Card, or EFT (electronic funds transfer from a bank account). When you give, please write "MATCH" in the special designation box, so that I know what gifts we can have matched.

This is a rare and incredible opportunity to double any gift you would make this year. Please think and pray this through. We need your support.

Thank you for being my friends! Thank you for supporting Young Life!

I cannot wait to tell you all that happens this summer through your support!

God bless,

Matt

Time to catch up...grab your reading glasses and a cold drink...this is going to be a long one...

Well I'm back...back from Christmas break...back from Winter Training...back from a couple day vacation...back to work...and now, back to blogging...

...But before we get to all of that...

we need to play a little bit of catch up from the end of last semester.

That's right, I'm going to pull a Marty McFly here and cruise on back to Nov. and Dec. of 2010. I think the best place for us to start, is with Christmas club. We had a blast!!! A bunch of our high school friends came out

to the last club of the year, where we sang some great Christmas songs, had a White Elephant gift exchange, ate pizza, heard a bit from the Gospel, and the leaders put on a particularly exciting skit. (Long story short, I had to drink spit...yeah...gross...kids keep talking about it...even a month later...)

A couple of days later, Lindsay and I played the proud and excited hosts of our VI staff friends, and our new interim Regional Director, and his wife. The seven of us spent a couple of days together talking over our vision for the Caribbean Region, and our own personal work happening on each of our islands. Having Scott (RD) here was a huge encouragement

to me. He is flying us out to Virginia (his region) for their annual Leader/Committee weekend in February...we are really excited!!!

In this photo are a couple of people you will probably recognize...Melissa and Seth Rogati (our St. Thomas staff) are there to the left of me, Reid Klopp (St. Croix) is to my immediate right, followed by the girl we all know and love, Lindsay Reese (ignore how tiny she looks).

I am really looking forward to this

next semester, and the times that we are planning as a region to get together and mutually encourage each other. I miss having other staff close at hand...even though these people are less than 100 miles from where I sit right now...travel between islands is not the cheapest thing...which makes it less frequent than we all wish it could be.

Once the staff left, Lindsay and I jet-setted back to the states for some stateside work, and some time with our families over the Christmas break. I ended up in Denver, where my family congregates to celebrate Christmas, and co-habitate the house of my Aunt, Uncle, and twin cousins (my second home). While in Denver this year, a freak storm came through and kept the temps down around 4 degrees F...let me just say, I do not care for the cold...(this is only the first blizzard type experience of the break...just warning you...)

I spent New Years up in Ft. Collins with one of my best friends in the world, my brother Joe Guido. Joe and I have known each other since my freshman year in high school...and do our best to see each other as much as possible, which unfortunately is only once or twice a year.

From Colorado, I headed to Sharptop Cove, a YL property in Georgia...where we had Winter Training this year. I was enrolled in the Pastoral Counseling class this

year, and absolutely loved it! The first few days of WT are an International Staff Pre-Confrence time...which is my favorite part of this almost two week affair. I had the beautiful opportunity to spend time with friends of mine from all over the globe, who are doing YL, loving kids, trying to find and train leaders, fundraise, build committees, miss Chic-fil-a, and all the other things I go through...it is great to know that I am not alone...at least not in some of the struggles and hardships.

After the first few days, about 250 of our US staff arrive, which is a blast...overwhelming at times...but so great. One of my other best friends, Matt Schwab was there unexpectedly...which was a blessing I can hardly describe. To got to spend time with brothers and sisters who are some of the most fun, creative, brilliant, and loving people on the face of the globe. Then...a couple days before we were all supposed to take off and fly/drive/walk back to our areas...snowpocalypse 2k11 descended on us...and stranded us up in Jasper, Georgia for a couple more days than expected. (Second freak blizzard of my few weeks out of the caribbean...who knew!) Honestly, it was great extra days with people I love, sitting by fires, drinking coffee, reading, playing games, hustling people in fooseball, and playing in the snow. (Notice the biggest snowman I have ever seen...built by a couple of Texas boys late one night...)

Once the cold had finally chilled me to the bone...and the Georgia highways had thawed out enough to allow us to get out of property, and make it to the airport...we took our chances and headed out.

