The Revival Continues
By Kalista King

I am very pleased to be able to keep you up to date on the things that have been happening in the youth of Darke County. This is a passion of mine because I know how it is to continually hear about negative things in our society and especially our youth. However my perspective is quite different than others. Coming from a past of indulging in drinking and doing drugs at a very young age, my desires in life now mainly consist of helping other teenagers who are struggling, and I have seen a tremendous change in those around me. My eyes are constantly open to ways our youth are being helped and because of this; I have an awareness that many people do not have. This awareness allows me to partake in what I call the journey of a lifetime, helping teenagers escape from their struggles and become who their Creator designed them to be. On my own personal journey, I have discovered that living life the same as the rest of the world gets old. Drinking and partying do not satisfy one’s desires, nor do drugs or any of the other struggles teenagers face in this day and age.

In my last article, I told you this week I want to focus on filling you in on the major things that I have seen going on here in Darke County in regards to our youth. One of the main things I want to update you on is our Friend2Friend ministry at Greenville High School. I have written about F2F in past articles, but it has been a while since I have told you what is going on with it. For those who are unaware of what F2F is, it is a student-led outreach ministry through Youth for Christ that we started at Greenville in the fall of 2011. The foundation of F2F began with three students’ prayers for revival in Greenville High School at the beginning of the 2012 school year. As the first quarter of school progressed, the prayer group gained a few more people, who all continued to ask God to bring revival to the school. Soon enough, Friend2Friend came about and in no time, this ministry exploded with teenagers ranging from 9th grade to 12th grade who desired a change in their lives and in their peers’ lives as well.

This year, Friend2Friend started out with a few complications due to the fact that the time our group met last year on Tuesday mornings, known as “homeroom,” was taken out of this year’s schedule. We were all bummed when we heard the news because we had no idea how F2F was going to work without homeroom. However with continued faith and prayer, we were permitted to still meet on Tuesday mornings from 7:30-8:00 am.

Because there is only so much you can do in a half hour’s time, we opened the floor to any student leaders who were willing to meet at 7:00 am to pray over each F2F meeting. F2F is all about prayer. God brought us this ministry through prayer and He is continuing to bless it through prayer. Since it is still early on in the school year, no one can really say what F2F is going to look like this year. It is not about numbers or becoming “F2F famous.” It is all about coming together and praying over our peers, then going out from there and looking for opportunities to reach out to them in whatever way they need.

Our main focus this year is our Wish Lists, which consist of names of people God puts on our hearts to pray for. We ask God for opportunities to reach out to them and encourage each other to seek out those opportunities on a daily basis. We believe that in order to make a difference, we cannot just stick to our F2F group and leave the meetings without ever looking for an opportunity to reach out to others. We are really trying to encourage each other this year to be intentional about our Wish Lists and seek out the people God puts on our hearts.

It is pretty amazing to see a group of teenagers come together an hour before school to pray over their peers, but what is even more powerful is seeing them be intentional about loving on their peers throughout the week. This is pretty uncommon in our society today, but I can tell you that it is happening. F2F has also started at Tri-Village in New Madison and will hopefully spread to other schools throughout Darke County. I have seen God come through on our prayers for revival, and if we continue praying, I firmly believe that he will continue reviving. Stay tuned for more about the continuous revival at hand.