Mission Messenger #1

I was thinking that we really needed to update this blog for you, but I didn't know what to say or how to find time to write it up.  And then I remembered that we have these articles that we wrote for the Mission Messenger, and all I have to do is copy & paste.  : D
Wish you could all be here!

During my first week of camp this summer I had a “bad” cabin.  It wasn’t that any one boy was particularly obnoxious, just that the four of the boys were best buds and were quick to build off each others’ disruptiveness whenever possible.  I had a long week of hard work keeping the boys in line and saw very little spiritual fruit. 

The second week rolled around and I received a cabin of boys unarmingly similar to the cabin I had the week before!  So when Jeremy (the leader from the next cabin over) thanked God for his quiet, calm and respectful cabin at Monday morning’s staff meeting – I felt jipped!

One of my campers that week was particularly trying – not because of behaviour; indeed he was one of the best behaved campers I’ve had!  But could he ever talk!  It was a challenge that week to be grateful when my break times were taken up talking with - or rather, listening to - Keenan.  I mean, one-on-one conversations are the heartbeat of camp, but this was just too much! 

I tried to be grateful that I had so much opportunity to share about God with a kid who came to camp knowing virtually nothing about God or the Bible – but it was hard.  Usually it is so easy to be thankful when a camper is clearly interested in the things of God – but did it have to be Keenan?  To top it all off, interest was as far as it seemed to go with him.  On Friday, as we discussed the plan of salvation, he told me that he “just had to think about it.”  A whole week of listening to this kid ramble on and on and on, and he was going to “think about it”!  He left that night having heard the gospel, but having done nothing about it.

I wrote him off in my mind as one of those kids we’ll never know about who will probably go home and forget everything we told him.

During that week, I had received an encouragement note from a fellow staff member which included 1Cor. 15:58 “…Your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”  How true that verse showed itself the next day when we received an e-mail from Keenan telling us that he had watched the Jesus film we had sent home with him and “let Jesus into my heart” that night!

Praise God, His word will not return to him void!!

(Article by Ian)