When I read about young people stepping away from church and their faith, my heart breaks because this generation is so important. Our youth outreach program is called The Refuge, and God is working in teens’ lives and doing huge things in small areas.

Originally a pastor’s kid from Pittsburgh, Pa., I rebelled for a while; but I came back to God, went to Bible College and got married. I took my current position as youth pastor in March 2011. When I started, we had around 30 to 40 teens attending. In May 2012, The Refuge is doing very well, ranging from 130 to 150 students depending on other Tuesday night/school events. I know it is tremendous growth in a small amount of time. However, we not only are growing numerically, but the students are growing spiritually and coming to know who Jesus is.

Altoona is about two hours outside Pittsburgh; it’s a small country town with big inner city problems. Drug and alcohol use are rampant here and have destroyed many lives, impacting the lives of teenagers through the whole region. About 90 percent of our teenagers come from lower income housing, and 90 percent of them are from broken homes with no hope and no future. Altoona can be a dreary and gloomy place. These teens are drug addicts, alcoholics, rebels, homosexuals and hurt broken kids. When many students first start coming, they reek of weed and beer and have no hope. Soon after starting to come, though, they have hope because of who Jesus is. There is so much more to the story, but I will spare the the other details.

However, I will say we are one of the only youth groups that I know of that offers a nursery for our teenage mothers, the majority under the age of 17. We also offer smoke breaks for our teenagers, so before services they can have a cigarette before comeing into church. Many people do not agree with what we are doing, and we have caused a lot of controversy; but I believe that if we can get the kids to the church, God will do the rest.

Many of these kids have amazing stories about what God is doing in their lives, and He is doing big things in Altoona—raising up a generation that has a hope and a future. God is moving in a great way through this generation. We just have to be persistent and cannot just give up on them!