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.