So I want to talk a minute about what the Lord has been teaching me about Love this summer. Love is one of the five character traits we are teaching this summer. It is the first and I think for good reason. It all starts with love; in 1 John 4:8 it says, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." We start the week teaching this and I think that that helps show what it is we want our students to do on site that week.
Loving others is something that often times I have struggled with, the words of the Hillsong United song Hosanna have always been my prayer:
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to Eternity
The line, show me how to love like you have loved me, is something that has constantly been weighing on my heart, then the next line, break my heart for what breaks yours just adds to the message. Jesus calls us throughout the new testament to love the least of these, to serve them. How many times have I brushed someone aside just because I thought they were scary, dirty, annoying? Thats not what I'm called to do, I'm called to love them anyway. So, as I entered into this summer, my prayer was that the Lord would break my heart for what breaks His. That I would come to love the people I come into contact with unconditionally. And then out of an overflow of that love have no choice but to share Jesus with them.
And so, after three weeks of campers, and site kids, I am in love with every single one of them that has passed through. And as I mentioned yesterday, it is now my desire to finish so strong the next few weeks and pour everything I have into the lives of my students and the kids on my site.
Pray for us this week, 550+ students, 22 churches, its gonna be interesting!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Halfway There
So today marks the exact halfway point in our summer here in Nashville. That has made all of us very sad as we think through what that means today. Week three was a hard one on the majority of our staff. Part of it was just because it is the third consecutive week and therefore just hard to get as excited for it, the other just had to do with all the situations that came up throughout our week.
My week started off a lot differently than the other two. My first two weeks had me excited from the first night meeting my groups. This week, however, my group was super quiet that first night and apprehensive about my ministry site. This was a hard adjustment for me and made it very hard to get excited about going to site with them on tuesday. Tuesday was a LONG day on site and I had to push them every second of the day. As the week went on though, they started to fall in love with the kids on site which made my heart happy! This was good for them and good for the kids.
My kids on site have gotten so used to having love and affection every week and I discovered this week that my last day on site in 4 weeks will be one of the hardest of my life. I'm scared that the love and affection they receive from me and my students will be the only they see all year and that just breaks my heart. One of my prayers at the start of this summer was that God would just strengthen me to fall in love with the site, its kids, and its adults. And man has that prayer been answered. I love the program that my site does: Free Child Care with lunch included for ages 6-14, this just makes the parents lives so much easier. I also have completely fallen in love with my kids. They are so much fun to be around and so much fun to talk to. I desire so much for each of them to grow up knowing Christ and His plan for their lives, because without that I'm scared of what may happen to them. The adults here are also a ton of fun, great conversations have been had and they love the kids at this site as much as I do. My prayer for the rest of the summer is that I get time to have INTENTIONAL conversations with the Easley Staff about Christ!
As I mentioned earlier this week was so incredibly difficult for so many us, which meant a TON of encouragement was needed. This happened in one big way the last night before worship. We stood in a circle, embracing one another as everyone took turns saying something encouraging to someone else on staff. This was great and made me fall even deeper in love with my 25 best friends. Encouragement is something we are going to require the next 4 weeks as we only get more and more tired with each passing day, so for those of you not here, feel free to send me nice messages, they will make my day!
So I mentioned that it started off pretty frustrating for me with my group. By the end of the week, I fell in absolute LOVE with the kids and adults in my track group. They were a lot of fun to be around and truly showed me to give time before jumping to judgements about people so quickly. I have a lot more stories and things the Lord taught me this week and will be posting some of those tomorrow.
My week started off a lot differently than the other two. My first two weeks had me excited from the first night meeting my groups. This week, however, my group was super quiet that first night and apprehensive about my ministry site. This was a hard adjustment for me and made it very hard to get excited about going to site with them on tuesday. Tuesday was a LONG day on site and I had to push them every second of the day. As the week went on though, they started to fall in love with the kids on site which made my heart happy! This was good for them and good for the kids.
My kids on site have gotten so used to having love and affection every week and I discovered this week that my last day on site in 4 weeks will be one of the hardest of my life. I'm scared that the love and affection they receive from me and my students will be the only they see all year and that just breaks my heart. One of my prayers at the start of this summer was that God would just strengthen me to fall in love with the site, its kids, and its adults. And man has that prayer been answered. I love the program that my site does: Free Child Care with lunch included for ages 6-14, this just makes the parents lives so much easier. I also have completely fallen in love with my kids. They are so much fun to be around and so much fun to talk to. I desire so much for each of them to grow up knowing Christ and His plan for their lives, because without that I'm scared of what may happen to them. The adults here are also a ton of fun, great conversations have been had and they love the kids at this site as much as I do. My prayer for the rest of the summer is that I get time to have INTENTIONAL conversations with the Easley Staff about Christ!
