Happy Retro Day! As you’re making plans for this Summer (can you believe it’s almost here??), I hope you take time to consider ways you can serve God with your time. That’s exactly what this devo talks about. Enjoy! ~ Halee (P.S. If you need some ideas on ways to serve this Summer, just email us. We’d love to help!)

by Staff Writer Jamin Goecker

Summer ushers in a ton of free time. It can be hard to decide what to do with all of it. Some people spend their summers partying. Others work till they resemble squirrels that have been placed inside a box and shaken around.

Ecclesiastes 3:1, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

Sure, summer provides a great time to relax a bit or have fun with great friends. However, some people decide to use their spare time to change the world.

Arielle, age 20, plans on spending her summer in an internship program at a ministry called House of Faith. She will be on a team, working at camps and ministering to their community in outreach.

Arielle says what draws her to this ministry is working with kids. Most of the kids she works with don’t come from good homes. Many of them are surrounded by drugs, alcohol, and other adult situations.

“We work with a lot of children,” she says, “whether it be elementary age or high school age, and I just love working with kids and always have. And that’s what really draws me to this because we really get to show love to them when they really don’t get any anywhere else.”

Because the events the interns work on are so close together, they have to keep busy. Arielle expects to work up to sixty hours a week. It’s also a struggle to transport all the equipment and supplies needed for camps and such to locations.

Does she believe she will make a difference for Jesus this summer?

“I definitely do. I could just be spending my summer doing nothing or hanging around with friends. But doing this I get to impact a child, even if it’s just one child, that gets impacted it will be worth it because that child will go and impact someone else.”

WHAT CAN ONE TEEN DO?

• Get involved in your own neighborhood with VBS, Salvation Army Boys and Girls clubs, or Big Brother/Big Sister.
• Check out House of Faith ministries.