Week 7: Prayer partners and answered prayer
Thanks once again for your prayers. I can’t believe there are only 3 more weeks of camp. Aaaaah! That’s too soon to go back to school! 
The Lord was very good this week as He continued to show me that He doesn’t need me to work in the lives of my campers. I had a couple challenging campers this week who would not open up to me and let me help them with the needs in their lives. Of two campers I was particularly burdened for, one was unsaved and the other was a very bitter pastor’s kid. In fact it was the supposedly saved pastor’s kid that acted the worst most of the time. And the other guy, despite admitting to me that he was unsaved, he refused both after the services and during freetime to let me share the gospel with him and get that taken care of. Wednesday and Thursday I spent almost the entire God and I time as well as some of CLS pleading with God to change them. They had both come to camp several times before and left unchanged. On Thursday night my prayer partner gave his testimony during cabin devotions. He had basically run from the Lord all through high school until his senior year when during a football game his leg snapped as the result of a tackle. As his football scholarships no longer did any good, he headed to a Christian college where he got involved in the wrong crowd and for a while was kind of their leader. But God in his grace began to cause him to get caught in the wrong things he was doing, to the point that he almost shipped and was given an hour and a half to get off the campus. But some additional details came up, and he was given a second chance. His life made a drastic turnaround. As he shared this with my guys, they began to open up and for no apparent reason (apart from the working of God) began to publicly admit being involved in numerous sins that they had hidden from their parents and youth pastors - bitterness, drinking, immorality, etc. Several of them came outside the cabin with my prayer partner and me to talk about these things, and several talked to my prayer partner on Friday during freetime as well. Although I did not see everything change that I would liked to (the one guy did not get saved for example), and some of the guys may have just been wanting to relieve themselves of the guilt they felt by telling us about their sin, rather than repenting of it, they at least were able to get some biblical principles of how to deal with their specific sins and were encouraged to let their parents know what was going on too. I found their youth pastor later in the week and shared with him what they had told us as well, so he could follow up with them when they got home. Please continue to pray for the two guys i mentioned specifically as well as two other guys that are dealing with similar issues.
Saturday I got a rare opportunity to go see 3rd falls. If you’ve been to the Wilds for any length of time, you’ve probably seen 1st, 2nd, and 4th falls, and maybe even Stairstep falls, as pretty much anybody can go to them. But as trips to 3rd falls have to be led by a full time staff member and in groups of 12 or less, they are a lot less frequent. In fact, even though I’ve worked here 3 years now, this is the first time i’ve been. The hike isn’t too difficult (about how 2nd falls used to be before they put in all the stairs), but there’s not a whole lot of room to stand and look at the falls and it’s pretty much right at the top of 4th falls, so any slip into the water could be pretty deadly… If you’ve been to 4th falls, you’ve passed the trail to 3rd on the way back, but unless you know it’s there you wouldn’t see it. So anyway, i was very glad to get the opportunity to see that.
Since my prayer partner factored in to my week so significantly, let me take a few moments to talk about prayer partners. Each week the counselors are paired with someone on op staff as a prayer partner. Every morning during counselor meeting (that is if their lead remembers) each counselor is given a list of their campers names that they write different initials after something like this…
….
Joe Camper A, Bit, D, Dr, M, Dev, Fr
Jim Teenager Pr, Par, TV, R/V
….
and etc. Each set of initials stands for a different area of concern in that campers life. The ones listed above would be… Assurance, Bitterness, Dedication, Dress, Music, Devotions, Friends, Pride, Parent/Authority, TV, Reading/Viewing (i.e. pornography). Yep, we kinda have our own secret code Anyway, these slips are given to the prayer partners so they can pray about these different issues. Sponsors are also given an opportunity to provides areas of concern about their teens as well, and ones that sponsors provide are underlined. If the campers make a decision about one of the areas, we draw a circle around the initials. Prayer partners also typically sit with your cabin during the evening services, try to get together and do things with the cabin during free-time if they aren’t working, and give cabin devotions one night. It’s a great program as it allows the op staff to have a more intimate connection with the campers and, of course, increases the prayer for those campers.
Well, the week I have been waiting for all summer has arrived! I’m finally in JBC (Junior Boot Camp). As there are only two teams in JBC, red and blue, I won’t be on the white team, this week. Instead I will be the RED team! The theme in JBC is Sky Wars so my team mascot will be the Falcons (F-16), while the blue team’s mascot is the Hornets (F-18). The speaker in JBC this week will be my good friend Bob Roberts, who, in my opinion, is the best preacher to junior age young people I know. He’s also the founder and director of Kids for Truth (www.kids4truth.com). I’m looking forward to hearing from him this week. Well, my laundry is about done, so it’s time to sign off. Thanks again for your prayers!
