22 Sep 2012 K-Life celebrates 20 years in Conway
by Lee Hogan
What started 20 years ago as a small group meeting in a living room has blossomed into a well-known ministry in the Conway area.
That ministry, known as K-Life, now reaches more than 450 kids a week.
To commemorate 20 years in the community, K-Life is holding a celebration from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, at the Agora Event Center.
Area director Anderson Wilkins said K-Life is bringing back the “legends” to help with the celebration.
“We’re bringing in former staff and board members from across the country that have been involved in K-Life from the very beginning in 1992 up until this year,” Wilkins said. “We’re bringing back all those familiar faces and personalities and really making this a huge celebration as they’ve all had different parts and roles in making and remembering 20 years of ministry here in Conway.”
K-Life has 30 small groups of young people that meet at various places around town each week. It also has weekly meetings at the K-Life building for different age groups.
In its 20 years in Conway, Wilkins said K-Life has interacted with more than 3,000 students and spent more than 141,000 hours with them.
Wilkins, who started as a volunteer his freshman year of college in 2005, has been amazed by the growth he has seen. He said the ministry is currently interviewing 15 new small group volunteers and wants to have the new volunteers in place by the time of the 20-year celebration.
“We’re hoping that basically by the time all this happens, we’ll have about 45 volunteers,” he said. “Just seeing the depth of these small groups and the relationships that our leaders have been able to cultivate over the years they’ve been able to walk alongside their kids is really cool.”
Needless to say, the excitement level is high around the ministry’s office to celebrate 20 years and to have so many familiar faces back.
“We could not be more excited to host them, and the excitement level is through the roof for what God is going to do not only in this event, but what we feel for the next 20 years of ministry here in Conway,” Wilkins said.
In addition to reaching young people in Conway, K-Life does its best to help families and local churches in the area. Wilkins said the staff sits down every year, spending a lot of time in prayer to find out where God is calling K-Life to help next.
Wilkins says the look of K-Life’s ministry in the community can change a lot from year to year.
“We find ourselves now more resourcing and supporting parents and helping them grow their students to be men and women after God’s own heart,” he said. “We serve the local church by coming alongside small churches and providing them with youth ministries and youth programs that they wouldn’t be able to afford. And they’re able to keep their families at their church because they have an option for youth ministries.”
Wilkins may not know how the ministry will change and grow in the future, but the impact of the work done should remain the same. (For more information on K-Life, visit conwayklife.com or call 501.329.4929.)
“Who knows what it’s going to look like in 20 years,” he said. “But in the eight that I have been here, the impact we’ve had has been incredible.”