As I mentioned earlier this week was so incredibly difficult for so many us, which meant a TON of encouragement was needed. This happened in one big way the last night before worship. We stood in a circle, embracing one another as everyone took turns saying something encouraging to someone else on staff. This was great and made me fall even deeper in love with my 25 best friends. Encouragement is something we are going to require the next 4 weeks as we only get more and more tired with each passing day, so for those of you not here, feel free to send me nice messages, they will make my day!
So I mentioned that it started off pretty frustrating for me with my group. By the end of the week, I fell in absolute LOVE with the kids and adults in my track group. They were a lot of fun to be around and truly showed me to give time before jumping to judgements about people so quickly. I have a lot more stories and things the Lord taught me this week and will be posting some of those tomorrow.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Weekend after Week 2
Weekends at Fuge are an amazing time that the campers will never know about. A time to be refreshed, a time to sleep, and a time to grow friendships with your staff. All of this has happened for me this weekend and I couldn't be happier.
We spend the first few hours after camp just talking over the week and how we can improve. But the time of refreshment started at lunch between meetings on saturday. Five of us piled into one of the girls' cars and went for some burgers at a local nashville burger joint. We spent the hour eating, laughing, and sharing about our weeks, something that sadly doesn't really happen very much during the week. It was just so good to hear great things going on in our groups and at our sites, as well as getting to hear that others were having some of the same struggles in ministry that I was.
After meetings, our apartment took a three hour nap time before spending the night together as roommates. The Lord has truly blessed me with three wonderful roommates for the summer who encourage and love me and I do the same for them. We had a great dinner, listened to some amazing jazz then joined our Worship Leader for a little movie night. Its just so necessary for us to have this time to refresh before the campers get back.
This sunday was different. We didn't make church, and didn't see any other staffers until late tonight. We did however, spend a very encouraging evening with a couple of newfound friends from Belmont. It felt good to spend time with people outside of the M-Fuge bubble, but yet still great Christian girls who can encourage us and understand where we're coming from cause they too deal with the campers.
During a chat with one of the girls I realized a couple of things the Lord is really showing me so far this summer. Our camp pastor for the past two weeks used the rich young ruler in the gospel of Matthew to preach on sacrifice. He provided an interesting challenge. A lot of times I've read that passage and when Jesus talks about how much easier it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven, I usually say well thank goodness I'm not rich. Well Josh reminded us the past couple of weeks that compared to the rest of the world, we are FILTHY rich. This is a stumbling block to me because I've grown up without a lot so its hard to imagine I have anything to sacrifice of value. Josh also reminded us that first of all God wants us, all of us, and everything we have, no matter how great or small. I also taught my students on sacrifice this week and I gave them a pipe cleaner and asked them to shape it into the thing they desire most in the world. After they shaped it, I asked them if God wanted them to give up getting this, would they be willing to? This challenged me as much as it did them.
So, think about it, what is it you desire most in the world? Is that getting in the way of your relationship with the Lord, would you give it up for Him?
After all, he does want our EVERYTHING
Pray for me this week. Its week 3, we've done this before. Pray that I stay focused, I don't let distractions set in, and that most of all I'm intentional in my ministry with students and on site.
We spend the first few hours after camp just talking over the week and how we can improve. But the time of refreshment started at lunch between meetings on saturday. Five of us piled into one of the girls' cars and went for some burgers at a local nashville burger joint. We spent the hour eating, laughing, and sharing about our weeks, something that sadly doesn't really happen very much during the week. It was just so good to hear great things going on in our groups and at our sites, as well as getting to hear that others were having some of the same struggles in ministry that I was.
After meetings, our apartment took a three hour nap time before spending the night together as roommates. The Lord has truly blessed me with three wonderful roommates for the summer who encourage and love me and I do the same for them. We had a great dinner, listened to some amazing jazz then joined our Worship Leader for a little movie night. Its just so necessary for us to have this time to refresh before the campers get back.
This sunday was different. We didn't make church, and didn't see any other staffers until late tonight. We did however, spend a very encouraging evening with a couple of newfound friends from Belmont. It felt good to spend time with people outside of the M-Fuge bubble, but yet still great Christian girls who can encourage us and understand where we're coming from cause they too deal with the campers.
