Bringing the Light

Since its arrival to the community four years ago, Houma’s chapter of Young Life – an international Christian ministry dedicated to helping adolescents grow in their faith – has operated with one primary focus in mind: meeting young people where they are.

“We’re going to go to them. We’re going to go to their football games, their volleyball games, to Chick-Fil-A on a Thursday night. Wherever they are and want to hang out and feel comfortable, that’s where we’re going to go,” Houma Young Life Board Chair Jourdan Despot says. “We’re going to go meet you, have a relationship with you and get you fired up and plugged into a local church. Wherever your family fits in, that’s where you need to be.”

Houma’s Young Life formed in 2016 as interest began to circulate in the area among community members familiar with the ministry. Jourdan says that within his first six months of living in Houma, there was a “centripetal mass” of people committed to getting the pieces moving for a Young Life in the Houma area. Interest meetings began in August of 2016, and by December, the chapter was officially sanctioned as LA77.

“2016 was our oil crash. Like that was when oil was going down. It was not a good time in Houma to start raising money as a nonprofit. It was probably not a good time to start. So we were like, well, we’ll see. It’s a God-sized goal. We’ll see where God moves, and real quick we saw that people in this community would rally around kids, and they would rally around Christ,” Jourdan says.

The chapter has spent the time since its inception building a foundation for its future, as Jourdan says Houma’s Young Life wanted to start things off on the right note.

However, the chapter had been missing a valuable piece of its puzzle moving toward that future: an area director.

This past June, Houma’s Young Life found that missing piece in Lafayette native Cody Sanders, who has already anchored himself in the Houma community, engaging in everything from substitute teaching at local schools, to Bible studies with adolescents in the community.

Jourdan says he has seen momentum growing in support from the community over the last few months since Cody’s arrival.

“We want to have steady growth as we build, so this fall has been perfect for building relationships with parents and kids,” Jourdan says.

No stranger to Young Life’s ministry, Cody says he grew up going to Young Life in Lafayette. He initially met his Young Life leader in seventh grade when his leader served as a substitute teacher at his school.

“One of my most vivid memories is him being one of the first people on the track after a football game to tell me good game, and it wasn’t so much what he said a lot of times, but the fact that he was always there and always present,” Cody says.

As Cody transitioned to attending college out of state, his leader put him into contact with Young Life’s area director in Oxford, Miss., where Cody went on to serve as a volunteer leader for three and a half years at Oxford High School.

After college, he says he felt called to become a full-time Young Life staff member. He applied for the role and was placed in Huntsville, Ala., for three years, overseeing ministry at two local schools. With connections in Louisiana, he ultimately found his way to Houma in June.

Cody says that Young Life’s role in the community revolves around several “seeds.” The first is contact work, which he says involves reaching out to young people where they are in their day-to-day lives, as well as serving local schools in whatever capacity necessary.

“We hope, through that, to get to build relationships with kids, adults, coaches. Whoever we might run into, and that’s kind of like the bedrock of Young Life’s foundation,” Cody says.

Though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way that Young Life is able to conduct events, Cody says the next seed typically involves weekly or bi-weekly meetings called Club, which Jourdan refers to as a “party with a purpose.” At Club, participants can enjoy high-energy activities and music alongside a message about Jesus. Club, Cody says, is built for those who have “never encountered Christ.”

Young Life’s biggest event is its annual camp, dubbed as “The Best Week of Your Life.” There, participants pick up their phones for a week, stay at one of the organization’s mountain-based properties across the world and participate in activities centered on faith.

The final seed, Cody says, is small-group Bible studies among Young Life participants, which Jourdan says is the ministry’s channel for diving deeper into one’s faith.

At the heart of all of Young Life’s work lies a central goal of paving the way for young people to have a meaningful encounter with Jesus and getting them connected with other Christians at their churches, groups and more.

In a world where middle and high school students are facing more pressures than ever, Jourdan says it’s valuable to reach out to them during such a pivotal time and let them know they’re loved unconditionally.

“They’ve got questions that I was never even asking: Where do I belong? Who do I follow? Do I follow the bars? The sports athlete? The movie star? Who is my role model?” Jordan says. “You’re looking to your friends or you’re looking to the TV or to Instagram to find your niche. It’s a really tough time for kids, and if we can be just one extra light…and give them something sustaining…I think that trajectory, we could literally change a kid’s life.” 

Jourdan and Cody say that young people are often jam-packed with the demands of school, sports and extracurricular activities, capped off with the pressure to succeed in all of those areas. Thus, it’s important to bring the organization’s ministry to them.

In a world that can feel intimidating and confusing, Jourdan says that those involved with Young Life feel that it’s their purpose to bring the community together to rally around Christ and start a movement in young people’s lives. He and Cody have both felt impacted and inspired by the children they’ve encountered throughout their ministry.

Cody’s initial group of Young Life students at Oxford High School even took a surprise road trip to attend his wedding in Georgia, he says.

“They didn’t tell me they were coming. They just showed up,” Cody laughs. “They might have been freshmen in college at this point, so maybe Mom and Dad let them road trip. I hope they asked!”

Jourdan says he’s excited about the position that Houma’s Young Life organization is currently in, and the chapter is always looking for support through volunteers, donors or people who can simply help to connect Young Life with students or adults looking to get involved.

Above all, Young Life simply wants to form relationships with members of the community.

“Before we would ask anything of you, I would love to just get to know you and build that relationship with somebody,” Cody says. POV