It is incredible to think that I have been here at FIRM now for over a whole year (this journey began last July)! So much has happened during this time, but I must say that this summer has been incredibly memorable. There have been many highlights from this summer, but here are a few that I want to share with each of you:
- We have had four mission teams come to FIRM this summer; from Wisconsin, Sebastopol, Oregon and the Silicon Valley!
- We launched our Care Fresno site and provided 6 weeks of programming for youth from refugee families and from around the neighborhood. The summer program was not only enrichment based, but also had a Bible story taught each week!
- In partnership with Care Fresno, Mai Chai Yang and Gabrielle Wong have moved into the Summerset Apartment community across the street from FIRM as missionaries to the neighborhood.
- On top of the 6-week summer program, we added the Family Festival week (which is essentially a Vacation Bible School) where we averaged 25 kids per day to hear about the love of Jesus through stories, singing, crafts and games. This week also featured the FIRM Summer Carnival which saw over 500 people come to campus for a great event (please see other article).
- We took over 20 kids to Care Camp where kids were able to experience camp (many for the first time) and hear about the love of Christ!
- Through mission teams, 3 murals were painted in the community room, the kitchen cabinets/drawers were redone (along with a DEEP clean), the African garden development was started (teams painted the surrounding wall and began spreading compost), a new play area was cleared out for the Family Literacy center, graffiti was cleaned up and much more! There was lots of work that was completed around the FIRM campus, which was badly needed and I am so grateful for these teams’ hard work.
Many more exciting things happened this summer and it will definitely be memorable! I hope that you see the strides we have made as an organization to spread the Gospel amongst the refugee community we serve. I also hope that you see the impact we have had on youth from refugee families as we have implemented much of the FIRM Youth Initiative (FYI) which was one of the main goals for 2015. Please pray for us as we seek to carry out the Great Commission and continue to look towards an exciting future of bearing fruit here at FIRM through Jesus!
Peace and Love,
Zachary D. Darrah
Executive Director