After nine weeks of essentially the same games, the same messages, and the same meals—some of each being really awesome, and some I never want to experience again—looking at week ten before me holds a bittersweet essence.
I love camp, and in many ways, this summer has flown by. Kids come, get acquainted with the cabins that will function as their families for the next four or five or six days, do all the activities, learn all about Jesus, and leave. In other ways, each week can’t seem to end soon enough. Kids throw tantrums because they don’t want to go to chapel or sleep or leave their stick they just found outside, and counselors get cranky because they want to have a moment to themselves or get any sleep or check all their Facebook notifications.
Some of the woes are certainly more legitimate than others. Throughout the course of the past nine weeks, we’ve seen the effects of the brokenness that pervades much of Southeast Alaska. Our second senior high camp was the week after the 4th of July. Unlike the first round of high schoolers, this group was on the younger and less enthused side. The activities and overall level of participation was a little more chill than usual, but it wasn’t just that. There seemed to be this darkness that permeated that week. As each day went on, we kept hearing these kids’ stories. Stories of abuse and rape and inability to believe anyone could be good or trustworthy. Stories steeped in a darkness you could feel. A darkness that had settled over the hearts of these kids. A darkness that became a hardness to the Truth, an inability to believe in the existence of God, let alone a God who could love them. Our hearts broke as we listened to them open up, as we shared their stories with each other, as we prayed over them. Prayed that they would be able to believe in the God who, for whatever reason, allowed these unspeakable things to occur – yet deeply desired to be their Healer.
Some of these kids didn’t have terrible stories. Many had been campers since they were little, but they had heard the Truth so many times that their hearts became hardened with indifference. They didn’t care anymore, and a few weren’t even sure that they believed it.
Even some of the counselors could feel this hardness creeping up on themselves. They were getting tired of hearing the Gospel preached week after week, becoming complacent to this message of a hope they were no longer feeling.
It was that week that many of us started praying new kinds of prayers. Not just ones for strength or patience or energy. But prayers against the Enemy himself, who was intent on keeping us from seeing God.
Don’t get me wrong – the Light is present as well, and it’s transforming lives before our eyes. Some of those kids who hear the message for the first time become captivated by it. They don’t understand how God could always exist, or why He would choose to give up His Son, or why He loves them when they don’t deserve it… But they accept it. And they return home with a joy they have never experienced before.
I met an 11-year-old girl named Mani, who had been adopted from India when she was little. She arrived at camp with no church background and very little understanding of anything Jesus-related. But she listened. And, little by little, it started soaking in.
It was her second attempt at the zipline. The day before, she had been too scared to jump off the platform at the top. This time, she remembered that one of the speakers had talked about God protecting us. So she prayed that He would help her. And then she jumped.
Marcus, a senior high camper, came from a small island community. He was a fully-grown kid who was painfully reserved and soft-spoken. I never saw him smile, and as I took his order at the camp store, I had to lean far over the counter toward him to hear what he was saying. But as the week went on, his demeanor changed. His counselor told us that he had accepted Christ, and the rest of us could tell. He smiled. Hespoke. He began a life of walking with authority because he knew he was loved.
There have been hard weeks, but these kinds of stories make it all worth it. With every struggle, every desert place, there has been opportunity.
Opportunity to hang out with a 13-year-old girl in the Yurt and talk about the way she sees Jesus and herself. About her fear of not being good enough, in spite of all her efforts. Opportunity to share about how I’m there too sometimes, but how I’ve discovered that having an actual relationship with Jesus is way better than trying to be perfect, because all our good deeds are like filthy rags to Him anyway, and He still loves us when we miss the mark.
Opportunity on the laser tag field, when one of my girl counselors who’s been sick for three weeks shares about the time she lay in a heap of misery on her bed, and God reminded her that He is her strength. At a time when my faith had been severely lacking, I got to be encouraged and challenged by hers.
Opportunities to fail again and again and again, so I can realize that it was never about my performance in the first place, but about His power.
As camp draws to a close, please help us pray that we end well. That God would fill us up for this last group of kids, that the kiddos would be open to what Jesus has to say to them, and that the fire would remain as both campers and counselors head back to real life.
I’ll be hitting “Lower 48” soil on August 27th. As far as plans for September and beyond, those are in a hazy, unknown state, as usual… (You can pray for that, too.)
What’s God been doing in your life lately? Has He been giving you opportunities in places that seem dark?
And how can I pray for you?
