Adventures in Camp Counseling

It's now the middle of July and I'm half-way through my summer, including halfway through the the camp schedule at Lake Bronson Baptist Bible Camp. I return to Prov in little over a month. Oi.

Just yesterday I came home from a week of counseling at the Jr. Boys and Girls camp. It's for 3rd-6th graders. It was a wonderful, but extremely exhausting week. I had a cabin of 9 girls, and a co-counselor, Sarah. It was probably one of the best cabins I had ever had. The girls all got along, well, as well as 9 and 11 year olds can get along. Most of girls suffered from home-sickness. So there were a lot of tears on their part, a lot of hugs on my part. My theme for my devotions this week was "Jesus is..." I talked about Jesus is a best friend, Jesus is a King (so we are his princesses), and Jesus is the Good Shepherd. On the last night of camp, I lead the girls through the prayer of salvation, and 3 girls prayed it for the first time! That was the most exciting part of my week for sure. Camp has been hard for me this year, I'm not sure why. Some days it's really hard to make that drive up there. Some days I just don't want to be there. But then, seeing those 3 beautiful girls raise their hands to say that they asked Jesus into their hearts...it's all worth it again.

I also learned a lot for my own spiritual life. The speaker for the camp was excellent. It's been a long time since I have gone through the basics of the Christian faith. Our theme for the week, as well as the summer is "Running the Race". Ever since this past April, I've hit a rather rough patch of the track. There have been a lot of rocks that I have tripped over, a lot of mud that has splashed up on me. During one chapel he spoke of having faith through the hard times. Because of my rather dramatic injury earlier this summer I was used as an example. The speaker said, "And God has taught her things through this experience that she could have learned otherwise. This bad thing has a purpose. She can thank God for this hard time." I almost started crying, can I truly say thank you to God for this hard time? This summer has been the hardest I can ever remember. These past few months have been really really hard. Early this spring, I felt closer to God than I have ever have. Life was falling into place. Praising God was so easy. Then...things went south. And as I sat in that white chapel at camp, I heard God saying, "Can you praise me now?" Can I? Can I thank Him for a pain that seems to have no purpose? Do I truly believe that He knows best? I want to be able to say to my Savior, "Thank you, I don't understand what You're doing, but I do thank you."

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by fixing our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish." -Hebrews 12:1-2a