From Loneliness to Leadership: How Youth for Christ Spain Transformed Alejandra's Faith and Future

Stephanie Dodrill, Spain Youth for Christ

On a Saturday in March, at a women’s luncheon, I had the privilege of hearing the testimony of a young lady who recently joined the youth leadership team at the church I attend.

Stephanie & Alejandra

Alejandra told me she grew up in a small church in a town over an hour away from Barcelona. When she was 16, she felt very lonely, as there were no other girls her age at her church. One day she discovered a group called Youth for Christ Spain and that we were doing a summer camp for her age group, so she signed up and went. She said that experience dramatically changed her life. She discovered that there were other Christians her age who really loved Jesus and were excited to read their Bibles and grow in their commitment to the Lord. She decided she wanted to be like that, gave her life to Christ and started attending our FRIDAYS youth meetings. Her parents were thrilled with the radical change they saw in her and did not think twice about driving her there every Friday, even though they lived so far away.

She was challenged and discipled through her ongoing involvement in Youth for Christ so much so that she felt called to help young women like her who were needing to be evangelized and discipled and to build strong Christian friendships. When her family moved to a town very close to Castelldefels (where we live), they happened to begin going to our church. She could not thank me enough for the ministry of Youth for Christ and how it impacted her life as an adolescent. She is now working with the local youth group of our church and one of her main concerns is reaching out to teens like our granddaughter Elisa. We had been praying for a female leader and God sent us someone whose own adolescence was dramatically impacted by our Youth for Christ camps, our staff and our weekly ministry.

What a blessing that what she received from Youth for Christ she is now giving back to our local church, where our granddaughter is one of the recipients of her new ministry. Please pray for Alejandra (now 23) as she reaches out to so many young women and that another female leader will soon join her in this daunting task.

Last month, when we had our adolescent retreat, Elisa invited a close friend from her old school, and because of the relationship Elisa had built with him, he was excited to come. His parents are atheists, and he knew nothing about Christianity, but when I reached out to his mom to ask if he could come, she said, “SURE! WHY NOT?” He really enjoyed the weekend and told his mom when we dropped him off at home that he would like to come to our summer camp, too! Please pray for him to become a Christ follower and the bearer of GOOD NEWS to his parents and twin brother.