Coming into the summer, I didn’t know what to expect. When it came to the first week, not going to lie, it was a really difficult week and started to wonder: Do I belong here? Do I even have a place here? Does God actually will this for my life?
I questioned that as the weeks went on because I had those difficult campers and those challenges that arose. It pushed me to ask: How can I better myself? How can I see God in all these difficult challenges?
It wasn’t until the past couple of weeks that I really felt like I’ve been able to see God working. I had such powerful one-on-ones with campers and such amazing devotional times. I’m a big fan of apologetics and I’ve had really good engagements with campers discussing things such as apologetics and basically finding proof for your faith. These are such fun discussions and it’s just so amazing watching kids ask those questions, saying, “How do we know God exists? How do we know that the Resurrection happened? It’s so much fun to say, “There’s so much evidence for it, you can only believe this happened.”
There’s no other explanation for why, for example, the Resurrection of Christ- there were so many witnesses and none of them recanted their seeing Jesus. That’s such a powerful thing to think about and I really saw that realization come out through campers. Just seeing their excitement really encouraged me at the same time. It helped me grow in my own faith because I also have to learn a lot of the fruits of the Spirit. Lots of the weeks, I’ll be real, I didn’t have the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control.
The same campers I had challenges with I ended up being the ones I had great one-one-ones with. I remember one camper in particular that was up reading Revelations and asking me questions. I thought, wow he’s taking his faith seriously! This kid is definitely interested- this is amazing!
It was so cool to sit down next to him and answer some of the questions he had on Revelations. And say, “This is my personal take on it, but I encourage you to dig deeper and find your understanding of this passage.”
It was so cool to see campers that I thought would be major challenges really come out of their shells and demonstrate their faith through asking questions. It was just amazing getting to see that this summer and such a blessing to be able to work here. I would not give it up for anything.
I questioned that as the weeks went on because I had those difficult campers and those challenges that arose. It pushed me to ask: How can I better myself? How can I see God in all these difficult challenges?
It wasn’t until the past couple of weeks that I really felt like I’ve been able to see God working. I had such powerful one-on-ones with campers and such amazing devotional times. I’m a big fan of apologetics and I’ve had really good engagements with campers discussing things such as apologetics and basically finding proof for your faith. These are such fun discussions and it’s just so amazing watching kids ask those questions, saying, “How do we know God exists? How do we know that the Resurrection happened? It’s so much fun to say, “There’s so much evidence for it, you can only believe this happened.”
There’s no other explanation for why, for example, the Resurrection of Christ- there were so many witnesses and none of them recanted their seeing Jesus. That’s such a powerful thing to think about and I really saw that realization come out through campers. Just seeing their excitement really encouraged me at the same time. It helped me grow in my own faith because I also have to learn a lot of the fruits of the Spirit. Lots of the weeks, I’ll be real, I didn’t have the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control.
The same campers I had challenges with I ended up being the ones I had great one-one-ones with. I remember one camper in particular that was up reading Revelations and asking me questions. I thought, wow he’s taking his faith seriously! This kid is definitely interested- this is amazing!
It was so cool to sit down next to him and answer some of the questions he had on Revelations. And say, “This is my personal take on it, but I encourage you to dig deeper and find your understanding of this passage.”
It was so cool to see campers that I thought would be major challenges really come out of their shells and demonstrate their faith through asking questions. It was just amazing getting to see that this summer and such a blessing to be able to work here. I would not give it up for anything.
[As told at Hike-N-Walk August 10, 2019]
