​After many snowfalls, we have three feet of snow (more in the drifts) on the ground! This amount of snow on the roofs can cause significant damage to our buildings. Some of our neighbors in the community have already lost roofs to outbuildings. The Massey and Morrison families spent this past Saturday shoveling off roofs that posed problems and salted the over-sized icicles that hung off the roofs. We are so thankful for our donors, whose sacrificial gifts have supplied us with the tools necessary to handle the extra snow that God has given to us this winter!

Our skid-steer is a great tool to move snowbanks further back, giving the plow more areas to move snow. Although not pictured, our brand new plow truck has been a great blessing. Maintaining the property is an essential element of our gospel work! Thank you for partnering with us to share the precious news of the Gospel with these teens.
It causes a lot of work, but we are thankful for the snow. Much like the rainbow that gives us a reminder of God's promise not to flood the earth again, the snow on the ground gives us a constant reminder of three elements of the Gospel message that we have been called to share with our students.

1. The blemished are in need of snow-white cleansing.

2. The blood of Christ is the agent of snow-white cleansing.

The past few weeks have included a lot of miles and events.  Lynne and I ended January at the Refresh Conference at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, Iowa.  It was a great time of spiritual refreshing as we heard preaching from some of our heroes like Les Ollila, Marty Herron, and Douglas Maclaughlin.  Lynne and I connected and reconnected with friends that we went to school with and others in ministries that have been a part of our “circle” for the last 25 years or so.  I also had a chance to meet up with a few students and recruit a bit.
 
After a few days at home we headed out on a 10-day trip to the Carolinas and Georgia.  The anchor for the trip was attending the CORE counseling conference and the Bible Conference at Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC.  Lynne and I were challenged with the ministry of Harvest USA as they address and invest in the issues the church faces regarding sexuality and gender confusion.  The Bible conference theme was “Prayer.”  What a fantastic time of challenge and prayer!  We also had a display table at the conferences and had many opportunities to inform people about God’s work up here at Victory and recruit staff.   These conferences are great times to connect, network, and build relationships with people.  We have good friends around BJU, and it is encouraging and edifying to keep up the connections.
 
While out east, we also stopped in and visited the Ballards, a former student and his parents.  John and Beth are great parents and pour their lives into their sons.  I think they were as encouraging to us as we were to them.  Lynne and I were also able to spend a day with Lynne’s brother and sister-in-law a couple of hours drive away in Georgia.

Ministry is about redemptively connecting with people.  Everywhere we go we meet hurting and struggling people.  My conclusion is that in some ways we are all hurting and in need of encouragement and exhortation to trust God and dig into His Word.  Life can be hard.  Our Hope is Jesus.  We rejoice that God uses us wherever we go.
 
Please pray for us as we have major trips planned to Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota over the next couple of months to visit supporting churches and promote the ministry.  Pray specifically for God’s provision for our staffing needs of a Residence Manager and several single Resident Assistants.

​The Apostle John records in his gospel, chapter 17, the closing hours of Jesus’ life on earth where we find Him praying to the Father in one last time of prayer with his disciples.  When He is done with this prayer He walks to the garden where He is betrayed, then taken to a mock trial, beating, and crucifixion.  In these final hours of His pre-resurrection life He prays the details of our relationship with Him and God the Father.
 
Though there is much to study in this prayer, in laying before us His relationship with the Father and the work He accomplished with and for us, He puts on the table a crystal clear statement about “eternal life.”   This “eternal life” is the culmination of His work and obedience to His Father.  For us it clarifies what our salvation is really all about.
 
Often people pray the salvation prayer because they are recognizing their guilt and they don’t want to spend an eternity in Hell.  Heaven has a nice ring to it and the deal is quite awesome.  We are guilty and deserving of Hell and praying a sincere prayer of trusting Jesus’ work on the cross gets us freed from that guilt and a promised entry into heaven for eternity.  While all of that is true, when that is the extent of our understanding of salvation we will conclude that it is a static achievement that, once secured, we can move on and “do” life with little or no concern or motivation for spiritual life.  We must dive deeper in our understanding of the eternal life that Christ brought us.
 
Note in Jesus’ prayer that revolves around eternal life, that there is no direct mention of heaven or hell.  The focus of the prayer is laid bare in verse 3, “and this is eternal life, that they know you (emphasis mine) the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  The remainder of the prayer is about what knowing God and Jesus looks like and the resulting fruit of glorifying God. While this entire prayer is a great study that could take hours and pages, summarized, we need to understand that our daily lives need to be lived to know God and reflect on His greatness and the greatness of Christ and His work on the cross (verses 3 and 4).  As we live to know God, our actions will change.
 
