Ministry Report 2020

God’s gracious provision for Victory Family Ministries was abundant this year and we are grateful for all those who sacrificed and gave our staff the many opportunities to minister the Gospel. Crisis intervention ministry is costly and we appreciate those who invest to make it all happen. As a staff, we are glad to partner sacrificially in our service, knowing that we are serving the risen Christ together with you all.

We had a great year of ministry with eight families enrolled in Victory Academy, seven of those completing the program in June. Our immediate report is that four of those went home to have good summers at home and three of those four have been continuing on in a good direction and have been able to go on in their high school and college pursuits. Each of those boys have
good families that are providing strong leadership and spiritual encouragement. We are excited for God’s continued work in their lives while we continue to pray for God’s continued rescue work in the lives of the other students.

WildHeart Adventure Camp wasn’t able to pull off running two camps (though we wanted to) this past summer, but we did have one camp with eleven campers. It was a great time of pouring biblical Truth into the guys and the time backpacking and enjoying the wilderness together built great relationships and memories.

As we held off enrolling students for the first semester (because of a need for a single staff
man, which God provided in December) and thus not having our tuition income for those four
months, gave us an opportunity to think about the things that make this a difficult ministry to
staff and fund. The budget months that have campers and students on campus run about
$20,000 per month. The hard math is that we had a $15,000 a month income shortfall for
those four months. We are grateful for God’s provision that allowed us to make payroll, take
care of facilities and continue on ministering to families as we visited churches and
counseled families phone calls. With God’s great provision we were also able to utilize the
“down-time” to evaluate and strengthen our program. We invested time working on our
promo materials, website, and counseling forms. We also clarified some of our staffing
needs and reworked through our recruiting process.

As a sampling of the extra things that God provided for us to accomplish this year:

• Program Funding:
  • WildHeart Camp program--$6,000
  • Academy expenses for fall without students--$60,000
  • Student Scholarships—$40,000
  • Camper Scholarships—$4,800
• Promotion—ACBC promotion and display--$4,000
• Facilities Development
  • Campsite Development— Two Cabin/shelters--$40,000
  • Classroom Smart board Monitor--$4,000
• Equipment Purchased
  • Camp Truck (2009 Chevy)--$9,000
    • Jeep for maintenance on property--$11,000 (needed a Gator type vehicle and found the Jeep to be a much better value for us, for half the price!)
    • Shop Equipment—$5,000 (battery power tools, table saw, awesome Miter saw)

Looking ahead the board and I will be looking at how to increase capacity in this next year. While we have the buildings to make it work for a year with what we have, plans will be developed for what the next facilities projects will be needed to make our program work well with 16 students.

There are two things that we are pushing forward on right now:

• Staff Needed: Immediately we will need to get staff positions filled to allow the increased capacity, so we are officially looking for the next person to join our staff.
• Campsite development: We are trying to get a large pond area developed before winter ends. We need some folks to get behind us on a project to build a shower platform and a small pavilion before this next WildHeart summer starts up. We are anticipating the need to be about $35,000 for those structures, along with volunteers to make it happen.

The board and I are intensifying our search for two new staff men to join our team. The first position we hope to fill is a new academy director (that will be working to take on the daily program operations of the Victory Academy boarding school). A new man coming in to run the academy will take on a few of the plates that I keep spinning, thus allowing me to not drop so many plates while allowing us both to do a better job ministering to people.

We would also like to bring in a new house manager (house dad) which would allow us to increase our capacity to 16. If you know of someone that has a passion for helping families and kids learn of God and apply Truth to their lives, send them to our website and let’s see if God would move them to join our team here at Victory. Job postings and employment information will be available at victoryfamilyministries.org.

Please pray and consider how God would use you to partner with us and with other Gospel ministries doing Kingdom work this year. May God bless you as you endeavor for Him.