Blessings From The Lord

This past week was such an amazing week for me!!! God blessed me with a great cabin of eleven high school girls. It was great getting to know each of them and build close friendships with some of them in such a short time. All of them had already accepted Christ into their lives or knew who God was, but was still trying to figure out what they really believed. I had some great talks with a few of them and we were able to just enjoy God’s majesty as we watched the sunsets and sat by the ocean. One girl in particular has been going through some rough times in life and made some wrong choices. She knows she needs to change, but is having a hard time actually changing. I told her that God wants her to ask for forgiveness and turn from her ways, but if she’s not ready to do that I don’t want to force her into it. It needs to be sincere and something she’s ready to do because she knows she needs to and is ready to, not because I told her to. She understood and said that no one had said that to her before and people had just before made her feel bad about herself and were trying to force her to confess and repent; she was very thankful for our listening ears and caring hearts. We asked her if there was anything we could do for her besides pray and she said she really needed a Bible because she lost the one she had before. We were so happy to get her one. One of the other girls is such an amazing woman of God and I can tell she wants to know more about God and grow in her relationship with Him. Talking with her and hearing her questions was great and I enjoyed getting to spend time with her. A group of the kids from Juneau really want some of us counselors to come out and see them sometime before we head home for the winter and I pray that we are able to do that and continue to pour into them God’s truth.

Our cabin was very competitive and loved being active, which made me super happy. We went on a hike as a cabin and hung out on the beach for devotions several times. We were also a little mischievous and pulled pranks on a few cabins. We put canoes full of water in front of one of the cabins doors so they could not open the one door and the other they had to somehow get over the canoe full of cold water in order to get out the door. Then one of the boy cabins was sleeping out on the beach and a few of the girls in my cabin and I woke up early and poured water on them while they were sleeping. We had a really great time, but then the boys slung shot hard boiled eggs at our cabin and mentally pranked us; we weren’t really scared, we just weren’t sure what they were going to do back to us. By the end of the week I was really tired, but each experience brought our cabin closer together so it was awesome.

The speaker for this week did a really great job of sharing God’s word with the kids. He pretty much went through the Bible, hitting on the basic points. He talked about Israel and how God continually steps in and puts His hand in the world and in our lives to help us, but we continue to turn our backs on Him and then when things go crappy we blame God and get angry at Him asking, “Where are you?!” but he’s been there all along, we just weren’t looking for Him. He went over the old Testament sacrificing and how that relates so much to Jesus dying on the cross and taking away our sins. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus had to die on the cross in order to completely take away not just cover our sins. Matthew 27:25 says, “Let his blood be on us and on our children.” It was the crowd yelling about crucifying Jesus. Little did they know that this was what was going to happen and it is what they needed, the blood of Christ to cover over us and wash our sins away. They led Jesus out of the city just like the scapegoat was taken out of the town or village and sent away with their sins. I love reading Hebrews 9:14, “How much more, then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death (or useless rituals), so that we may serve the living God!” Verse 12 says, “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.” That’s just so cool!!!!! It’s always good to learn about the traditions of the past and how they have been changed through Jesus Christ coming to this earth and being put to death because He loves me so much and wants me to be able to one day spend eternity with Him. Praise God!!!

I’m really looking forward to this next week because I’m going to be counseling with Brittany Voth!!!! Which is going to be amazingly fun. It’s colt camp (younger kids) and then we only have two more camps left. It’s crazy to think that we are almost finished with our summer. One of the counselors, who was scheduled to leave all along, left last night for home. It was really sad to see him go and it’s just a reminder that we are all going to be leaving soon which is a horribly sad thought. I pray that we continue to stay in touch throughout our lives and Lord willing see each other in the future.

Patience...Yeah It's Hard

This week was a little stressful at times, but we made it through alright and things went well. I had a young girl in my cabin with CP and her twin sister was also in my cabin and she had ADHD. At first I thought the girl with CP was going to be a huge challenge, but she had an aide with her and she was not as needy as I thought she would be. She could pretty much do everything on her own she just needed help with getting dressed and cleaning up after meals. She was a very sweet girl and a lot of fun to be with. Her sister on the other hand was an interesting one. We had a lot of issues with bed wetting and also wetting her pants throughout the day. She said she knew when she had to go to the bathroom she just spaced out at times and forgot to go and then went in her pants. I had a hard time understanding this and having compassion for her as well as patience. We had to wash her sleeping bag three times and change her clothes two or three times during the week. As a camper she wasn’t a bad girl, she just had trouble remembering when we told her to do things and she had trouble focusing, but other than that she was fine. At times I thought maybe she was just trying to get attention and that’s why she wet her pants often, but I’m not really sure. Her home life didn’t sound too great and having a sister with CP would be hard if her parents were always dealing with her. There was also another girl in our cabin who I spent a lot of time talking with about different things. She was very quiet at the beginning of camp during devotions and such so I asked her if anything was wrong or if she had any questions. We started talking about God and His love and she said that she didn’t feel like God was really there and didn’t think He listened to her prayers. I talked with her about that and then the next day when we were talking about salvation and accepting Jesus into your heart, she started getting quiet again. I talked with her afterward and she said she was really confused about things. She had been baptized as an infant and thought that was her way into heaven, but after hearing us talk she was confused. It was hard and sad for me to tell her that she needed to make the decision herself and that this whole time she had not truly been saved. She said she understood that and I could tell that she seemed very down about what we told her. She didn’t really talk about spiritual things for the rest of the week with me or the other counselor, but I know God has been working in her heart and will continue to. It would be great if you could pray for her as well as all the kids who are dealing with divorced parents and having to go through that at such a young age. It’s sad to see the hurt in the kids’ lives and see that they have not been shown what love really is and then they are confused about God’s love for them and they don’t understand the awesomeness of it all.

