(No no no! Before you freak out everything in this post is G RATED! lol! )
Ok so the "go away" CAMP...Monday, July 13, 2009 we left in a bus full of kids and leaders all pumped and excited with smiles and laughter ringing from the windows...similar to lambs being led to the slaughter! 4 days and 3 nights later we dragged our beaten, bruised, zombie like boddies back into the church, just grateful to be alive!
Naw just kidding! lol! It WAS hard work, but at the same time ALOT of fun! We're broken up into 6 teams: Grizzly Bears, Coyotes, Rattlesnakes, Mountain Lions, Hawks and Wolves. I am Wolf leader from our location. There were 3 other churches involved with us and they each had their own Wolf leaders and kids. It was great getting to work with all of them. What an experience!
Everything was very different from what I was used to and that's where the "S" Word comes in...that's right ladies...SUBMISSION. Yeah, not my greatest strong point. I'll admit it: I've got serious pride issues! During this trip I had to swallow my pride and bite my tongue more then I've probably ever had to do at one time in my life! The hardest time was when one of my kids was being out right disobedient and straying from the rest of the group. I told him to stop several times and the third time I warned him that their would be consiquences. Would you believe he looked straight at me and walked away! Ha! Got to love the boldness, I'll say that much, though at the moment I felt like ringing his neck! So I told him that he could not participate in the next activity and he would have to sit by me so I could watch him since I couldn't trust him to walk by us anymore. Well they told us at the training that if any of the kids act up we need to tell our Camp Directors so that they're aware of it. So I did, but the camp director decided that I had acted to quickly and allowed the boy to participate in the activity. Needless to say I nearly SWALLOWED my tongue trying to bite it! But in the end I was so thankful that I did. God came through for me and in the end showed my how Submission does not take away from me as I thought it would. But rather it allows me to reflect God's Sovereignty. I wish I had figured it out before this, and while I know it's still going to be a struggle in choosing whether to be a reflection rather then a suction, but now I have "tasted and seen that the Lord is Good!" He really is! And for everything we give him he not only replaces but overfills us with blessing and favor!
And the 3 Beautiful Seeds? I was given the opportunity to lead 3 children into the kingdom of God! I lead one little boy who wasn't on my team, but who I ended up sitting next to during Bible Talk time. He must have been 7 or 8 and he just asked me if I was a Christian. So I said, "Yes, I am, are you?" Well he gave me this funny look and said, "Nuh uh!" So I asked, "Ok, so what are you?" You'll love the answer! He said with the most serious little face, "I'm mexican."
No I didn't burst out laughing, though I wanted to! I just explained to him that mexican was what he was as far as blood, but Christian was something you kind of believe in and live out. So what did he believe in? You'll like this one too! He said, "Well I believe I'm mexican." So I asked him if he knew what being a Christian meant. Of course he didn't so I got to walk him through the colors of the wordless book (if any of you know about that you'll understand, for those of you who don't look it up on google it's AWESOME!).
I learned that the simplest and truest way to break up the explanation of becoming a Christian was to break it up into 3 steps. 1 is to help them admit that they are sinners, and show them how we are all sinners and that separates us from perfect God. 2 is to explain that Jesus' death was the only way we could be saved from those sins and believing that to be true is the only way we can be with God. 3 is to explain that out of thankfulness and love we should live our lives for Jesus. So when I came to number 3 which really is the hardest, God gave me the most AWESOME example! I told him this story:
"Living for God is kind of like if I took you to a car show and we were looking at all the cars there and you saw a sweet BMW that you just loved! And I saw how much you loved it so I just snapped my fingers and said, 'It's yours!' and paid all the money and even the insurance just like that! Then one day I ask if I can use your car for the day to run some errands or just to visit a friend or something, wouldn't you let me use your car, not because you HAD to but because you were just so thankful and grateful for me GIVING you the car? Heaven is like that BMW. God gave you heaven! And you should be so thankful and excited that you're just going to love him all your life and live your life for him here since he gave you a life in heaven!"
He got it! He totally got it and when I asked if he wanted to be a Christian he said he did. I did warn him though that the Christian life was not easy and you might have to loose some friends because of it, but God would always be there and he would always be more then enough if we let him. And what was so great about that was because I KNEW this to be true because of my testimony! How AWESOME of God!
And that was just one seed! The second was a little girl with a glass eye who was scared of everything! During our stay she had had to sleep with me every night and had continuelly woken me up every hour on the hour to tell me that it was still dark. (Finally at five 'o clock I told her firmly that since she could see the sun she had to be completely quiet and give me one uninterrupted hour of sleep)
Then on the last night as we were walking to our cabin one of the boys jumped out and scared some girls behind us. Well that was enough to scare anybody, and then someone started screaming, "It's Chucky! It's Chucky!" The poor girl just took off running in the dark! She didn't even head towards the cabin she just ran blindly away, screaming and crying. I ran after her and caught her just before she fell, but she struggled and fought me until I brought her close and told her, "It's just me, Natalia! I've got you! You're safe!" Then she buried her face in my neck and sobbed until I had brought her into the cabin.
I learned later that she has a very had life and all this fear had just been growing in her for a long time. So when I brought her to the cabin she told me between sobs that she didn't know why she was so scared and she didn't want to be be but she couldn't be brave like her twin sister who's afraid of nothing. So then I asked her if she knew how Jesus could be with her forever and protect her from all her fears. She'd grown up in church somewhat but she'd never heard about that. I took her through the wordless book just like before, and gave her verses about God never leaving us, and how when we're afraid we can trust in him, and at the end asked if she wanted to become a Christian. She did and when she had prayed she told about 10 different people about what she had done! And because of her telling one of the other little girls in my cabin asked, "What's being a Christian?"
My Jr. Leader (who by the way is the best Jr. Leader EVER!) had been listening and encouraging throughout the whole thing, so I handed that one off to her. She did a wonderful job and I only reviewed at the end before the prayer to make sure she had understood everything and then lead her through the prayer itself.
So would I do this again? Despite the aches, the pains, the struggles, the bug bites and the sleepless nights, I would! Just so that I could sow 3 more seeds for the Lord! And can you imagine? 3 seeds every summer? Why by the time I turned 30 I'd be an experienced farmer! God is GOOD! He'd breaking me this summer, that much is sure, but he's also making me anew and filling me with his love for those children, so hurt and so lost in the great big city of Chicago. That's why I do what I do. It's why I am what I am. A Beacon in the Inner City. Just One Girl CAN make a difference! I just made 3 :) Blessings to ya'll!
Forever & Always,
-Sarah
P.S.
I hope to post some pics of the camp next time I post!
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