Camping Season Comes to an End

Summer camping season will officially come to an end after this week at Echo Ranch. We have 70ish junior highers here for Maverick camp.  The counselors are doing an awesome job, but they are reaching the end of their strength and energy.  It’s always at that place that God loves to shine because we know it’s not us, but His strength that is carrying us through.  I’ve talked with several counselors, trying to encourage and lift them up.  They’re tired.  Pray for them!  They did get to take a nice relaxing day trip to Antler River, which is about 10 miles or so down the Bay from camp by boat. 

The speaker at church Sunday reminded us of the harvest that Jesus speaks of in the book of Mark.  He reminded us that the multitude that walks into camp each week is similar to the multitude of crowds that Jesus saw and had compassion on.  Do we have compassion, that deep gut feeling, for these kids?  Many are dying, without community, and like sheep without a shepherd.  We as Christians have the answer for them: the Gospel.  We can provide community for them and teach them to follow the Shepherd.  Give them direction.  Pray that the compassion Jesus has for each individual child will be in our hearts as well, burning brightly and compelling us to love genuinely.

Since we do much of the cleaning around camp, we don’t get to interact a lot with the campers.  But there are a few times that we get to do things with them and they are definitely a highlight to our summer!  First, for Jr. High and Sr. High we have Girls Night where we get cozy later in the evening and discuss purity.  This year we had a question/answer session where the girls got to write any question they wanted related to growing up, womanhood, purity, etc and put it in a box.  We pulled the questions out and had lots of good discussion, encouraging the girls to seek God with their purity.  One issue that came up twice during senior high groups was that of homosexuality.  We got the exact same question both times: “What are your views on homosexuality?  Not the Bible’s, yours.”  We had much discussion on that subject with several campers having a very secular view.  It was a very respectful conversation and non-hostile.  The nature of that question told me two things: This person knows what God’s Word says.  And they don’t feel that it is valid.  The underlying issue through the entire discussion was where our standards come from.  Where does truth originate?  How do we determine right and wrong?  God created morality, so our standards must come from Him.  The second way we interacted with the campers was through small groups in Sr. High.  Each day after lunch, a group of campers came to our apartment to talk deeper about the message they heard in chapel that day.  The campers revealed struggles and doubts and questions of faith through these small groups.  A third way that I was able to pour into campers was through cabin discussions.  Counselors are allowed to have a staff member give a devotional during one of their cabin discussion times.  I have had the privilege of doing those a few times for Sr. High, Colt (7-9 year olds), and Jr. High camps. 

“I’m so blessed by this Senior High camp at ERBC!  I don’t think I’ve ever grown so much spiritually or seen so much Christian love before.” – camper in a note she sent to us.