NONPROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDGRASS VALLEY, CA

PERMIT NO. 60

Christian Encounter MinistriesPO Box 1022Grass Valley, CA 95945CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Tending Lives…Training Leaders

Christian Encounter MinistriesAugust 2011

Since 1970

Contact us at:www.ChristianEncounter.orgcem@ChristianEncounter.org530-268-0877

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Christian Encounter Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational, residential program helping 16- to 25-year-olds by providing love, spiritual guidance, high school education, counseling, and 24-hour supervision.

Looking ahead to the end of 2011!CEM’s AUTUMN WORK DAY

Saturday, October 8, 9:00-4:00Bring your youth group, your family, or your small group!

Church Services at the Ranch, every Sunday at 9:30 a.m.Potluck after church October 2, November 6, and December 4.

Thanksgiving feast for extended family, November 24, 1:00 p.m. (Please call to reserve.)

Ember’s skeptical heart. She shelved it and continued on her destructive path. “I didn’t even understand why I was doing what I was doing. I was hurting bad and I was hurting people around me and yet I kept doing it.” Ember resonated with the Apostle Paul’s cries in Romans 7: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” The loneli-ness and emptiness that came with the never-ending inner ba�le drove her to a�empt to take her own life. Coming out on the other side, Ember had to face family and friends who were confused and distraught by her actions. Though aware of her serious need for help, Ember remained nonchalant and aloof. “I knew I needed to change, but I didn’t want to take responsibility and I didn’t care.” When Ember first set foot on Ranch property, her face was devoid of hope—there was no trace of a smile on her lips. As time progressed, she found that the answers she had been so desperately seeking were right in front of her. A scripture that holds a lot of meaning to Ember is Ma�hew 28:20b. Jesus, after giving the Great Commission, promises to his disciples: “And surely I am with you al-ways, to the very end of the age.” “That hit me because I felt lonely a lot of my life, but He was there with me all along – even when I fell, when I denied Him, when I made huge mistakes in my life… He caught me. I thank God I didn’t die. Life is such a blessing even with trials and tribulations. I literally got a second chance and not very many people can say that. Now I look forward to my days. I want life… I am finding that nothing can satisfy me but the love of God.” As Ember entered into relationship with Jesus, light began to shine into former areas of dark-ness. “Accepting Christ into my life was frightening and scary, because everything I knew and what I was made to believe was a complete lie…I felt like an infant taking baby steps again…[But] things started making sense. I began to realize why God brought me here out of the darkness I had been liv-ing in. I felt happy and had a smile on my face. More and more I am striving for truth now...I no lon-

ger walk in shame or resentment and am no longer bound to the chains of sin, but I can stand tall and walk with my God completely unafraid, empowered by His love.”

Growing up, everyday was Halloween for Ember. Coming home to decorations from five years before still strewn around the house, the drawn curtains in her home represented her own heart, closed and shut off. Always seeing the glass as half empty, Ember was bi�er and callous and thought that life was just one burden after the other, and then you died and were forgo�en. The thought of such a bleak existence drove her to prescription drugs, and her life became a tangled web of lies. When Ember’s father remarried, her stepmother introduced her to the Gospel. The Good News sounded a li�le too good to

Ember Finds Abundant Lifeby Zoya Lee

Ember celebrates life on her 18th birthday in the wilderness surrounded by her teammates.

“I thank God I didn’t die. Life is such a blessing even with trials and tribulations.”