Two nights and three days with seventy-one students in a pristine location equals blissful exhaustion. Fairborn Guy and I tagged along for our second year of chaperon/kitchen staff/do what needs to be done support for Reality Check 2009 (Youth ministry winter retreat).
The work is non-stop but the immense amount of energy I get from being around all the students is terrific. The worship also contributes to my energizer bunnyness...I could get a lot done in my day if I had a live worship band in my living room every day.
My favorite part of helping at camp is watching the emotional walls come down...as the kids move from day one into day two, vulnerability happens as trust begins to build with their peers and with God...it is a beautiful gift to witness.
The summer of 1978 I experienced a similar camp on a lake in Minnesota...it was Young Life Camp. It was there that I made a decision to follow Christ, though I had no idea what that truly meant, other than I had a deep feeling my life would never quite be the same. That feeling became truth for me in spite of the fact that I did not wear my new found title of Christ Follower as a dignified witness. Oh my....it took many years of stumbling and picking myself back up only to stumble and crash all too soon again, before I began to see the fruit of my life altering coarse towards becoming, what scripture calls, Christlike. I had such a wrestle with the hard reality of never arriving while still striving....resisting still rises up in me now and again...requiring a swift check of reality!
Any of you experience Church camp in high school?
1 comment:
No church camps for me.
Love the collage you made...where'd you end up doing it?
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