Camp is now over

Alright all, camp has now ended. Friday was the very last day of camp. The last week went really well and surprisingly quick. We tried to mix up all the games and do some new stuff so that on the last week of camp it didn't feel like we were just trying to fill in game times with old games we've played before or those games that are so lame that no one really likes to play. We made boats out of aluminum foil and raced them (pushing them with our breath) and throwing pennies at the other cabin's foil boats to see who's boats could stay afloat while being attacked by a barrage of copper!

We also had a paper airplane flying contest on one of the rainy afternoons. Its amazing how many of the kids had never made a paper airplane! The activity director and I quickly realized that these kids today do not play the same games that we did when we were kids. Hide-and-go-seek is boring to them, tag takes to much energy and it is to hot to play outside, no idea how to fold aluminum foil to make a boat-like shape, and paper airplanes were a new concept to them. 

It really is sad how lazy we Americans have come to be. And its no longer just the older adults...the children have now adopted the lazy, passive mindset that has engulfed our culture.

In chapel this past week the campers learned about Noah and the Flood. They learned how all of mankind had become wicked and separated from God, that Noah was a  preacher of righteousness and that people laughed at him as he built the ark - and yet Noah continued to do what God wanted him to do despite being mocked and ridiculed. Keith Walsworth, the camp bible teacher, explained that the ark was not a cute little boat where all the animals were sticking out of the ark because it was too small but rather that it was huge enough to fit all the animals without their heads popping out side the boat.

Camp this summer has been great! It was such an awesome experience and I'm glad I got to share it with the staff at Bancroft Bible Camp. The camp is already looking for counselors for next year, so all you highschool graduates and college students who are interested in serving God at a biblically solid ministry, please check out Bancroft. On the website is contact information or you can contact me and I will set you  up with contact information for the camp director. 

Thank you all for your prayers, support and encouragement this summer!

Second to last week of camp - learning about The Fall.

Greetings to all! Hope this update finds you quite well! At the moment...I'm feeling a little sick (stomach mostly) but I shall persevere! 

So this past week was the second to last week of camp and it went rather well! We had about 18 campers, several of whom had been here previous weeks. It was good to see campers return, not just because we already knew the campers but because that meant they enjoyed being here enough to come back! 

This week in chapel the campers learned about The Fall - how Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil then how they were kicked out of Eden. We even looked at Cain and Abel and how not all acts of worship are acceptable to God.

Thursday night for the evening chapel during the over-night stay, I got to lead the chapel lesson time. I shared the story about Saul's life as a persecutor of the church and how an encounter with Christ completely changed his life in a tremendous way. It was really good to get to teach again, its something I enjoy doing.

Another update I'd like to share is something I am rather pleased to have experienced. This year at Bancroft Bible Camp - the songs and chapel presentations have been moved from an over-head projector to PowerPoint! We've had some issues with the computers working right with the projector but I think we have those mostly fixed. Praise God for this technology! Now for the lessons, the power points can have clear, colorful pictures and sounds! It makes the whole chapel lesson more interesting and eye catching. 

With this last week of camp coming up fast - please be praying for strength for all the staff and counselors so that we can make this week the best one yet! Also be praying for Matthew, Lucas and Sarah Walsworth who are leaving from camp on Thursday morning to travel to Michigan from where they will meet a missions group and fly to the Dominican Republic for a missions trip. 

"Its by God's grace alone..." (currently listening to Steven Curtis Chapman - "Declaration of Dependence") that this summer has been such a blessing and has led me to lean on Him more.

"Lord, make me a sanctuary"

The week is done - camp is over and the campers have gone home. This past week was day camp, where the campers go home around five. In chapel they learned about the creation week. We broke each day up and really looked at what God did in each of the six days of creation. The funniest part was that the girls wanted Pastor Keith to get to the part where Eve was created! It was fun to listen to them ask when Eve would enter the scene. But we learned about each day individually (and got to do a LOT of great color and work sheets!)

Day One - God created the heavens, the earth and separated the light from the darkness.

Day Two - God separated the lower water from the upper water ( creating the atmosphere).

Day Three - God separated the water and brought up dry land and created all the plants.

Day Four - God created the sun, moon, planets and day and night.

Day Five - God created all the flying and swimming creatures.

Day Six - God created the land animals and Adam, the first man.

The kids loved learning about creation and the 'very goodness' that was the earth and the Garden of Eden. 

I count it a blessing that no one was hurt this week, sure we had some scraps and cuts but thankfully no serious injury. The campers continue to LOVE the zip-line on the hill and, of course, swimming in the pool. It rained several days this week, quite hard I might add, but we were able to play games in the rec building and the campers seemed to enjoy them pretty well. 

I had three returning campers and several of the girls were returning campers - a total of twenty campers in all this week. So hopefully they will continue to tell their friends about Bancroft and will continue to keep coming back every week. 

Please be praying for those campers who don't know Jesus as savior, for safety for the them, for wisdom as the counselors and staff seek to make the camp better and glorify God as well as for God to speak to the campers' hearts as they are in chapel and learn about the Bible, God and what God has created and has done.

Last overnight camp - angels in the afternoon, David in the evenings.

Hey all -

 So Jr. Boys overnight week is over! These young men were 9-12 years old and FULL of energy and things to talk about. Seriously, they talked a lot. 

Thankfully though - I had a really great cabin. The boys behaved quite well, listened fairly well and were quiet as soon as the lights went off. I really am/was thankful for such a good group of boys. 

The mud pit was a pretty big hit with everyone, only a couple of boys sat out. I personally really love the mud pit...there's just something great about getting covered in mud and playing tug of war over a mud pit that is simply great. 

