"Belay On!"

My final week of having campers was different than all of my other weeks. For the first time of the summer, I was having Middle Schoolers, you know, 12-14 year olds: Focus Camp. I work with that age group at church all the time. Should be no sweat.

However, my week was far from what I was expecting. For one thing, one of my campers was 16. Yeah, his church wanted him to go really bad, so when he missed the high school week, they worked to get him into the middle school camp. I'll admit, in the beginning of the week, I made this "opportunity" into too big of a deal, but it was quite a change from what I thought the week would be like. The cabin dynamics were interesting with having kids ranging from a sheltered 12 year old to an experienced 16 year old.

With a lot of prayer and support from some of my friends, I was able to manage. Our conversations at night were pretty interesting. And on the last night, I spent 3 hours doing just 3 one-on-one conversations. I think a lot of seeds were planted, and it was a good week, overall.

With Focus Camp, every camper gets to spend 2 hours a day "focusing" on a certain activity they want to work on or challenge themselves in. I worked with the High Adventure focus. It was so much fun to work with our group on goal-setting and challenging themselves. They did the indoor tower, ropes course, Dangle Duo, and outdoor tower. My hands got blistered, but I leared a lot about working to challenge students. It was an awesome experience. "Belay on!"

Besides the storm...

Last week of camp was Challenge Camp with 10-12 year olds. Besides the "hurricane" that hit on Monday of that week, a lot more happened. Including the addition of 2 new brothers in Christ: Jaharie and Derek.



Connor, Derek, Sam, Noah, Ryan, Jaharie, John, Brenden, and James were a lot of fun.

Seeing God in the "Hurricane"

Monday started out as a quiet day. No one really expected hardly a drop of rain. At 4:00, I escorted my kids to the climbing tower where we were set to climb. We began hearing low rumbles of thunder in the distance, so we headed towards the indoor tower, thinking that this fast moving storm that came out of nowhere would just blow over.

While we started the first climbers inside, the storm hit hard. Sheets of rain blowing hard in winds anywhere from 70-100 mph (hurricane force). Booming thunder and bright lightning came through and within minutes we were in the dark.

We continued climbing, expecting the storm to end soon and the power to come back on. We saw the wind and rain, but had no idea of how strong this storm truly was. By dinner time, it had let up, but we were left without any power (or water for that matter), plus we had countless down trees all over camp. We were told not to go back to our cabins or through any wooden areas until further noticed. We stalled in the dining hall, and then held an impromptu Bible study indoors and without our own Bible / curriculum. We followed that with some canteen time and by the time that was finished, a generator had been hooked up to the boys cabins water pump. We were finally allowed to go to the cabins and relieved ourselves by flashlight. We then killed the rest of our time with a really fun skit night "American Idol" style with all of the cabins performing skits in the dark as the emergency lights turned off and more storms rolled through. As we turned in early to bed, we had the chance to improvise some fun with our campers.

I taught my guys mafia by flashlight and read to them from a book we've been reading this week. We got free ice cream from the canteen that would have melted anyway, and had an overall fun time.

Somehow, our entire cabin managed to fall asleep in the sticky, warm cabin without any fans. This morning was a cool, clear morning where we could see God's beauty shine through all the damaged forests and flooded athletic field. Both his strength, and his goodness were displayed.

The power finally returned a little after 4 today. I'm thankful it's back on, but the experience of this storm and the following power outage is unique to this group, and I think God definitely used it for the best.

During our Bible study, the guys really opened up and I could see God beginning to move in their hearts. I can only trust that he'll continue working in them this week.

During our extra time to kill, I saw them bond as a cabin group and really connect with each other. That was awesome.

So despite going 3 meals without power/water, a whole 24 hours without showers, and just as much time without any electricity, God was working in the midst of the storm in Mears, MI.

Challenging, but good

This past week of camp was Discovery 3.

Here's some pictures:

Joey, Jens, Zeke, Anthony, Justin, Kyle, Josh, and Jason were a pretty good group. They slept like rocks, so that was nice. I had to deal with a little homesickness with one of my campers, but it all turned out for the good. Josh, from the second to last picture, was able to learn a lot about love and helping others through that situation, and God really moved in his heart this week. Also, Joey, the last camper pictured, accepted Christ on Thursday, making the difficult spots of the week all worthwhile.

Discovery 3. Late nights. Homesickness. Rain. Good.

The Faces of Love

This past week at camp, I had Discovery campers again, they were mostly 10 year olds with a few 9 year olds mixed in. I was very blessed in the fact that they were very cooperative in the Bible studies and personal devotions times.

Here's my guys from the past week:

Bastian, Drew, Jake, Nicholas, Luke, Graham, DJ, Stevie, and Jacob brought a great deal of fun with them to camp.

Sadly, though, my week was filled with reminders (especially towards the end) that these kids live in a broken world. So many of them were hurting. My heart broke quite a few times during the last night and morning. Please pray for one of my guys who was in the hospital the last I knew. The details aren't important. The fact that he's hurting and needs God's love is.

During the week, I was also inspired to remember that each and every one of these kids, despite their background, bears the image of God. I never want to forget that.

A year ago this past week, I was in Chicago, experiencing the greatest sense of love and compassion I've ever felt. I want to try my best to love these kids as recklessly as that. If you want to know how to pray for me during the rest of the summer, that's it.

I go back up tomorrow (or today, actually) to serve while we minister to families for this 4th of July week.