Challenge camp was surprisingly not as challenging as you may expect, and certainly not as challenging as I expected. I had four amazing Jr. High boys in my cabin and it was an amazing week for all of them I believe. They each left saying that they felt closer to God than they have ever felt before and they were all excited to ask their moms if they could go to church next Sunday when they were picked up. It was amazing, a truly perfect week as far as camp goes. However, I am not ignorant, trials lie ahead for the weeks to come. This week was emotionally stressful for me as well, God has an amazing way of working things out like that. One of my boys came from an abusive situation at home and had a home life similar to mine, God was able to use me and my testimony to reach him in a dramatic way. Even though it was cool to see it all happen, it was still emotionally and spiritually draining as always.
Apart from the awesome week I had with my campers though, I feel disconnected spiritually. I felt this way during all of camp this week and staff training the week before, intense anxiety like I'd never experienced before waiting for my kids to arrive. I do not experience social anxiety, I'm a textbook extrovert. I still feel drained even now, as if my veins have been severed from my heart and I can no longer pump life into my body. Scripture isn't being revealed like it was when I read. I feel no conviction from the Holy Spirit and I feel as if I am too far away from God. My prayer has been that God is allowing me to trust him even more in this storm so that I can come out of it stronger and learn how much more strong he is in my weakness, but it doesn't feel that way. I need to trust he is there with me even when I don't feel him there. I don't know how I can lead next week's kids to Christ when I feel so far away from him myself. I need help desperately. I continue to read and pray and journal every chance I get, but nothing feels effective. Please pray that I can trust that God is sovereign in the midst of this storm and he is still leading me even if I cannot feel him. It is impossible for me to do this (or anything) without him. I spoke with a former pastor of mine today about it and he put me more at peace with the situation. During that time that I got to speak with Pastor Hughes, God showed me something cool and used my own words to minister to me. Rick said he felt like I needed time to set apart not to read or pray or do anything but just rest in his presence. At that moment I remembered something I wrote to my cabin! During the week of camp, I wrote an open letter to my cabin and read it to them one morning. We have quiet times for fifteen minutes each morning and I wanted them to have better direction with what to do with it.
This is what I wrote:
"Remember when I talked about Paul, the guy who wrote a lot of the second half of the bible? He persecuted Christians and then became one himself. He wrote something really cool about praying, he said to pray without ceasing. Meaning to never stop praying. At first this sounds a little silly, how can you pray while you're asleep? How are you supposed to talk to other people and pray at the same time? This confused me for a little while, it took me awhile before I understood fully, prayer is a conversation with your perfect daddy. He wants to hear everything you have to say to him, and he loves it when you come to him just to talk or just to be with him. But what kind of a relationship is it if you're the only one talking? Sometimes we just need time to just be with him, like sitting on his lap, leaning into him and just being there. But God also speaks, and he speaks in different ways to all of us, a lot of times he'll speak through the bible, God's word (the bible) is inexhaustible, meaning there is always something new you can learn from it. Sometimes, like [the camp director] was talking about, he speaks to us in the things we see, often he speaks to us by letting us know he's near. But the thing about God speaking is, he does it all the time, but we must be quiet to hear him. You'll never know how God will choose to speak to you until you quiet yourself inside and out, and just listen. You may be surprised by what he says. So I encourage you to do that this morning during our quiet time, get to a place where you're at peace, say what you need to say when you pray and then listen and just rest in his presence."
Going along on that same vein, we've been under heavy spiritual attack at the camp, which is a sure sign that we're reaching and changing lives. We've been rejoicing in this attack, but still are struggling through it. I personally became sick, as well as several other staff members within the last week. Bitterness and tension were beginning to rise up among the staff. As soon as we became aware of these growing problems Monday afternoon and four of us sat down and prayed, it was so cool because we only prayed for less than five minutes and suddenly I was healed and chasing kids within a few minutes, all bitterness was gone and waves of peace and reassurance covered our fears. The list of miracles goes on and on. We realized that we were trying to do it all ourselves. It was the second that we reprioritized everything to point to God again that everything was taken care of. God is always faithful and these last two weeks have just been a constant reminder of that.
Continue to pray for Bingle and the AWESOME work God is doing through it. Pray for the campers, the staff and for God to show up in a major way. What God has done so far will not even compare to what I'm sure to report back within the next few weeks, I'm so excited to watch God work in more powerful ways every day.
Until next time my friends,
Andrew.