This week in afternoon chapels the boys (and day camper girls) learned about angels and Lucifer! Such solid teaching here at camp! The campers have learned that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient (last week)!! I think the boys really enjoyed and got a lot from learning about the creation of angels and the fall of Lucifer. After taking the angelology class at school I felt fairly comfortable talking to the boys about angels and demons while having knowledge of the subject. In the evenings we went through King David's life from child (slaying Goliath), as king (wanting to build a temple for God), as a sinner (his sin with Bathsheba) and as a fugitive (when Saul was hunting David).

We are so blessed to have Uncle Keith here to teach and prepare the curriculum. He's going to teach the entire Bible chronologically within four years here at camp! Such amazingness!

Please keep praying for the campers who will be coming for day camp throughout July, for us counselors who are old and get tired and for the staff to continue having servants' hearts and that God would continue to bless the camp and the families who trust us with their children.

Hunted

The above is a picture of my cozy home...at least, it was my hiding spot for about an hour during the counselor hunt. It was cramped, muddy...and surprisingly not very buggy. Then again...any bugs (or other critters) that were in there were hopefully scared away by me because they didn't show their faces/feelers/claws/fangs. Those pipes you see - they're water pipes, the main water pipes for the camp. I was warned not to break those pipes...cause not only would I be wet but (more importantly) the camp's water source would be disrupted. So, you can imagine how carefully I tried to be in there - I certainly didn't want to be the one to blame for a lack of water throughout the entire camp. Breaking the pipes is probably frowned upon.

Upon being in this little hole, I read for most of the time (I brought a flashlight with me). About forty minutes into the counselor hunt I had already had several groups of campers walk over the lid of the hole, stomp around a bit and inquired of each other where they thought I was hidden at. Ha, you can imagine me smiling as I sat underneath them while they tried to figure out where I was at.

Think about this - I was hiding for a game but what if I was hiding for my life? What if I was being hunted because of my religion? For my belief in Christ? How many believers would give up their entire life in order to hide and spread God's Word? And how many would pretend or even denounce the name of Jesus to continue to fit into society?

I am afraid to think of it but I fear that the time where Christianity will no longer be tolerated is fast approaching. Unlike today where Christ is scorned and made fun of - in the future speaking the name of Christ or congregating as a Christian become illegal. What then? Do we blend in and rely on the grace that has saved us and we live to survive comfortably? Or do we hide to survive so that we can risk our lives again to proclaim the message of Jesus?

Would you hide in a hole - for hours (or days) on end - to get a chance to share an illegal message that would alter where a single soul would spend eternity?

Would you?

A Single Look Can Break Your Heart

Ok, wow. 

Haven't been round this part of town for a while. January by the looks of things...ah, oh well. =) No one reads this anyways. I'll have to start writing good things and maybe promote this a bit. Yeah..we'll see how that goes.

So update: 

 Freshmen year of school is finished. The school  year was good, trying and difficult at times, but good. This summer I have the privilege of serving at Bancroft Bible Camp as a counselor (and staff when there are no boy campers, like this week for girls' week!). 

The summer has been good. Been able to get to know the people who work here at camp, their families and the campers (obviously). 

For now, this'll do. 

More will come.

Promise. 

The Coming and Going of the Tide

Why hello,

It's been a while since the last post, yes? Sept. 8th...of 2007. Hmm, at that time I was just beginning my first semester at Bryan College. Now it's four months and three days since then and I'm gearing up for my second semester of school and falling back in love with writing. With that, I hereby enter the latest blog that is vastly over due:

So I've once again opened Mere Christianity written by the brilliant C.S. Lewis. I admit that I have attempted to read this book two or three times only to stop on the third chapter and put the book away for a couple months. This time however I have reached page 94. So, while I'm in the middle of reading the book I have something to say about it.

The chapters that have hit hardest is the chapters that are focused on morality. I'm have the book open to page 75 at the moment and review "the three parts of morality", which are: "relations between man and man, things inside each man and relations between man and (God)." The idea of these three moralities are important, I think, so that we understand that our moralities not only affect how we live if we were to be alone in the world but also how we act towards another human-being and also how we act (and our attitude) towards God. Lewis does a tremendous job not only in this chapter but in the whole part of the book I've read thus far in saying that morality is not something that each person creates brand new for themselves but rather we all share the same basic ideas of what is right and wrong. 

The very next chapter is one on "The 'Cardinal Virtues'. I'll be honest, I saw 'cardinal virtues' and thought that Lewis would press upon the reader a set of values or whatnot that are held in highesteem by the Catholic church. Though this is not the case! He lists four virtues and give details to each. The first being "prudence". Quite simply, Lewis says that "prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it." (p. 77) 

COMMON SENSE! 

How many times have I exclaimed in my living room here at home that something I see someone do on tv doesn't make sense! That the person has no grip on what common sense tells a person to do. I admit that I am not the most logical person at times but I do try my hardest to use the common sense that God has given me so that I don't make a mistake when the correct choice is so blatant! And sometimes it's not so blatant. In this case I believe that just because something is not out in the open to you doesn't mean that someone with a slightly different point of view won't see the clear choice that needs to be made.

To disect the sentence I quoted, another important part of prudence is thinking about the out come of a descion. How many times do we think about what the outcome of a choice will be? How long do we spend making a choice, thinking over it, pouring over it, praying about it? I fear for myself not near long enough. I want to glorify God with every aspect of my life...am I doing that with every choice I make? Not just the big ones or the ones that people can see but also the ones I make in the quiet? In the darkness of my room? Are we as followers of Christ? Sometimes I think not.

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