Camp Week August 1-6

This week at camp, August 1-6, was the first high school group.  We are often super excited for the high school aged campers to come to camp.  Most of them have been to camp before, and we have already established good relationships with them.  They know about camp and even about God and are looking for discipleship and encouragement.  The biggest difference with this group was that 11 out of 16 campers were boys.  We wondered how that might play out over the course of our week together!?!?

As the week began we noticed that the red team was bonding so much so that at the end of each meal time, when most everyone else was cleaned up and playing in the yard, they still had a messy table and were all enjoying each other’s company.  This is always a great sight to see.  They needed a lot of encouragement to get moving to the next activity.  But these times proved so beneficial.  As the red team sat at their table, the sights and sounds were just over the top.  Multiple Bibles were open and pages were flipping.  Questions were flying about God’s love and what His son did to make a way for us to be near Him.  The answer to one question led to more and more questions, and not just from one camper but from the whole team.  God’s word and love were being shared, and it was penetrating the hearts of those who have been so hurt. 

One of the young men on this team was so eager to hear and learn more and more about Christ, he ultimately surrendered his whole heart to Jesus.  He asked his counselor to pray with him to ask Jesus to come into his heart and to forgive him of his sins.  What a huge praise and answer to the prayers of the red team counselors and all involved!  The questioning and learning did not stop there.  He continued seeking all week long.  We believe he truly grasped God’s love and healing touch last week at camp.  Please pray that he can take all this great information and his new found relationship with God home and live for Jesus on a daily basis.

We did see a little bit of an effect because we had so many boys at camp.  Our testimony times were pretty short.  Only 7 campers shared all week.  There was some concern that the feelings and pain that the campers deal with were not being expressed and released.  But, then again, most of them were boys.  The benefit of our counselor prayer time is hearing that the boys really opened up to their counselors at one-on-one time.  They shared their deep hurts and really let go of so much.  Praise God for this time of genuine pain being surrendered!