We had a staff member that spent the majority of her time at one location.  She openly admitted to not looking forward to visiting another location.  (This could be slightly understandable as she would not know many of the staff or any of the kids.)

But after the week was over she was excited to tell me about specific spiritual conversations she had with two campers.  And she had a good time at the different location as well!

Greater Things Than Me

This was a humbling reminder of John 14:12- I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father.

One Friday I led a devotion during a morning meeting at Pekin camp.  We brainstormed questions and conversation starters to point our conversations with campers toward spiritual things.  One idea from a counselor named Nathan was to point-blank ask: "Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?" 

That week Nathan had been specifically praying for visible fruit from the summer.  He had also had the previous day of camp off, which gave him more energy and focus on this day.

At the end of the day, I overheard Nathan using that reminder from the meeting to ask a younger camper about his relationship with Jesus.  A longer conversation ensured, and ended with the boy saying that he would like to pray with his mom that evening.

At this point, I was elated and if I had been Nathan, would have commenced with patting myself on the back.  But Nathan made a point to talk to this boys mom, explaining their conversation and the camper's desire to pray with his mom that evening.  Mom was excited and exclaimed "That's why I love this camp."

So here's to staff doing more than I myself would do, but mainly to Jesus working in all of our lives.

Memory Verse Mayhem

Two individuals surprised me by their memory verse knowledge one day in the middle of the summer.

Each week at camp we give a Memory Verse for the campers and staff to memorize.  We normally have a "Memory Verse Challenge" towards the end of the week to encourage everyone in their Scripture memory.  (And by 'encourage' I mean that we get staff members messy if they don't know their memory verses.)

• A camper who is usually not the best at paying attention recited Joshua 1:8 in its entirety and nearly perfectly.  Check out the verse... because I was blown away.
• Male junior counselors are normally not known for their ability to memorize verses.  (In fact, they are usually the ones to get messy... I mean 'encouraged'... )  But on this day I watched a male JC recite nearly all of our memory verses word-perfect.

God's word memorized!  Super!

Stories and Reading

Last week we challenged our East Peoria Campers to retell the Bible story they heard at camp (from the life of Joseph).  Combined together, the campers told 86 individuals outside of camp!  I love to see God's word spreading past Camp of Champions.

The Junior High volunteer I mentioned here started reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  One of our directors lent him the book.  It's awesome to see God using relationships to draw a young student to himself.

2011 Week 3 Stories

Sorry for the lack of a creative title.  I've just got a couple of cool God-stories that I've sen happen recently.

1)  There was a good number of East Peoria Campers that stayed for the Oak Grove VBS each evening last week.  We found out that on Sunday one of the families attended the Sunday morning service. We're praying that they can get connected to the body of Christ at Oak Grove!

2)  Our East Peoria site director recently told me of a great conversation with one of our junior high volunteers.  God used that conversation to help this junior high kid understand he should be selective about choosing his friends.  He was realizing that some of his current friends are poor influences on him.  Please pray for this junior high student.

Pray-Car

One of our summer site directors started the summer without a car.  He made it to staff training each day via a patch-work of getting rides and borrowing vehicles.  You could tell it wasn't the ideal situation.  One of his borrowed vehicles had a broken gas gauge and he ran out of fuel on his way to the first day of staff training.

During the first week of camp I told him: "I'm going to pray you get a car to drive."  I encouraged a few other staff members to do the same.

The first day of the second week (less than seven days later) this site director says "Guess what?  I got a car!  Someone from my church called me up and asked if I need a car!"

News Flash: God Answers Prayer.

Week One: The Gospel trumps Dodgeball

Midway through the first week of camp a boy's grandfather was relating the story of his son coming home from camp on the first day.

The grandfather expected the boy to be super excited about all the activities at camp.  Mostly he was expecting to hear about dodgeball.

But instead, this young boy came home sharing about the Good News!  That was his highlight from the first day of camp!