Jesus reveals how this works out in our lives.  He first mentions in verse 6 that He glorified the Father by giving us His Word.  Later, in verse 17 Jesus prays that God the Father would set us apart (sanctify) us through the Word (truth).  Jesus is asking the Father to do His sanctifying work in us through the power of the Word.  Back in verse 6-8 Jesus states that He did what the Father wanted Him to do, He manifested the Father’s name in a way that we “came to know the truth” that Jesus came from God the Father.  This knowledge of God came through the words that Jesus gave and had recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures.  Sometimes this is the point that we veer away from what Jesus is teaching in this prayer.  We can look at the Word and see the commands and the lists of do’s and don’ts and miss that it was written to reveal God to us!  The point of Jesus’ revelation to us (both OT and NT) is that we might know God the Father and Jesus His Son.  We need to have a clear, compelling vision of salvation as a dynamic, endless, fathomless pursuit of a relationship with God. 
 
When we put our focus on our sanctification instead of the God of our salvation, we can find that the “cart is before the horse,” and not far down the road, we find ourselves trying to push the cart all on our own.  As Jesus stated, our sanctification results from God showing us himself in the Word (verses 6 and 17).  As we gain knowledge of the facts of God, we have the opportunity to experience Him.  Several times (verses 6-8, 22-23, 25-26) Jesus speaks of this closeness and oneness with God that He came to give to us. 
 
This “Eternal Life” that Jesus came to give us is a precious gift, paid for by His ultimate sacrifice.  What a glorious intersession Jesus gave for us and recorded here in John 17.  What does this mean for us?  We should be compelled to study and know the Word, so we get beyond the words themselves and experience a relationship with God Himself.  Think about it, what difference has your knowledge of and thus experience with God made in your daily purposes, habits, and pursuits of life?  How has knowing God impacted the relationships around you?  Have those around you been compelled to know your God the way you know your God (verses 20 and 21)?  A secular proverb rings true, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.”  But far deeper than any secular proverb can take us, Jesus says in verse 26, “I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Every year, we take our students down to Devil's Lake in southern Wisconsin. It is a time that we head out to the bluffs and expose our students to the sport of rock climbing. Although we only take a day and a half to climb, it is the highlight of our activity schedule for the week! Every year is different, as different groups of students show differing levels of interest in climbing. This current crop of students were not rock enthusiasts, but enjoyed the time they had on the rock and hanging out until it was their turn to climb.

On Monday, we arrived at our favorite campsite at Devil's Lake - G3. We quickly got to work setting up our campsite. Our new 10-man tent that we bought from Columbia sped things along, as it is considerably easier to put up then our old Cabella's one. In the evening, we dove right into our spiritual program with singing and chapel with Mr. Brewster!

Tim Warren, our resident assistant, did a great job with the music and enlisted the help of Micah. It's an awesome experience to sing songs of worship in the woods, using stringed instruments! Aaron Brewster led the chapels every evening, focusing on the concept of integrity. Most of the students responded positively, but one specifically informed us that the messages has urged him to take definitive steps toward living a life that is characterized by integrity! 

On Tuesday, we climbed on some familiar routes and tried some new ones. Here, Josh W. is climbing Brinton's Crack (5.6 - level of difficulty). 

Wednesday and Thursday tested our flexibility with rainy weather. Wet rocks rule out climbing and wet trails rule out mountain biking. Instead, we enjoyed fishing, hiking, and relaxing around the state park! Probably the favorite moment of flexibility was when Rory Massey set up an obstacle course in an empty campsite and taught the guys some mountain biking skills in maneuvering around / over obstacles in your path.

On Friday morning, we wrapped up this great trip with donuts from Kwik Trip!

There are times in life when being out of place is just fine. Take three winter-weary fellows from the northern reaches of the mid-west and fly them to the balmy pacific coast of Southern California for three days of spiritual encouragement and equipping. Sounds like a good combination, huh? The founder of Victory Academy, Pastor Steve Schroeder from near Chicago, met up with our present director, Mark Massey and Dan Raught at O’Hare airport to travel to the Shepherd’s Conference at the site of Grace Community Church and Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California.

Three days were packed with hearing messages and workshops focused on the truth of the gospel and how that gospel is the key to the ministry we do. It is the gospel truth that we speak into the lives of Victory students every day. It is this life-changing message that changes lives and produces real change in young men’s lives. We were challenged regarding our role of being sanctifying agents in the lives of the sheep we lead. What a great privilege to be in the business of seeing God change people even as He is changing us.

​It was a special joy for Mark and Dan to enjoy this quality time with Steve Schroeder, who God used over thirty years ago to put action to the vision to establish a home setting in which to help young men to function in their own home setting in a way that reflects the reality and effects of the Gospel. At that time, it was known as Victory Homes. While many things have changed through the years, our commitment to the sufficiency of the truth of God’s Word and our commitment to helping families has never wavered.  We came home from the balmy western shore thankful for the opportunity and energized to work for the Lord with His truth and in His power.