This past weekend we took the teens from our Alpha church to The OAKS Camp and Conference center in Lake Hughes, CA. For the past four years we have taken a ton of teens from the Garnet neighborhood to this camp. It's a great place, and I really vibe with a lot of their values, which are extremely Kingdom based. This year we brought 8 teens from the Maple neighborhood. This has been my third year going to camp and going into the weekend I was NOT excited.
There were 17 boys and 11 girls that went up. My friends Matt, Sergio, and I were the only ones from staff who were there to take care of 14 Jr. High and High Schoolers. We were going to be stuck all in one cabin, for three days, living life together. Like I mentioned before, there are only so many fart jokes one man can take. It was like I was ripped out of my 30s and transported back into Jr. High with all of its hormone filled awkwardness.
What first started out as dread, my attitude towards camp slow changed. I was able to reconnect with many of the students. I felt God's presence during many occasions. I could also see how God was talking specifically to not only our teens, but also to our staff. He was moving and allowing us to be a part of it. My roommate, Tommy, was the speaker at camp and the whole time I didn't once think about how well he was doing while speaking. It wasn't because Tommy wasn't good, but it was because it was overly apparent that God and His spirit was moving... it almost made Tommy obsolete (in a good way). Five people made decisions to follow Christ for the first time. Another half a dozen rededicated their lives to God's purpose and plan for their lives. The best part was that the decisions were not some sort of emotionally manipulated
"alter call." Instead, after Tommy spoke, we were instructed to go back in silence to meet with the community of people who we came to camp with. In these smaller communities, the opportunity to make life-changing decisions was given. This is when the teens decided on their own - without manipulation, intentionally downplaying the desire to have attention poured on them - these were decisions were ones that they wanted to make on their own.
There were two parts of camp that I felt personally blessed to be a part of. First, I got a chance to reconnect with Israel, Karin, and Sergio (pictured below). For the past three years Matt and I have journeyed with these three guys. There have been many ups and downs, but through it all we have remained friends. I have been able to give them advice, direction towards God, and perspective in certain situation. Those three guys, have specifically, have changed my view on what God originally intended church to be like. Even though I try and express this to them, they have had played a huge role in my own personal spiritual formation that they don't always understand. The guys all opened up about destructive things that they want to change in their lives. I was able to open up with them and allow them to speak into my life. There were many great moments with these guys.
The second part of camp that really impacted me was setting up The Most Valuable T-Shirt (www.themostvaluabletshirt.com). There were so many people that helped out to make this website work. From Mission Increase inspiring us to do something completely out of the box (mulberries, whooo hoo!), to my friend Adam who designed the entire site, to the teens who designed the t-shirts, to those of you who decided to sponsor a teen to go to camp and go one of these shirts in return. It was so fun to oversee this whole project and to know that God used it for his own good. The best part of The Most Valuable T-Shirt was being able to connect each donor to the teen that they sponsored. Each donor sponsored a specific teen to go to camp. And each of those teens had unique situation that led them to camp. I asked each donor to pray over the teens and some prayer requests that I was coming up with off the top of my mind. Even God had his hand in this because many of you were ask to pray for very specific things that were actually answered at camp. It was kind of baffling to be honest. Yet amazing all at the same time.
Sergio getting ready to jump off the leap of faith
Karin and I at the last session
Final group shot... the "silly picture" is a camp tradition. Every year we do it and every year I have to come up with another pose.
I laughed out loud at the onset of this post. I can only image what camp is in a cabin with a whole bunch of jr. high and high school boys. Oh my. Sounds like God really was at work at camp though.
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