July Regional Update

Eugene Women’s Center
The ladies celebrated Father’s Day by attending our local home church where they enjoyed a wonderful worship service and afterwards got to pet horses, learn line dancing, and ride a bull! One of the highlights from the day was their visits and phone calls with their fathers. Several ladies said their dads told them for the first time in a long time they were proud of them. One lady said her dad said this was the best father’s day gift. God is definitely restoring lives and relationships here!
Tri-Cities Men’s Center
The 1st Annual Golf Tournament was held at Sun Willows Golf Course on the 16th of June. It was a great kickoff for the event!
We began a dorm and living space reconfiguration to help us accommodate more students. We plan to be complete mid-July! This reconfiguration will allow us to increase the capacity of men we can serve from 13 to 18.
We have had four new students come into the program this month and we are very excited about the group of men in the program and the progress they are making!
We are selling cherries to help raise funds for our annual trip to Spiritual Emphasis in Medical Lake this September!
Rainier Cherries – $4 per lb or 3 lb for $10
Bing Cherries – $2 per lb
Give us a call at 509-547-2389 or stop by the TC Resale and Donation Center! Donations are also welcome!
Alaska Men’s Center
Our Alaska center has begun going out every Wednesday and Sunday to minister the homeless and low income. To date there has been at least one first-time decision for Christ each time. We celebrate not only those who have been born again, but the fact that our students who go out have been transformed too.
The truth of it is, we have not completed our task with our students in the program until we have done everything possible to see that they are missional Christians. It is not enough to make sure they’ve studied being missional, heard sermons about being missional, or taken a Bible test about what it means to be missional as important as all of that is. Students must be actively missional. They must incarnate as a matter of life-style Jesus’ words that “you shall be my witness.” That is not a statement of doing that is a statement of being. An identity statement. And our discipleship job is not done with the students until we see that evidence in real and tangible ways. Further, as a ministry we are engaged in unfinished business until we meaningfully represent the Great Commission in an ongoing way. Teen Challenge is a Great Commission ministry. We are a mission’s organization to addicts. We evangelize and disciple– that and only that is Teen Challenge. We never choose between evangelism and discipleship! It is “both and.”
We look forward to the near future when we have a city bus converted into a rolling Teen Challenge Phase II Crisis Center roaming the harder areas of Anchorage where people need the love and hope of Jesus Christ.
AKO student Nick’s testimony:
There is no way I could ever have foreseen or believed the situation I found myself in last week with a drug dealer. Sitting next to the guy he was loaded with the heroin I once so deeply craved. There was a time not that long ago when he would’ve been holding my entire world in his pockets, a world that was delivered to me by a syringe. I noticed right away I had no urge, only fear that I would.
What desire I did have was a need to pray for and with this man. Just moments before he had walked up and flashed the bundle of cash and heroin. For the first time I declined. He sat next to me confused. He glanced at the women on the corner and his bundle and said, “You mean you don’t need anything? No girls no dope.” I replied “no sir.”
He looked at the mural we had had been drawing on the sidewalk, a figure kneeling before a cross, my fellow TC student Maylan was finishing writing the verse. The dealer looked back at me and asked, “Then what are you doing out here?” I said, I am offering hope. He stared at the mural again. He offered, “It has been a long time since I went to church.” I said, we are in church right now, Jesus loves you, and you can tell that this moment was planned in Heaven, for this moment to tell you Jesus loves you. A drug dealer started to cry in public. I asked him if we could pray, and we prayed a long and powerful prayer. It completely changed me, I don’t know about him. Jesus had brought me back to the same streets that I was an addict on, to pray for the life and love of a man trying to make a drug deal.
For me I know longer crave heroin, I am learning to crave Jesus more and more. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18.
Portland Men’s Center
As summer is now here we find ways for our guys to “blow off some steam”. One of our favorite ways is to go hiking. Fortunately for us the Estacada area is rich with amazing hiking opportunities. These pictures are just a few of our guys enjoying the beauty and majesty of God’s creation, the Pup Creek Falls Hiking Trail. Obviously these gentlemen do not shy away from a photo opportunity! God is so Good!!
Seattle Men’s Center
Greetings,
We are working hard this year cleaning the Seattle campus, cleaning the pool and grounds maintenance/landscaping. So far we have had good weather in our favor. Friends, we need your help. We need tools and supplies. Below is a short list of the tools and supplies needed. Please help us to keep our center clean and beautiful!
1. Decorative Bark (mulch)
2. Leaf rakes
3. Shovels
4. Leaf blowers
5. Working Lawnmowers
6. Weed Trimmers
7 Gardening hand tools
8. Wheelbarrow
9. Pool Chemicals
10. Pool cleaning tools and supplies
Willamette Valley Men’s Center
These guys work so hard every day working on changing their lives. We decided to treat them to a day at the beach, and God blessed us with a beautiful 70 degree day. Guys got to spend the whole day enjoying God’s creation. We are blessed to have such a great bunch of guys, this day was much needed. Thank you Lord for your blessings.
Spokane Men’s Center
Thanks to our generous donor’s the Spokane Men’s Center has a new van! A 2017 Ford Transit.
We are 2/3’s the way done with our dorm upgrade project which includes new luxury tile flooring, closets and beds.
Here we are sharing our services at the Airway Height’s Health and Wellness fair
Tri-Cities Women’s Jail Outreach
We had a special surprise this week when one of our local women came to visit family. She graduated from the Graham campus last year and currently is at a Teen Challenge Ministry Institute in another region. We are so proud of her! Your prayers covered her in past years before her recovery while she was in dangerous situations on the streets. The Graham campus taught her how to walk in freedom and peace. Now she is in training to help other women find hope in Christ and discover the way to exit their painful and destructive lifestyles. We are in the jails and on the streets of the Tri-Cities, offering hope to all who hear our voices. This week, we are mailing and emailing “A Door of Hope” to over 600 women in the region and to prisons across the country. We write a note of encouragement on each one. Won’t you help us put hope within reach?