The Beauty of Camp

This week, my team and I are at William Jessup University.  William Jessup University is in the middle of what appears to be a desert-like area (at least to my limited knowledge).  The college was once a furniture factory and the buildings reflect that.  Our surroundings are dirt, rocks and bare hills.  When we arrived on campus, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in ‘beauty’ between this school and Point Loma Nazarene University, which overlooked the Pacific Ocean and had breathtaking sunsets almost every night. 

But something I have come to realize about camp is this:  the beauty of camp does not take into account the physical setting of camp. 

The beauty of what takes place at camp is consistent each week, no matter our surroundings. 

The things that make camp so dynamic, so life-changing, so exciting, have little, or nothing, to do with our surroundings. 

The beauty of camp is the truth that is spoken and the grace that is shared. 

There is beauty at camp when a student trusts Christ.  The staffers saw this happen last week and we rejoiced with the angels that night, long after the students were in bed.

There is beauty in camp when a student has a "light bulb" moment and a particular truth clicks in their head.  I saw this after Paul Jordan's lecture on "How to Study the Bible".  When my students begin to hunger after the Word of God, that is a beautiful thing.

There is beauty in the tears of a girl who returns from witnessing on Wednesday heartbroken by the rejection of the people she encountered on the street.  Broken not by their rejection of her, but of the God that she serves.

There is beauty in camp when a small group gels together and the students spend time engaging each other in conversations that they might never have at home. 

There is beauty in the friendships that develop, the lessons that are learned, the growth that occurs, the truth that is shared and the grace that is encountered.

My friends.  This beauty does not exist solely in camp.  At camp, it is only easier (in some ways) to have the eyes to see it.  I pray that you, wherever you are right now, would have eyes to see the beauty that is around you.  That you would be learning truth that is beautiful, engaging in deep conversations and seeing the beauty of the God that we serve.

"As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!' " Romans 10:15

"One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." Psalm 27:4

God's Girls, Not Mine

It can be easy at camp to get into a mindset that says "I can do it all."  Thinking that I am the one who changes my girls, and that I am the one who is affecting my girls can be an easy thought pattern to slip into.  I get so caught up in the "me" mindset. I have to make my girls like camp. I have to start a good discussion. I have to make sure they learn about Jesus. I … I … I …

This week, God has showed me (again) how wrong that it.  This week is not about me.  A familiar phrase at camp is INAM.  "It's Not About Me."  Easy to say, not so easy to do.

I was reading in my quiet time on Monday and it hit me:

These girls are not MINE. They are HIS.

They were created in His image, by Him, through Him, and for Him.

Each one was created uniquely special.

Each one is at camp for a reason I may never know, but a reason nonetheless.

Each one is in God's sovereign care.

He is teaching them, shaping them, molding them. 

My job is to love them. To smile. To be obedient to Christ. 

My job is to be faithful to Christ.

There are tiles along our walk to the cafeteria here at Point Loma Nazarene University that read:

"May the ones who come behind find us faithful…"

I love that saying. I don't need to be perfect.  I don't need to see the fruit of my labor. I need to be faithful.

I pray that those who come behind me would find me faithful.  That staffers who work with me would know me as one who is faithful to Christ and His Word. That students that I work with would remember me as a servant of Christ, faithful and obedient.  That when I die, my eulogy would include this: She was faithful to Christ.

Weeks at camp aren't always easy.  "Easy" is actually a word I would never use in relation to camp.  It is hard to remember INAM.  It's even harder to carry it out.  It can be hard to love the unlovable students, or to know how to serve them effectively.  But I am called to be faithful and to serve God's girls that are in my path this summer.

As we walk the road of our Christian life, may we seek and desire to faithfully love those in our path.

"Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. and we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope."  Hebrews 3:5-6. 