During a chat with one of the girls I realized a couple of things the Lord is really showing me so far this summer. Our camp pastor for the past two weeks used the rich young ruler in the gospel of Matthew to preach on sacrifice. He provided an interesting challenge. A lot of times I've read that passage and when Jesus talks about how much easier it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven, I usually say well thank goodness I'm not rich. Well Josh reminded us the past couple of weeks that compared to the rest of the world, we are FILTHY rich. This is a stumbling block to me because I've grown up without a lot so its hard to imagine I have anything to sacrifice of value. Josh also reminded us that first of all God wants us, all of us, and everything we have, no matter how great or small. I also taught my students on sacrifice this week and I gave them a pipe cleaner and asked them to shape it into the thing they desire most in the world. After they shaped it, I asked them if God wanted them to give up getting this, would they be willing to? This challenged me as much as it did them.
So, think about it, what is it you desire most in the world? Is that getting in the way of your relationship with the Lord, would you give it up for Him?
After all, he does want our EVERYTHING
Pray for me this week. Its week 3, we've done this before. Pray that I stay focused, I don't let distractions set in, and that most of all I'm intentional in my ministry with students and on site.
Week 2
Well crazy as it seems to us here on staff, week 2 has come and gone. This week was great just as week 1 was and that makes me so very excited for week 3 which is just a day away.
The week started a lot more smoothly at registration and in the opening celebration. The first fun part of the week was that we had a church bring 105 high school aged youth to camp this week, which made up 1/5 of camp. Camp was a lot bigger this week with 110 more students, but I found out on opening night I was going to have a much smaller group of 23. And of that 23, 17 of them were going to be guys. So I got my group and headed to our room where we had a great MTET where i got to know almost all of my students names.
Bible Study this week was a lot more prepared, but the group this week was less talkative, it was frustrating at times because I didn't think they were getting anything out of it. But at the end of the week when I read their cards they wrote for me, I came to see that they did indeed listen and get a lot of things out of it.
Site this week was a lot better than the first, but that was just because I knew what to prepare for and prepare my group for. The center had a lower week in terms of number of kids so that probably contributed to a smoother week on site. My students did an absolute phenomenal job of being intentional in their conversations on site. It seemed like every time I looked around one of my students was in deep conversation with one of the kids on site. This culminated when, on Thursday, one of the kids accepted Christ. In addition to this, one of my students talked and found out another kid on site was a Christian and in conversation with him was just very encouraged by him. My student actually bought a new bible and gave it to this kid on friday. Needless to say, the week on site did my heart good.
Worship was a bit different this week. It started out GREAT for me by getting to see two good friends from home who were passing through and came and sat in on worship tuesday night. The rest of the week I spent running the words on the screen so I didn't get to see the kids worshipping which wasn't fun, but it gave me an awesome time of worship sitting backstage alone.
I had some great adults this week and I loved getting to know them and spend time with them over the course of the week! The week closed with Mega Relay which my group ended up winning our heat and I was so proud of them. Week 3 gets underway in about 28 hours and I'm ready for it!
The week started a lot more smoothly at registration and in the opening celebration. The first fun part of the week was that we had a church bring 105 high school aged youth to camp this week, which made up 1/5 of camp. Camp was a lot bigger this week with 110 more students, but I found out on opening night I was going to have a much smaller group of 23. And of that 23, 17 of them were going to be guys. So I got my group and headed to our room where we had a great MTET where i got to know almost all of my students names.
Bible Study this week was a lot more prepared, but the group this week was less talkative, it was frustrating at times because I didn't think they were getting anything out of it. But at the end of the week when I read their cards they wrote for me, I came to see that they did indeed listen and get a lot of things out of it.
Site this week was a lot better than the first, but that was just because I knew what to prepare for and prepare my group for. The center had a lower week in terms of number of kids so that probably contributed to a smoother week on site. My students did an absolute phenomenal job of being intentional in their conversations on site. It seemed like every time I looked around one of my students was in deep conversation with one of the kids on site. This culminated when, on Thursday, one of the kids accepted Christ. In addition to this, one of my students talked and found out another kid on site was a Christian and in conversation with him was just very encouraged by him. My student actually bought a new bible and gave it to this kid on friday. Needless to say, the week on site did my heart good.
