A Recap: Summertime at Camp and the Beginning of the End

So bloggers. Since I didn't take my computer to camp with me and I didn't get the opportunity to come home very much, you're probably wondering, what happened at camp? Well I'll tell you. Camp was indescribable. It was great, awesome, wonderful, physically hard and exhausting, emotionally hard and exhausting. This summer I led mainly middle school and high school girls. This is a completely different age group from the group the I led last summer. Leading them, loving them and being loved by them looks so different than with little girls. God showed me so much of how I don't know how to lead people, and it's not up to me to know. Because the work that is done in the hearts of these girls is not me, it's God. I just take every advantage to share the love of Christ with them and talk to them about my own experiences learning that Jesus is the only thing that is satisfying. Faithfulness is what God has commanded of me. God has not commanded me to fulfill my ideas of success, because my ideas of success are not His. They stem from pride, from sin, from making myself greater and Him less.

A big thing I learned this summer is that God is not set in my ideas of Him. The way that God chooses to show himself to his children is specific to them and there are countless ways in which he does this. When my girls are laughing and having fun with each other and me in the swimming pool, this is God. When they are successful at a new activity such as archery and riflery, this is God. When they are mad at me because they only have 3 minutes in the shower or because they didn't rest during rest time and so they have to get out of the pool early, this is God. God is allowing them to have fun at camp, to feel love from their cabin mates and from me, giving them just a small glimpse of His love for them and what He desires for them. Just as God reveals himself differently, each of his children are different in countless ways. We relate to each other differently, we interpret our experiences differently, we view God differently, we relate to God differently and we worship Him differently. How amazing is it that God could create such a diverse population and that He is worshiped in so many different ways by His children? God developed a passion in my heart for seeing high school girls be called to Him and for them to see and treasure that being a Christian is not culture defined. I want them to see just how broken the world is that we have taken something so beautiful as the life that Christ has called us to and made it something that revolves around us, something that is not good and something that does not push us to know more of Jesus but to know more of what the world has to offer to us.

Last Christmas I thought about doing missions after graduation during our Campus Outreach Christmas conference. I had no idea what this would look like and I hadn't heard of anything that had really grabbed my attention or that I felt a desire to pursue. But God put that on my heart again this summer as I saw Him work in the lives of my campers. I want to do missions after graduation and not go straight into the workforce. I am praying about opportunities but one big one I am praying about is The World Race. It is eleven months in eleven countries serving people, being used by God, being challenged by God and sharing the gospel! Check out this blog from a girl currently on The World Race!

http://rachelrush.theworldrace.org/

"Beautiful Things" - juhst another summer

My friend Linda has some awesome things to say about how the staff are growing in their relationship with God this summer so go read about it!

Send your daughter to Camp La Vida!

Smyth 312

It is so funny how God uses the craziest things to do work and to teach me so much! So many of you may know that God called me to be an RA this past school year on the 3rd floor of Smyth. I built relationships and shared Jesus with so many of my freshmen girls and it was a hard, challenging, frustrating, and joyful experience. God shattered so many of my prideful expectations that this job would be easy and that sharing Jesus with these girls would be easy. He is so good to break down my pride and remind me that sharing the gospel is NOT about me; it's about the one who chose to be my ransom, who chose to give his life on the cross for my sake. I know that God worked past my pride to move in some of these girls hearts just as he moved in my heart almost 3 years ago with my RA on the 3rd floor of Smyth.

The girls that take the position of RA on 3rd floor Smyth live in room 312. My roommate and I so much enjoyed living in this room this year despite some of the not to so great aspects of it. The ladies that have held this position and lived in this room for about the past 4-5 years have all been such great women that love the Lord and have shared the gospel of Jesus with so many of these girls. I cannot count how many of us girls that love Jesus, are Christ followers today because we lived on the 3rd floor of Smyth and our RA loved Jesus enough to share Him with us! It is so awesome to think that for the past 5 years I can be attributed with these other great women of the Lord that have discipled freshmen girls on the 3rd floor and invited girls into their lives. We have used the Smyth 312 to usher girls in, wiping tears and sharing Jesus' love, addressing frustrations and reminding that God is faithful and sovereign and the command that we have to follow Jesus. It is so awesome to see how much God has done work on this floor, through this room and through these women!

I pray for the girl that will be the RA next year on this floor. I pray that God might give me the opportunity to share Jesus with her or that God would place someone in her life to share Jesus with her. I pray that he would build up a laborer for this floor next year and that his gospel would be made known among these women!