Young Life ONE is racing against statistics one relationship at a time.
It all started in Wyoming when Annie, a Young Life ONE leader, approached the juvenile center with a seemingly simple hope: bringing camp to incarcerated kids.
Even with an established pattern of club, bible study, and lunches, she felt there was more to be done. She went to the facility and asked the warden for permission to have camp there, but the warden said no — over and over again.
After months of persistence, he finally said “yes.”
At camp, one girl was shocked we’d brought chicken sandwiches for her group. She didn’t feel like she deserved it, but we were able to meet her in this moment of shame with God’s love for her through our love for her.
Beyond impacting the kids invited to camp, several facility staff started a relationship with Jesus that week, too. This was the beautiful beginning of our incarcerated camping ministry.
Fast forward four years and we’re hosting 9 separate camps in juvenile centers across the country this year. God is reaching kids who often don’t feel like they deserve love and rarely have connections with caring adults.
Our mission is to share God’s love with these kids and help them remember they are still kids themselves. We do this through developing trusting, healthy relationships that can also help dramatically reduce recidivism and improve long-term outcomes.
They need to know how loved they are — by God and by someone they can trust — because statistical projections say they are expected to return to incarceration within just two years of being released. A single, safe relationship with an adult can make all the difference.
That’s why part of Young Life ONE is designed to support them after their incarceration, seeking to connect them to a Young Life group near them and keep them connected to the trustworthy adult who walked alongside them on their journey.
These stable relationships are rare and vital for kids living on the margins as they are often uprooted, moving between homes, caregivers, schools, and communities with little warning or choice. People constantly come and go from their lives without much care or communication. This chronic instability and disruption is part of why they need us.
Any person from any background can show up for these kids and be the difference as they face homelessness, incarceration, or a broken family — with some facing all three.
Mason Keller, our incarceration cohort leader, told me about a young girl who wanted nothing to do with him at first. She was a person of color, incarcerated, and had no interest in being friends with a white, blonde guy who had never walked in her shoes.
At the end of their camp week, he gave her camp cohort the chance to write letters and pin them to a cross, and she wrote a letter to God about how the week had changed her life. She had felt seen, heard, and loved. Not because Mason was an expert or shared similar life experiences, but because he and the Young Life camp team showed up, and through them, God showed up.
Let this be your invitation to show up today, and let God move through you. Let your life and your witness, whatever it may be, be the reason a child living in the margins knows just how much God loves them.
With her 10 years of social work background and 11 years on Young Life staff, Rachel Karman Hernandez brings a passion for helping marginalized youth know and believe that they are not forgotten.
