Junior Camp Director Heather Yardy & Jake Join Joy City

Hello, and welcome to this week's Joy City podcast, I’m your host, Stuart Welch the Lead Pastor of Life Connection Church located in Modesto, CA. If you are familiar with the show, thank you for your support and encouragement – if you are new to the show, I want to welcome you and let you know that our central theme is God and our relationship to Him through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ and how to maintain that relationship. And in his book The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence encourages us to practice the presence of God daily and try to know the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. Now Brother Lawrence was a lay member, not a cleric, priest or pastor – an ordinary, and I’m putting that in air quotes, brother who loved God. It demonstrates for you and me and millions of others, God wants to draw close to us.On today’s show, I’m headed back to family camp where I was able to catch up to and grab some time with our Junior camp director Heather Yardy and her husband Jake. I mean family camp was awesome, a place where you can encourage spiritual growth thru a Bible centered environment and enjoy a tremendous sense of community. I mean even when we see many churches shortening or even eliminating family camp, we keep moving forward and Jake and Heather are catalyst in that movement for Life Connection Church. Here’s my interview with them both.Heather and Jake share the why of being engaged and involved in camp. They had great camp experiences as kids and want to share that with their children and others. Both are teachers, have their own kids and work together in church and yet, they want to help others. They enjoy seeing their kids at camp now that their oldest is a junior camper and Jake enjoys encouraging kids to win at games and in life. Jake and Heather met at family camp and now they are married and have their own families. We also discussed “togetherness” or “team building” models of games and settings. After going through COVID and isolation, they work diligently to keep kids working together. So when God opens our eyes in Joy City we can clearly celebrate others for our differences, we can support one another in our efforts and we can cheer one another on in the spirit of unity and when One wins we all win. No one can come face to face with what God is like and ever be the same. Welcome to Joy City. Seeing His true image, touches the depths of our soul and beholding His glory will renew our minds, transform us and give us strength to live this life for Him. Come on in, where the table is spread and the feast of the Lord is going on. I want to invite you to be a part, a resident of Joy City. A place where the Body becomes stronger and our love for others only increases. I’ve enjoyed being your host and you can comment below, or email me at [email protected] or call me at (209) 522-3583.