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.