Summer Youth Camps has to be one of the most emotionally charged times of my entire year.
Between the incredibly long hours and the amount of work that needs to be done, it can be difficult to see the way the Lord is working in the hearts and minds of nearly 1000 kids. Fortunately, once we are done with SuperHIGH and move into Family Camps, I am able to take some time to reflect on some of the things God accomplished through the past 7 weeks. Here are a few of the stories, comments, and numbers we have been told.
Comments from Counselors
3 guys made first-time commitment to Christ, other guys came out to talk to Paul – one boy felt like God spoke to him this week for the first time.
(A camper) who was hesitant earlier in the week became a Christian Thursday night! Didn’t want to leave camp – alcoholic father, pray for growth.
Had life planned, but Holy Spirit worked and moved her heart to full time ministry – doesn’t know what that looks like but knows God is in control
The bottom line is that many, many kids were affected. In fact, there were…
49 Decisions For Salvation.
From what we know, there are 49 new names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life!
Praise the Lord and thank you for your prayers and support. Without those of you that are directly involved, we wouldn’t be able to be involved with what the Lord is doing here.
From the Digital Media Department
In the 7 weeks of Youth Camps and Counselor Training Institute, the media office produced over 8,000 photos, used up over 1,000,000,000 mb of hard drive space, duplicated more than 1,250 DVD’s to be sent home with staff and campers, and created 25+ highlight videos, slideshows, and promotional clips! Busy busy!!!
We will be continuing to add some of these videos to Camp’s Facebook page in the future, but for now, here is the main highlight video for Junior Camp 2010. Each week we made a dvd that contained pictures, video, and the speaker messages for the kids to take home with them.
Wow seems like the summer has been a blur and I can not believe we have already begun harvesting things in the garden. The days sure have been rainy but I am thankful for that many less times we have to turn the water on ourselves just to water the garden. I thought I would take a few pictures to show the progress.
I spent some much needed time on the tomato plants the other day just cutting them back to manageable sizes. What I discovered was a huge amount of green tomatoes growing. This might be the best year ever for us! We sure enjoy being able to have homemade pizza sauce throughout the winter and I think we will have plenty of tomatoes to make some!
This particular tomato plant is the one Lauren has had her eye on. She and Jack both eat Cherry tomatoes like they are going out of style. This happens to be the second red one we have had so far, can you guess where the first ripe one went? Lauren enjoyed it thoroughly and as you can see will have many more over the next few weeks.
I finally picked our first small handful of sno peas today. They sure are tasty. I am encouraged to see all the pretty purple flowers since those are the flowers that make peas! We generally enjoy these in stir fries over the winter.
Tonight I pushed back the leaves of our cucumber plants and found several of these guys. Looking forward to making bread and butter pickles again with them this year.
And finally I was able to bring in 3 ice cream pales full of green and yellow beans. This is just the beginning of what I think will be a huge harvest of beans this year. Which is great because they are a great vegetable to have in your freezer over the winter. I do have to get them blanched and frozen fast thought because Jack thinks they are candy and would eat them all if I let him!
Gardening sure has its ups and downs and is quite a bit of work but we are thankful for this being just another way that God provides for us. Come on over sometime and we’ll treat you to a nice meal complete with lots of veggies!
It was that time of year again last Saturday to host our annual summer staff social. The previous owners of our house (and also former camp staff) started the tradition by hosting a luau for all the summer staff to come and hang out on their day off. When we bought the house we thought that was a tradition worth carrying on and so this past Saturday we had LOTS and LOTS of staff come hang out, drink smoothies, listen to Hawaiian music and play some volleyball and various yard games.
It was a beautiful day and we hardly had any mosquitoes (which for our house is rare!). Lauren sure had a great time welcoming everyone with a lei as they arrived. Here are a few pictures to highlight the evening.
Getting ready for our guests to arrive. Here is the smoothie table all set up and waiting for some “customers”.
These were the lei’s that Lauren would take off and put on everyone when they got here. Later that night when I was tucking her in bed I asked her what her favorite part about the day was and she told me it was giving everyone their necklaces!
People enjoying corn hole, volleyball and drawing with chalk on the cement pad while drinking their smoothies.
Our attempt at Hula dancing, lame as it may be, but that’s what you get for an 8 1/2 month pregnant lady and a guy who doesn’t normally dance! Oh well we sure had fun!