Outer Banks, North Carolina

And this is why I love our beach vacation:

                                         *digging my toes in the sand

     *little children screaming in delight as they discover sand crabs

        *dolphins that put on an early morning show for us on the beach

                           *spending hours at the dinner table with my family,

                                 sharing jokes and laughter

*family games on the beach (even when I lose, badly)

                  *having my toes go numb when I brave the freezing ocean

               *3 hour walks with my sister down the shore side

*leaving footprints in the sand, on the water's edge

               *seeing and feeling a tiny piece of the power of God 

                     in the pull of the waves

                       "Once God has spoken;

                             twice have I heard this:

                                  that power belongs to God,

                                     and that to you, O Lord, 

                                         belongs steadfast love."  Psalm 62:11-12

“It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself.”

                                                                        — John Piper

A Life Calling

My team drove through New Mexico yesterday and arrived in sweltering Arizona tonight. I flew out of Colorado and into beautiful North Carolina to enjoy a week of family vacation at the Outer Banks. While leaving camp wasn't terribly hard (I'll be back on Friday!), I was struggling with the idea that I would be laying on the beach, enjoying time to myself while my team was working and serving at camp.  As I was flying through a lightning storm on the way to Raleigh, my mind was working through this idea.  And then I finally started to get it. 

Outer Banks Beach at sunset

Serving at camp is a specific kind of service, a certain setting in which I can use my talents and gifts and even my mistakes to point to Christ and honor him.  But how is home any different?  Am I not called to serve my family, too, perhaps even better than I serve at camp?  Am I not supposed to die to myself at home, with my parents and siblings, the way I strive to die to myself at camp?  Shouldn't my joy be even more constant and overflowing at home, the way I strive to have joy at camp?  Aren't I called to be a servant leader in my home?  Being a servant is a life calling, not a summer calling.

God has called me to serve at Worldview this summer, and I am so grateful.  I love working at camp: studying the Word and sitting through thought-provoking lectures; talking with students and hearing their hearts; building lasting friendships with staff; laughing, crying, praying. But being at home with my family, going to school, being with friends, living "everyday" life: this is my calling, too. Each day, every day, is a gift from God that I get to live.  My joy should be complete in every hour, because I am Christ's child and I get to have a relationship with Him.  Where I am serving should not change the way I am serving.

This is such a simple truth (seemingly), but a difficult one to grasp on some days.  I pray that this week, although I am missing being at camp, that my heart would rejoice in being away from camp.  I pray that as I move through "mundane" tasks of daily life, both this week and after camp, that I would seek to be obedient to the calling on my life - to be a servant, to die to self.  May I live fully for the Lord, being reminded that I am His, in both this life and the next.

"For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." Romans 14:7-9.

Colorado Loving

Week 1: Colorado Christian University: Denver, Colorado

There is a never a dull moment at Worldview Academy.  From being crazy enthusiastic the moment parents and students begin arriving on Sunday, to listening to and discussing lectures with students, to playing ultimate frisbee at free time, to organizing small groups, to filling 'down time' between lectures with games and skits, to going to staff meetings and working on logistics…things are always happening.

It can be very easy to get caught up in the details of 'doing camp' that we (I) forget the purpose of camp.  I forget that my main job during each week is to love my students.

This week, God blessed me abundantly with four very different girls - each of whom I came to love.  Their quirks and personalities, in any other setting, would probably have driven them apart.  And in my own little world, there is a good possibility that I never would have reached out to them, but would have stayed in my comfortable 'bubble'.  But being thrown together into a group at Worldview breaks down barriers and builds deep friendships between unsuspecting people. 

This week, I watched as my shy, quiet girl faced challenges, growing more bold in her faith, and finally standing up in front of the entire camp to share what she learned this week.  I saw my more outspoken student direct her energy into pouring into the other girls in our small group and she expressed interest in returning to camp to staff and continue pouring into other girls.  I saw my student who entered camp as an alumni with lots of 'head knowledge' humble herself and admit that she needs to learn to apply what she knows - but with an eagerness and excitement that is often not seen.  I was amazed as my student, who was so confident among us as a small group, shed tears at the thought of evangelizing on Wednesday…but obediently went out and returned victorious and hopeful. 

