My churches youth camp is something I look forward to every summer. It's always a wonderful experience and it's never exactly the same. This year was no exception. I was asked to be a student leader in a family group with Mr. Robert Adams, which was very interesting and a whole lot of fun! He did a lot of the talking, but I was glad he did since it was my first time being a student leader. All in all it was a really great experience and I hope I can do it again next year!
The theme for camp this year was "Everything", which at first I thought might be a little overwhelming of a theme, but it ended up being one of my favorite themes ever.There were different things we talked about everyday to go along with the theme, things like "God can make everything clean" and "everything belongs to God", but I think a really big thing that our family group focused on was God being sovereign over everything. It's really an amazing thing that we as Christians can know that God knows all of our steps before we take them and He has a purpose for every single one of them (good and bad) a greater purpose than we could ever imagine. There were also a lot of kids in our family group that struggled with idea of why God would let bad things happen, especially to good people. (to which I wanted to respond "haven't any of you read Angie Smith's blog??? They, of course, would have probably thought I was crazy, so I kept that thought to myself) There was even a girl who, when Mr. Adams was talking about a family he knew who had a baby that had a bunch of medical issues and could possibly die, asked why God would even let that baby have all those problems... (WOW.) Sometimes there isn't a answer that people are going to like. I can't say I have gone through something that devastating, so it's hard for me to just go "it's all a part of His plan" even though I know that everything is. I haven't lost a child (or had one, don't worry) or even a very close family member and I know that when it's a baby who has hardly gotten to experience life it seems even more wrong. Then you see those people that have gone through it, and come out glorifying the Lord in their testimony and somehow you can say "You ARE sovereign over everything." because you know that despite the pain there are people that use that pain to bring people to the Lord. I probably sound like a rambling maniac, because I could never express what I'm trying to say as beautifully as someone like Angie Smith, but that one little question that this girl asked made me hurt sooo bad. I could see her struggle and I wanted her to see truth in these painful situations, but you can't always just give them the answer you know as the truth and make them believe it.
Because of that, one more thing I got out of camp was the ability to really apply what I've always known as the truth to life. I've grown up in church my whole life and I've never really questioned what I was taught. But to see people really struggling with what they believed in my family group and getting to apply what I know is the truth to their questions and doubts they had is a cool experience. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, while I've never really questioned it myself, being able to validate what I know to other people who aren't sure about it just makes my faith that much stronger. Just to be able to step back and look at everything and be like "wow God you really know what your doing" and knowing how real He is, is just a really cool thing. And I didn't even realize it till a little while after camp was over. Some of my friends and I had some similar experiences being student leaders. We weren't exactly sure what we got out of it at first other than seeing other kids in our family groups grow closer to God (which is great don't get me wrong), but I've realized now that's a big way I grew at camp. I didn't necessarily doubt what I believed, but I definitely feel stronger and more confident in it now.
Anyway, who wants to see some pictures??? well, let's get to it!!
DODGEBALL TIME!!!
Well, every night at camp we have some sort of fun activity called "night life" and this is the second year we've had a hard core dodgeball tournament! It's a lot of fun! Not that my friends and I played or anything. We just cheered on the teams and took pictures. :)
Here's a few with a view from the bleachers. Yes those are cages...
Action shot!
First place team!
Again, but silly faces =)
Michael's not in the youth group anymore, but he came with our media guy to help film at camp. I took this when he was INSIDE the cages filming!Another night life activity we had was um..... hip hop lessons... yes, you read right hip hop lessons... I'm not even going to try and explain the next 2 photos, other than saying it's a bunch of white kids trying to be cool....
yeah....
There was a bed in our cabin that had been um "cursed" so we decided to fix it. :)
Family group.
Family group being goofy.Well, that's all I have for you from camp. My next post will probably be about choir tour and then I'll probably be almost caught up on big stuff from the summer!
P.S. I just read Angie Smith's most recent blog after writing this and I just had to put a link to it just in case one of you doesn't know who I'm talking about and hasn't already read it. She ironically talked some about knowing God has a purpose for everything even the hard things, but with a lot more experience in the matter and written a whole lot more beautifully than I could ever dream of writing. Anyways, even if it didn't have a whole lot to do with what I wrote it's still something you should definitely read! Anyway check it out here.
P.P.S.(<-- or whatever its' supposed to be) I just recently made an art/photography/craft blog! It's just for fun there's not a lot on it yet, but if you want to you can check it out here. You can also find it in my list of blogs on the right.
The End. For Now.
