Subject: The Sergeants Club | July 2024


Hello,


This month I have been working with the Quest program, ALERT’s four week summer camp for guys 14-17. I have a lot of history with Quest; I attended myself back in 2007 and have had the opportunity to work as leadership a total of ten times between 2008 and 2024. The thing I am most surprised by every year I do Quest is the severity of struggles that these guys are dealing with, even at 14 years old.


This summer we have students who are dealing with family members undergoing major health issues and/or deaths, students coming from homes where they have experienced violence and/or abuse from a parent, and students who have had to live through lengthy custody battles between parents during divorce proceedings.


Those are some of the more attention grabbing situations, but there are many other guys working through a whole host of issues of one kind or another. Statistically speaking, most or all of the guys here have at least been exposed to pornography, and many are probably struggling with a pornography addiction to some degree. There are multiple guys here from single parent households, or households without a healthy male influence. There are guys with learning disabilities, guys with anger issues, guys with major identity issues. And many of the same things that can be said about the students are reflected in the leadership team as well.


As I finish up Quest this summer, and as I look towards more opportunities to work with the guys in the Battalion this fall, I am once again sobered by the struggles and hurts that the guys coming here are dealing with. Please be in prayer for the Quest leadership team as we try and plant seeds of truth and the Gospel into the guys in the last week that we have them here, and try and show them Christ's love and point them in a healthy direction. And pray for SMaj and the Battalion leadership as they disciple the guys in ALERT training. There is so much need in young men today, and we have such an incredible opportunity to come alongside guys who are really struggling and give them actual help, instead of the poisoned chalice of all the solutions the world offers.

Looking ahead to next quarter, we have enough registrations to run our Tech Rescue, Dive, Aviation, and EMT classes, and we are one registration away from clearing class minimum for Construction. We still have three weeks left before the registration deadline, so please pray that we get registrations from the right guys who will most benefit from training with us, especially one interested in Construction so we can run that class next quarter. Numbers for Unit 71 in the fall are looking good as well; if every application currently in process comes through, we will have to put people on a waiting list or roll them to Unit 72 in March. Please keep the registration numbers for both the fall training quarter and Unit 71 in your prayers.


One final note for prayer: we’ve started advertising again with World News Group, both in their emails and on their podcast The World and Everything In It. We did a test run back in June and seemed to get good traffic off the ads, so we’ve increased our efforts with WNG. One of the biggest problems we’re up against is a lack of awareness about ALERT, so we’re trying to make steps to fix that without breaking the bank. If you know of other avenues of advertising that we should be pursuing, please let me know. Please pray that we get good results from the advertisements, and that we have wisdom as to how and where to spend advertising money.

Thank you all once again for your prayers and support for ALERT; we are incredibly grateful.

 

Posteritatis commodis servientes,

1st Lieutenant Samuel Winkler | Unit 42

ALERT Public and Alumni Relations

International ALERT Academy, 1 Academy Blvd, Big Sandy, TX 75755, United States

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