Wednesday Night…

July 28, 2010 at 8:31 pm (Summer Camp, Uncategorized) (Epic)

Today was a great day.

For the past few days my experience of camp has been seen through the viewfinder of a video camera.  I’ve been running around from the water front, to the archery arena, to the slide, the paintball course, the high ropes course, the low ropes course, the repelling wall, the tabernacle, various cabins, and not to mention all the visits back to the water front to video tape all the blobbing that was taking place.  Needless to say, we have hours of footage that I am excited to get home and start piecing together for our camp recap video.  Hopefully I’ll be able to do the week justice from the footage we have captured throughout this week.

ANYWHO…I was able to set the camera down today and play…and play hard.  One thing that has been a great learning experience for both Pastor Mark and myself is the role that we find ourselves serving in this year.  Because the camp provides the speaking and worship, we weren’t needed to serve those roles like we have for the past several years at camp.  We are not small group leaders because then we are only able to build into a select few students and not interact with the others or be pulled away to deal with “issues” in other groups.  So this year Mark, Myself, and Laurie McAllister are here to serve as builders who invest into the small group leaders who are investing in our students.  Because of the nature of this role, we have been able to play with all the students, sit in on several different cabins and see all the cool things that are happening during these times, and we are able to help out with our leaders when they come to us with questions or situations.

I spent most of the day down at the water front trying to keep up with the energy level of these students.  They are like my dog Zoe at home…no matter how hard they play, they never run out of energy.

After the afternoon festivities we got cleaned up and headed back down to the waterfront for an amazing BBQ dinner.  For the next hour or so we sat around and laughed, wrestled, told jokes, and enjoyed life with each other over some delicious cheeseburgers.

Tonight at our session Dave tackled the topic of the cross.  Dave is a science teacher up here in Spokane and from what I have heard, he was either Washington’s Teacher of the Year last year, or was a runner up in the competition.  He is very passionate about our King and it was obvious tonight in our session.  He gave the facts on how and why Jesus is real from a scientific, mathematical, theological, and historical standpoint.  He stripped it all the way down to the point where it comes down to our own will.  Are we willing to follow the Truth, or turn from it and do our own thing knowing full well that Christ is real.

Our groups are currently in their small group time and tonight in lieu of a night game, the students are coming back to the Tabernacle (the chapel) to have desert and have an all-camp talent show.  Looking forward to some great acts from both students and leaders.  I’m sure there are going to be some memorable moments tonight and tears of laughter will be shed.

So far camp has been accident-free.  Just a couple scrapes and bruises but nothing serious. Praise God for that!  We did take one boy into the hospital today because he had some pretty swollen glands and wasn’t feeling good at all.  So it was more of a precautionary decision, but the student is back here at camp and feeling better already.

Tomorrow is our last full day and we are going to finish strong!  Be in prayer for that supernatural strength and endurance for the students and leaders who are feeling weary and tired.  Pray that tomorrow will be even better than all these previous days combined together!

We will try to post pictures tomorrow morning from the past few days as well as from the talent show tonight too!

Pastor Tyler