How could I not love these girls?  These young women who have pursued truth this week, who have struggled through hard concepts, sat through 27 hours of lectures, faced fears, proclaimed truth, dug deep, spoke honestly and openly with me and the other girls…how could I not love them? 

God has been showing me again these past two weeks that Christianity is all about relationship.  Quiet times: getting to spend time with my Creator, building our relationship.  Going to church: building relationships with other believers and letting my relationships with them further encourage my relationship with Jesus.  Praying: talking to my Creator, sharing and listening.  My faith is built on relationship - the relationship that Christ initiated with me when He chose me before the foundation of the world.  The joy of this relationship, the love that I experience through my Creator should pour out all over my small groups. 

Tonight, as I spent my last T-time (small group time at night) with my girls, I listened to them giggle and laugh and tease each other. I couldn't help but be amazed at how much they had changed since Sunday night. I couldn't help but smile at the love that they have for each other.  I handed back the goals they had set for themselves at the beginning of the week and watched as they exclaimed, "I'd forgotten about this! And ALL of these happened!"  God was working this week.  He was teaching me to love my girls.  He was teaching my girls to love each other.  And He was doing it by loving us.  

"By this we know love, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:16-18

Training in Oklahoma

Staff Training 2011

This past week, in typical Worldview fashion, flew by, while the days seemed long and so much happened in each day.

I was asked by my staff director today while we drove out of Oklahoma to Kansas, where we're staying overnight, what my favorite part of staff training was.  I had to think a minute because the week is so very full.

Here's what I concluded:

Airport Reunions. I love the airport reunion.  Arriving at staff training and being able to see dear friends that I haven't seen in some time face to face brings one of the greatest joys in my life.  It makes the goodbye we shared months ago worth it, because the reunion is so sweet.

My dear friend Michelle and I 

Bible Study each morning at 8:30.  Brandon Booth - camp director for the Southeast Team - teaches us each morning for about an hour.   This year we were working through some of the Psalms and seeing how they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  We spent much time discussing the steadfast love that God has for us and His great righteousness, imputed to us through Jesus Christ. It is challenging and encouraging and refreshing to the soul.

Coast Time. This is where each of the three team split up and have their 'own time', getting to know each other, talking about expectations and being a team together.  I am so excited about our team this year.  We are already gelling together and I am thrilled to see how we work together in the coming weeks.

Side note on our team:  we were waiting for a session of training to start, and somehow, an impromptu game of "wiffle ball" developed, involving backpacks as bases, hackysacks as wiffle balls and flip flops as bats.  This summer is going to be exciting…

This is the 2011 West Coast Team. I'm loving it. 

T-Time! This is a time for the staff girls to bond and share their lives over snacks, stargazing, laughter and tears.  We shared testimonies, talked about the Gospel and love languages, did face masks and made the first (of probably several) runs to Starbucks.  I love this girls team.  I love the way we talk and share and I love seeing what each girl brings to the group.

Girl Staff on West Coast - I'm 3rd from the left

10 minutes after we leave campus for the first van ride.  It sounds weird, but I really don't enjoy the first van ride till ten minutes after we depart.  Leaving the other teams, whom you've gotten to spend a week with, saying goodbye to my brother and sister-in-law who are on a different team, leaving a few team members who will rejoin us later but have to say goodbye now…that part's not so great.  But about ten minutes later, you realize that you're with your team, on the road and camp is starting really soon.  It's a great moment.

Staff Training was amazing this year.  I am excited to get started and have camp begin rolling. 

There is so much more I could write: about how the worship team has clicked and how excited I am to see us lead the students in worship; about the amazing lightning storm we drove into on the way to Kansas last night; stories about Worldview descending on a bowling alley and taking it over;  about mealtimes and jokes and laughter and friendships; about Hampton Inns; about the hummingbird I got to see while I was doing my Quiet Time the other morning. 

It's been a good week.  There was so many "favorites" of last week. This was just a glimpse. 

Here's the entire WVA staff and directors team for 2011. 

My verse for the summer is also my prayer for the summer. Please join me in praying this for myself and for my fellow staffers and directors:

1 Corinthians 15:58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your work is not in vain."