Worship was a bit different this week. It started out GREAT for me by getting to see two good friends from home who were passing through and came and sat in on worship tuesday night. The rest of the week I spent running the words on the screen so I didn't get to see the kids worshipping which wasn't fun, but it gave me an awesome time of worship sitting backstage alone.
I had some great adults this week and I loved getting to know them and spend time with them over the course of the week! The week closed with Mega Relay which my group ended up winning our heat and I was so proud of them. Week 3 gets underway in about 28 hours and I'm ready for it!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Week 1
So my first week as a staffer at M-Fuge has wrapped up and I am completely exhausted. Camp provided such an amazing week for all involved. I could not have asked from anything better from my first group as a staffer. The week started off with an amazing opening celebration that got everyone really excited for the week of fuge ahead.
Opening night bible study time was a great time spent with my group. After getting all the paperwork out of the way and explaining what the rules for the week were and what to expect on our ministry site, we went outside to play some name games. Then began the process of training my group to do evangelism on our ministry site. We ended our first night by playing some more games with some other groups outside.
Bible study started off rough at the beginning of the week, but got more awesome by the day. After a day of warming up to me and to each other, they really started discussing things in the group and talking about things on a deeper level and this made me very happy!
Ministry Track Site did about the same as bible study, it started off a little rough, but got progressively better as the week went along. This site has a lot of kids (around 160) and they range in ages from 6-14 supposedly, but there were some kids there that were older in high school. It was really neat to watch my students interacting with the kids on site and talking to them. They were so much fun to watch playing. I can tell already that my heart is going to break for the kids at this site as the summer progresses. They were so starved for attention and it was good to watch them get that this week. While on site this week, one of my students led one of the kids to Christ; it was just a great time!
The other serious note is that in my one-on-one time spent with students I discovered one of my students who proclaimed to be a Christian, when in reality, he was not. He told me he just circled yes because its what he thought I wanted to hear. Well after a message last night about not faking being a follower of Christ, he was convicted and accepted Christ, he told me this at breakfast this morning and I was very excited about it.
One thing that coming into camp I was not excited about was mega relay. For those of you who have never experienced fuge, mega relay is an event that challenges your students in every way possible. They have events that they have to work as a team and events that test some individuals. I always hated it as a camper, but after my first night running it as a staffer and encouraging my kids along, I absolutely love it. It culminates the week, and its fun to see how at the end of the week, they really do act as a team.
Be praying as we go into week 2, that ministry on site gets a lot better and that I can find some more time to spend with my students.
Opening night bible study time was a great time spent with my group. After getting all the paperwork out of the way and explaining what the rules for the week were and what to expect on our ministry site, we went outside to play some name games. Then began the process of training my group to do evangelism on our ministry site. We ended our first night by playing some more games with some other groups outside.
Bible study started off rough at the beginning of the week, but got more awesome by the day. After a day of warming up to me and to each other, they really started discussing things in the group and talking about things on a deeper level and this made me very happy!
Ministry Track Site did about the same as bible study, it started off a little rough, but got progressively better as the week went along. This site has a lot of kids (around 160) and they range in ages from 6-14 supposedly, but there were some kids there that were older in high school. It was really neat to watch my students interacting with the kids on site and talking to them. They were so much fun to watch playing. I can tell already that my heart is going to break for the kids at this site as the summer progresses. They were so starved for attention and it was good to watch them get that this week. While on site this week, one of my students led one of the kids to Christ; it was just a great time!
The other serious note is that in my one-on-one time spent with students I discovered one of my students who proclaimed to be a Christian, when in reality, he was not. He told me he just circled yes because its what he thought I wanted to hear. Well after a message last night about not faking being a follower of Christ, he was convicted and accepted Christ, he told me this at breakfast this morning and I was very excited about it.
One thing that coming into camp I was not excited about was mega relay. For those of you who have never experienced fuge, mega relay is an event that challenges your students in every way possible. They have events that they have to work as a team and events that test some individuals. I always hated it as a camper, but after my first night running it as a staffer and encouraging my kids along, I absolutely love it. It culminates the week, and its fun to see how at the end of the week, they really do act as a team.
