About Light America Youth Challenge
What is Light America Youth Challenge (LAYC)?
Light America Youth Challenge (LAYC) is a ministry outreach program for college and academy age students, sponsored by the Review & Herald Publishing Association. LAYC helps students, ages 16 to 30, to share their faith and earn a scholarship by sharing health and character building books, called magabooks.
What is the mission of LAYC?
Our mission is two-fold: to help our students, financially, socially and spiritually and to bless the people we meet at the doors. We seek to bless the people we meet by sharing God's love for them through conversation, prayer, and the distribution of high-quality books for healthy living, families, and spiritual growth. We also seek inspire the church members and churches in the area where we are canvassing by sharing testimonies sharing the wonderful ways God has worked in and through the LAYC team. We seek to share Jesus with everyone we meet, to hasten, His Second Coming.
About the LAYC Summer Programs
Who can join the team?
Applications are welcomed from ministry minded young people at least 16 years of age.
How long are the summer programs?
Light America Youth Challenge summer programs are a ten-week commitment, usually beginning in May or June and ending in mid-August.
Where do team members stay during the ten-week program?
Team members stay in a mission house or church near the summer ministry area. Laundry facilities are also available.
Who provides food for team members during the summer?
LAYC will provide the teams with a healthy breakfast. Team members prepare their own sack lunches or bring money to buy their lunch. During the program, there is a weekly shopping day when team members can purchase food stuff and other personal items.
Who will provide transportation for team members during the summer?
Team members are asked to provide their own transportation to and from the program. During the program, all transportation will be provided by LAYC group leaders and approved staff.
About the LAYC Schedule
What do team members do on a day-to-day basis?
Sunday through Thursday, each day starts with a team worship and training session, concluded with group prayer. Team members begin sharing magabooks door-to-door, by 1 p.m. Though they approach the door solo, team members work in a buddy system, with another teammate placed across the street, for safety, as well as moral and spiritual support. Team members conclude their work about 8 p.m. and meet back at the host site to close out their day with group prayer and praise for all the ways God has blessed them.
What do team members do on the weekends?
Friday is not a scheduled work day and team members have free time to care for personal matters and Sabbath preparation. Often, group leaders will take students shopping or facilitate social time in a park or with a host family until vespers.
Friday evening vespers is a time for reflection and thanksgiving to God for what He's done for the team during the week. Team members may share experiences or stories of how they felt God used them to encourage people.
On Sabbath, team members may be invited to lead out in Sabbath School and local church services, sharing the blessings of "the front-lines" of service for God.
About the Scholarship
How much money can team members make?
There is no limit to the money you can earn in Light America Youth Challenge, since you receive up to 50% of all that you distribute door-to-door. Typically team members make from $1500 - $4000 per summer. In addition to this, Seventh-day Adventist academies and universities match these monies with a scholarship anywhere from 15-100%.
What if I attend a non-SDA school? Can I still receive the scholarship bonus earnings on my summer earnings?
You will still receive your full earnings when you fulfill your 10-week commitment, regardless of what school you attend. However, certain SDA schools match your summer earnings with an additional scholarship bonus or tuition discount. You may want to check with your school to see what they offer.
About Magabooks
What are Magabooks?
The name "Magabook" was developed because the books we distribute are paperback (like books) and yet shaped liked magazines with bright, colorful pictures. In essence, they are half-book and half-magazine and so they were called a "maga-book". Our books include children's books, health books and inspirational and Bible study books.
How did the Magabook work begin?
Magabooks were originally developed in 1987 by Glenn Aufderhar, Michigan Seventh-day Adventist Conference President, and Dick Thomas, marketing director for the Review Publishing Association, as a response to Ellen White' s counsel that the book Christ's Object Lessons was a gift from heaven to be used by students to help defray the cost of Christian education. The first magabook, a half magazine, half book edition of Christ's Object Lessons, titled He Taught Love, features a commentary on twelve of the parables of Jesus Christ.
Cindy Tutsch directed the first summer Magabook program in 1988 with 15 students based in Edmore, Michigan. Since then, magabook student canvassers have grown to about 2500 in North America, distributing hundreds of thousands of the 17 different titles of magabooks, from healthy choices cookbooks to adult devotional books to teen books promoting a lifestyle free from substance abuse to quality children's story books which promote positive values.