Standing in the GAP

I was just realizing that many of you may not completely understand who or what I am doing my service through. I am serving as a missionary volunteer “Gapper” with Kairos Standing in the Gap program. The program calls my year of service a “Gap Year” from the scripture passage in Ezekiel 22.30 “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” There are 12 different men and women my age who are literally from around the world serving as gappers in different communities and ministries throughout Michigan.
As gappers, we have our different roles and responsibilities to the people and communities we are serving. Each Thursday morning though, we meet for a couple of hours in either Lansing or Detroit for Gap training. It’s an opportunity for us to catch up, support one another, receive formation, and pray together. We kicked our Gap year off two weeks ago with a retreat at a camp ground along Lake Michigan. It was a lot of fun to get to know each other through our time spent together in prayer, small groups, and talks as well as playing volleyball, swimming in Lake Michigan (the water was warm and beautiful), canoeing all day down a river, and sitting around the campfire. The relationships being built with the other gappers come naturally because we are all going through similar things, and we can support one another throughout the year.
Now in Detroit, there are four gappers total- Andy, who is from Glasgow; Sam, who is from Minnesota; Ana, my roommate who is from Costa Rica; and myself. We are all extremely different, but we have a lot of fun together. In Detroit, we are all primarily serving the ministry Youth Works-Detroit which is a part of Detroit Community Outreach. Within Youth Works, our services each look very different and it is often changing from week to week. At the same time, we are all working together to accomplish the common mission of “equipping youth for the fullness of life” –John 10.10. This year, my service will primarily include being the instructor for one of our after school programs, leading the high school girls youth group, serving at a soup kitchen, doing administration work, helping the family I live with, and any other needs that come up. I have a lot of leadership roles, but I am really excited for the opportunity to work with the youth on a regular basis.
Also feel free to check out the ministries websites to get a better picture of what I am doing:
Kairos: http://kairos-na.org/Kairos
Youth Works-Detroit: http://www.youthworks-detroit.org/
Detroit Community Outreach: http://www.rc.net/wcc/dco.htm