I was planning on having to spend the night in the airport...but thankfully, I found my way onto a flight that left that day, and get me back to San Juan late that night. (This was not without me having to be the guy dead sprinting through the Miami airport, to make my connecting flight...and then arriving in San Juan, without my bag meeting me at baggage claim...honestly, I was just happy to be home on my island.)

I think this brings us up to the past few weeks...(finally...thanks for bearing with me.) Lindsay and I have had a blast beginning to plan out how we are going to tackle this thing called Young Life, this spring. Lets just say that we have some big plans...

Once of the first weekends we got back, was Festival Calle San Sebastion...aka, "Las Calles"...just imagine Mardi Gras, but crazier...then add a couple more thousand people...so its shoulder to shoulder rivers of people making their way through the tiny streets of Old San Juan. (I guess the Spanish didn't have this festival in mind when they designed and built the city in the 1600's...they should have though ahead...) Anyway, you might be thinking...what a strange place to find YL leaders on a Friday night...well we are committed to going where kids are...and they were ALL there...so we were too! It actually was a blast!

Last week I had some incredible time with kids at their schools, and out after school over coffee. It has been incredibly encouraging to get home after being gone for a couple of weeks, and to be met with grace and favor everywhere I turn. It has been story after story of students reaching out to us, and just being our friends (which is all we ask). I am very thankful...and very excited to be here!!!

So, also...football is starting again! It's time to spend my Saturdays back on the field with my boys...its going to be a fun season. I'll write more about our current adventures, and future plans, soon. Till then...hope all is well with you!

Cuidate...

Matt

3 clubs down...

Hola gente! We are through the third week of YL clubs here in San Juan!!! What a blast we are having!!! This past week was our Costume Party Club, and we had kids come out in all different types of costumes! At one point we had a bunch of guys show up in different types of "costumes" which all apparently required them to be shirtless... whatever...we rolled with it.

Here is a pre-club message from me...that show the club room we were using...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEmU3DxMRdM

Here are some pictures...

Lindsay is there on the right...dressed as a hippie...

Richie as a penquin....walking the red carpet...workin' it for the judges....

Me in the middle of a bunch of my football players...singing along...

Jettie, Lindsay, Me, and our Guitar player Edda...

Also, last week was Spirit week at Baldwin...which is a blast for students...and requires a ton of prep work. Each class has a different theme to decorate a hall at the beginning of the week. This hall competition takes over for the weekend before...which means that for Friday, Sat., and Sunday of that weekend, Lindsay and I hung out at the school and helped different classes "construct" their hallways. Lindsay helped with the sophomore class, as they turned their hallway into the temple of Zues. I worked with the Junior class as they transformed their hallway into a Mayan temple. On Monday morning, during the judging of the hallways, each class dresses up and "lives" out their theme. My Mayans did a human sacrifice in the middle of the school....yeah, it was intense!

A couple of my "mayan" friends...yes, they go all out!!!

Some of our sophomore friends...

We are working sooo hard...and getting a ton done! In fact, as I am trying to finish this before our Leadership Training class for our new volunteer leaders... We have things ever night of the week...its crazy!!!

With all the work...we are still having a blast though! Check out this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raGuaXxKzyo

One Year Today!!!!

Hello friends, it is true...1 year anniversary is being celebrated today!!! And by celebrated, I mean, my car battery died...so I got a new one of those, and have been doing admin work all day! YAY!!!

But in seriousness, I am absolutely blown away that it has been a year already! I mean, when I look at all the work that God has allowed me to do in the past year, it is unbelievable, actually, considering all that has happened here in just a year...it kinda feels like its been three years!

Last week we had our first ever YL club!!! Here is the update from that night:

There were over 25 students there! It was a good night....we had some technical difficulties...but we had fun! This past week we had our second club...and though we had less kids (hard week with sports play offs, sickness, tests, etc...) we had a blast!!! Lindsay and I both agreed that this was one of the most fun clubs we have ever been a part of!

We have new volunteers in training, and a friend of mine has agreed to play guitar for us for club! So much going on!!! Thank you for your love and support!!! Please continue to pray...

We are still trying to raise money to buy an area vehicle...this is such a HUGE need for us!!! If you can pray for this it would be great...thank you!

First Club!!!!

Here is the event poster for our first club!!!