I was reminded of God’s amazing power and provision this week as I was struggling with feeling His presence in my life. I felt empty at the beginning of the week and continued to pray for God to fill me with life and as the week went on I felt His hand working on my heart for my campers and it was just neat to see and feel a new strength and love in my life pour out to the kids. I read in Job about God’s response to Job’s friends’ comments and was once again in awe of how amazing and incredible our God is. Job 38 says: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? Who shut the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?” I love reading about God’s creation and thinking about it because I can see it around me and feel it. How can I not know that God loves and cares for me when I see how much care and time He put into making everything around me? The beautiful colors He placed in a sunset is nothing compared to the beauty He placed in each of us.

Desert Song

This past week was a great week, but full of many struggles and pain. The first day started out great and the kids were super excited to be at camp and were ready to start playing soccer. The coach, Tom, was an amazing guy who had a heart full of love from God for each of the kids. Then during the night I got sick and spent the night in the nurse’s station. Upon waking up I felt a little better, but after checking my temperature, I realized I had a low grade fever and stayed in bed till after lunch. Then my temperature increased a little and even after supper increased a little more. I slept almost the entire day and felt like I didn’t want to eat much. I kept asking God why He was taking me out of the day and what it was that He wanted to do in the kids’ lives without me, but then I began to realize that maybe it wasn’t the kids’ lives that He wanted to impact but my own. While I was in the nurse’s station one of the staff members came in to see how I was and asked if I wanted to read a book. She came back with the book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I had heard many great things about the book but never read it for myself so I figured I would give it a shot. I love it!! I’m not that far into it yet, but it’s giving me a new look on love and the significance of how much God loves me and desires me to love Him and others. Once back with my cabin for the rest of the week I tried to stay focused on God and remind myself each day of His presence and how much He loves me and the kids.

Our week ended out really well and many of the staff and counselors were able to go into town to watch a “magic show” with a Christian guy. He did illusions and different tricks for the first half of the show and then stopped to tell people that they could leave if they wanted to, but he was going to tell them his testimony if they wanted to stay and listen to what he had to say. It was really great to be there and hear his story. The show is called MAZE.

Saturday was a very laid back day and the girl counselors had a hair cutting party at one of the staff’s house and we watched Mulan. It was great just being able to hand out with all the girls and talk with each other and grow closer. Then later in the day a group of us went out to the wilderness camp and went fishing for salmon and had a camp fire. I learned how to fly fish and how to fillet a fish. It was a lot of fun and very tasty. Sunday was such a beautiful day and we spent most of the afternoon outside just talking and enjoying the wonderful weather. Then in the evening we had praise and prayer with everyone. During the prayer part we had a lot of people share things that were going on at home and the pain they were feeling as they were not at home to be with loved ones. We also have a few people here at camp dealing with different things that greatly need prayer. Satan knows God’s moving in the lives of these Alaskan kids and he doesn’t like it. Please pray for strength and focus as we start the next half of our summer. Pray for God’s mighty hand to intervene where He sees fit. I myself have been feeling a little empty and far from God. I just have this empty feeling in my heart and I don’t know what it is. My time alone with God has not been as meaningful as it has been or as I would like it to be. Pray for God to fill me with His spirit and desire to continue to grow in Him. We start a new week of camp with Bronco kids. I’m looking forward to what God has in store for us and the kids. Thanks for your continued prayers!!!

Freedom In Christ

I know this is a little later than usual, but we were in town this week so I did not have internet service. But I did have cell phone service so I was able to call my parents and brothers which was great. We went to town for the 4^th of July and watch fireworks and walk in the parade in down town Juneau. It was so much fun to be away from camp and see people in town. We were also able to see the different shops and buy a few things. We had a wonderful time.

This past week I was on work staff which was a lot of fun, but at times a struggle. I love working and cleaning so helping out with meals and cleaning up bath houses was not hard for me to do or enjoy. The group of us on work staff was a lot of fun as well which made it so much better. We were able to grow closer together and learn how to work as a team and get over our differences. I did have trouble with one of the guys in the group and truly loving him as God would. He is just one of those people who gets annoying and has a hard time socializing with others and always makes things very awkward. I would start getting mad at him for stupid little things in my head and then I would get a little angry in how I acted toward him. Throughout the week as I did my devotions I kept reading about loving others and accepting them for who they are and I knew God was trying to tell me that I need to love this guy because God loves him no matter what. And the fact that God loves me even though I disobey Him time after time gives me an even better reason why I need to love this guy for who he is. By the end of the week I would continuously pray for strength and patience as I worked with this specific guy and to not get angry at him but to love him for who he is and truly care about him. God really helped me show him love and work with him better than I had been at the beginning of the week.

On Sunday we talked about our true freedom we have in Christ. 1 Corinthians 7:23 says, “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” Christ gave Himself for us and we are bond servants of His. We should be “slaves” of Christ not slaves to sin or man. Romans 6:15-19 talks about that as well. We cannot be face Christians and cover up our sins and cause them to nag at us and then become even bigger sins and we become slaves to them. We cannot be proud and think just because we are Christians we won’t sin, we are still human, but we need to be spending time with God and in His word and trying to live our lives for Him. We will still mess up yes, but we need to confess our sins and be set free from their bondage.

This coming week we start soccer camp which I am super pumped about!!! I will be one of the four other girl counselors so I feel very privileged to be able to counsel. Please continue to pray for strength and God’s love to fill our hearts for these kids as we work with them and pray for the kids’ hearts that God will open them to His truth and that they will hear what we have to say and take it to heart.