Be praying as we go into week 2, that ministry on site gets a lot better and that I can find some more time to spend with my students.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tomorrow We Start
We will be Your hands , we will be Your feet
We will run this race for the least of these
In the darkest place, we will be your light
We will be your light
Above are lyrics from Hillsong United's Solution. Today, I heard this song for the first time as our amazing worship band played in rehearsal. We then sang it tonight at staff worship. This particular set of lyrics really caught my eye and tugged at my heart. This is my prayer for us, as a staff this summer. We are called to be His hands and feet in Nashville this summer. My prayer tonight as been that the Lord will break my heart for those I will come in contact with this summer that do not know Him so much that I have no other choice but to share the gospel with them. So many kids are going to come to camp tomorrow just wanting to hang out with friends and to have a good time with no spiritual expectation, but God has something amazing for them here and I can't wait to see it.
Tomorrow will be an amazing day, and I wait expectedly for it. We will start off with staff family groups where we will just have a time to dive into God's word as a group before spending some time in prayer lifting one another up before camp week begins. We will then have lunch as a staff and get everything set for registration. Pray for patience and wisdom for our staff as registration is going on. A lot goes into this behind the scenes and they need strength to make it through. The campers and staff will then have dinner followed by the Opening Celebration. We will then be dismissed to our track groups where we will have that MTET time I talked about in a previous post.
So, even though tomorrow is going to be amazing because I get to meet my campers and get to know them, there will be some stress involved for all of us, so pray that God will take that away from us as we get this thing kicked off.
We will run this race for the least of these
In the darkest place, we will be your light
We will be your light
Above are lyrics from Hillsong United's Solution. Today, I heard this song for the first time as our amazing worship band played in rehearsal. We then sang it tonight at staff worship. This particular set of lyrics really caught my eye and tugged at my heart. This is my prayer for us, as a staff this summer. We are called to be His hands and feet in Nashville this summer. My prayer tonight as been that the Lord will break my heart for those I will come in contact with this summer that do not know Him so much that I have no other choice but to share the gospel with them. So many kids are going to come to camp tomorrow just wanting to hang out with friends and to have a good time with no spiritual expectation, but God has something amazing for them here and I can't wait to see it.
Tomorrow will be an amazing day, and I wait expectedly for it. We will start off with staff family groups where we will just have a time to dive into God's word as a group before spending some time in prayer lifting one another up before camp week begins. We will then have lunch as a staff and get everything set for registration. Pray for patience and wisdom for our staff as registration is going on. A lot goes into this behind the scenes and they need strength to make it through. The campers and staff will then have dinner followed by the Opening Celebration. We will then be dismissed to our track groups where we will have that MTET time I talked about in a previous post.
So, even though tomorrow is going to be amazing because I get to meet my campers and get to know them, there will be some stress involved for all of us, so pray that God will take that away from us as we get this thing kicked off.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Getting Closer
We are a few days closer to campers arriving and getting very excited for that. We've spent the past few days doing the things that make campers getting here seem ever closer. We spent tuesday hanging out with some special need adults planting flowers and then going bowling. It was an amazing time and God used that time to teach me a lot about what site was going to be like for me and what I needed to work on. The rest of tuesday was business as usual as we had worn ourselves out at that site and were just looking forward to getting into bed.
Wednesday was a very exciting day as we got to meet the people who head up the ministry sites we will be spending our summer at. Mine was able to make the luncheon, but I got to go visit the community center afterwards to meet with him and to see the place I will be spending 28 days this summer. I will have 160 kids at the community center every day ranging in ages 6-14, so it will be an amazing experience. The only down side to it all is that I am not allowed to openly share the gospel, instead his view was if it is an unavoidable question brought up by the kid then it is ok. But that's ok, I just need all of you to be praying for unavoidable questions this summer!
We finished out tuesday by setting up the stage for the summer, it looks great and kudos to our program director for leading us through that night! Yesterday we got to prepare our bible study rooms which was a challenge since I'm no good at decorating. It was funny that my bible study room is a room that I remember being our church group devotion room in 2006.
Wednesday was a very exciting day as we got to meet the people who head up the ministry sites we will be spending our summer at. Mine was able to make the luncheon, but I got to go visit the community center afterwards to meet with him and to see the place I will be spending 28 days this summer. I will have 160 kids at the community center every day ranging in ages 6-14, so it will be an amazing experience. The only down side to it all is that I am not allowed to openly share the gospel, instead his view was if it is an unavoidable question brought up by the kid then it is ok. But that's ok, I just need all of you to be praying for unavoidable questions this summer!
We finished out tuesday by setting up the stage for the summer, it looks great and kudos to our program director for leading us through that night! Yesterday we got to prepare our bible study rooms which was a challenge since I'm no good at decorating. It was funny that my bible study room is a room that I remember being our church group devotion room in 2006.
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