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I’m off the river. It was a great five days.
Here is a picture of the group when we completed the trip.

You cannot discover new ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
-Anonymous

Yesterday we took the cabin we had at camp last week swimming. We had a great time.

Here one of the guys is jumping off the high diving board. I jumped off of it four times, and every time I got to the top I was freaked out. It was a thrill though.

At camp last week everyone who said the Bible memory work received a Camp Andrews t shirt. Our whole cabin said it. We encouraged the students to were their t shirts to Bible study on Tuesday night, to show the camp spirit.

This is the complete Beaver cabin at Bible study a few days after camp.

I took a shot of the class during the sing time before we go to our individual classes.

I couldn’t resist putting this picture in. I have been spending as much time as possible with this nice girl.

I have been back from Camp Andrews for a week now. Thanks for your prayers! They were needed. It was a very intense week, filled with toil and tears. We had had our struggles, but these gave us opportunities to grow. Without conflict we don’t have anything to work on. It was also a week of intense spiritual battle. A lot of the pictures I have posted below are “happy pictures.” Everyone is smiling or having a great time. We weren’t always smiling! Sometimes we counselors didn’t know what to do next. There were times when we poured out our lives just to have it slapped right back in our faces.

In spite of all the work and the seeming unfruitful labor, I believe that camp is very important. It allows them to see things that they could not have seen in their home territory. It gives them a taste of how things can be or how things can be done.

At the end of this post I have a video which shows what life looks like to many of the youth I work with. You need to stay with the film to the end to get the picture of what is happening.

Now for the pictures:

This is our cabin. We were the Beavers because we stayed in the cabin named Beaver Dam.

This is all the guys.

Here are the girls.

My cabin is looking at a spider’s web. The man in the red, from Camp Andrews, was leading us on a ropes course. This is where you do different initiatives that bring out a lesson or teach teamwork. He did a great job.

Here we are working on a puzzle.

We got our whole cabin over the wall, without using help from anyone who had already went over the wall.

Here we are debriefing one of our initiatives.

Some of the campers were able to take a pony ride.

Here is an evening chapel. In the morning we normally had segregated chapels for the guys and girls. When my pastor talked about purity the guys exploded. He had to pray twice to bring them back into control.

Here is a picture of one of the clubs the girls had.

Below is the video I mentioned at the beginning of the post. It described the hopelessness of those bound to sin, and wonder of redemption. It may not make sense from the start, so just don’t stop until you have seen the complete film.

It has been two weeks now that the Summer Bible School and Tent Crusade have been over. I’ve been extremely busy and haven’t had (or taken) the time to update on how it went. So here it is…

We had a great two weeks. The spiritual battle was intense. The physical strength was low. Everyone was lacking sleep from it being a very demanding time. Not only was the schedule busy, but pouring your lives out for children can be very draining. I superintended at the Bible School this year and was impressed with the great group of teachers and how they interacted with their students.

Chuckie Cheese
One kindergarten student was asked (in review of the nights lesson), “Who nailed Jesus to the cross?” He thought for a second and then brightened and said, “Chuckie Cheese.” I guess I should have made sure that they teachers had their theology straight before they came to teach. We had a good laugh.

Here are some pictures

Myself in the Bible costume greeting children on the street before entering the church. We made a Bible like costume with the key verses of our Bible School curriculum.

We took the youth and teachers to a park one day. Had a great time.

One of the nine classes.

This is a picture of the tent where the adults where while the children were inside. I was involved with the Summer Bible School part of the two weeks that I didn’t get to spend much time in the tent. They had some really great speakers though.

On this night five years I had colon cancer surgery. It was a stage three cancer with 13 lymph nodes infected with microscopic cancer cells. I am here because of a God who has healed me and given me life.
But what about those who don’t have the same story to say as I have. Many people in the last five years have lost family to cancer. This sobers me and makes me wonder why I wasn’t part of the group which didn’t make it.
I have been given life and I want it to be used to bring the Gospel of Hope to those whose lives know no hope.