so i've been away from civilization for a while now... and it's taken me a long time to adjust back to it. last week i was at youth camp with 33 of our church kids, in addition to 900 youth from around illinois. why is camp the best week of your life? well, there's no distractions there, no phones, internet, bills, jobs, other responsibilities - just you and God. i went as a counselor, and even though i'm there for the kids, i always meet God at camp for myself.
this time, our speaker, ron rhoads (www.ronrhoads.org) gave a life-changing sermon for each night we were there, and the Holy Spirit touched everyone's lives in a different way. for me, God confirmed certain purposes for my life, and helped me to see that ministry is all dependent on His timing and His power.
one really cool testimony is that one of the girls in my room came from a different church, and at first i wasn't sure why she was in my room. but as she shared what she wanted God to do in her life this week - to confess to her parents about her relationship with her boyfriend - another girl from our room (from our church) was able to use her testimony of the same thing, and really speak to the other girl's heart because of it. that's all God's sovereignty, putting them together like that.
another testimony that i heard later, is that a youth from our church was playing a game with guy from another church who was being really disrespectful to him and everyone else. so our youth talked to the other kid and asked him why he was at camp - to which he responded, 'to win for my team.' and our kid kept sharing with him throughout the 5 days, about how God worked in his life last year at camp, and his relationship with God... and there was a salvation altar call, and this other kid went to the altar. i know it was directly related to our kid planting those seeds in his heart.
3 of our students from church received salvation this week! and countless more learned how to pray and worship with earnestness and faith.
i wish everyone could go to camp. it is not for the faint of heart, though. every day was a 20 hour day... and i'm still fighting off the cold due to exhaustion. but it's all worth it! i feel like i ended up going on a missions trip after all.
there's pictures and videos of camp on my facebook. check them out!
the biggest point i left with is that the people around us who are not alive in christ are dead spiritually, and they need us to, in a sense, bring them back to life. the dead don't know they're dead, and they count on the living. read the story of paul and eutychus, who fell out of the 3rd story and paul raise him back to life - acts 20. the last night, over 100 kids received salvation, and all 900 of us were on our faces praying for the people in our lives who we love and don't yet know christ. we don't know the hour or the day Jesus will come back, and we definitely don't know the time or day when God says our time is up. it's morbid, i know, but eternal life or eternal death is THE bottom line. even us christians forget that, and we implement all sorts of great social work projects - but don't preach the gospel. as we love the whole person, let's not forget to love their souls that were created for eternity and relationship with God.
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