Hello,
It is hard to believe we are already on the back half of 2022, even if only barely. I currently have Quest in full swing; there are 58 students and 24 leaders involved this year. Please pray for the last week and a half we have with them; the end of the program is typically when the guys are most receptive spiritually. There are a lot of needs and opportunities with these guys, and we want to be good stewards of the time with them that we’ve been given. Several students are either admittedly unsaved or very unsure of where they are at spiritually. Please also pray for the leadership in Quest. They are young leaders working with even younger students, and they’ve been pushing hard for several weeks now. Pray for stamina and wisdom for them all, and pray that God would use them to make an impact for the kingdom.
You can also pray for us staff as we try and make decisions to move ALERT forward. It can be discouraging seeing the all the needs in the guy’s lives or in ALERT and simultaneously feeling like we do not have the ability to do anything about them. For example, I got an email this week from a gentleman asking about financial aid for a young man he is mentoring and would like to send to ALERT for training. There are huge needs in this young man’s life, but he has essentially no money to put towards training. We do have a scholarship fund, but we typically cannot give much more than a 20% discount off our training. When you add travel and gear costs in on top of the training costs, our training can be prohibitively expensive for some of the people who might benefit the most, especially guys from single parent households or broken families. I am trying to think of ways that we can lower the training costs, possibly through something like a more robust scholarship program or looking for a lump sum donation to training costs that would allow us to lower the price of ALERT training. If you have any insight or ideas on how to address this issue, please let me know.
We are also constantly in a balancing act of trying to cut staffing costs but have enough staff to cover the work. If we ask our staff to run at 98% capacity all of the time, that is not healthy or sustainable. At the same time, we do not have the funds to hire additional people without bringing in additional students, but additional students would bring their own set of complications. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if just we had more students, all our problems would be fixed, but instead I am praying that we would do an excellent job discipling and training the men we have instead of just asking for more of them. Pray that we would be good stewards of the men in training and disciple them well, pray for more men to come train here (Basic Training Unit 67 starts September 8), and pray for wisdom for Major Boulden as he tries to structure the ALERT program in a healthy and sustainable way. Lastly, please pray for spiritual encouragement for all the officers and staff at ALERT. Working here is incredibly rewarding, but incredibly demanding at the same time especially for officers with wives and families.
We really value your input and experience, which is part of the reason we started the Sergeants Club, and so if you have any ideas on how to address any of the issues I’ve mentioned above, please let me or Major Boulden know. Thank you for partnering with us in the work of the Gospel!
Posteritatis commodis servientes,
