Home From Camp

I am now home from a wonderful week at Gulf Coast Bible Camp. From a human standpoint, we really should not have had camp. Many of the staff were storm victims, and taking a week out of town was a struggle. Some do not yet live back in their homes. Most of the campers were storm victims, with many still out of their homes. Three on our staff are transitioning into new jobs. Some staff had work duties they could not escape and had to leave at various times during the week to accomodate the expectations of their employers. Pulling together a camp session is never the easiest thing to do, but this year there were so many things working against us. However, we cannot leave God out of the equation. He had a plan to pull together this group of people for the week, and it was a time of growth, fellowship, and love. We studied The Beatitudes during the week and challenged the kids to live revolutionary lives. We rejoiced with two young men who placed their lives in the hands of Christ in baptism. Three of the 'best camper' awards were kids from Central! Yay! There are, of course, a thousand camp stories. I will not try to tell you all about them. Over 300 pictures from our week of camp are on my picture page linked to the right. The hurricane relief effort, of course, continued on steadily while I was gone. We had groups here from several places, including a couple of returning groups. I was glad that Dusty Rush, University Church of Christ Conway AR, came over to my house last night and visited for a couple of hours. I hated to be out of town while he and Jason Turner were here leading a group of teens from Arkansas and Texas. They worked hard, according to all accounts, even taking sheetrock to my neighbor during the week. Dusty spoke Wednesday night to a crowd of about 150 or so - mostly volunteers. His group was bedded down at the Vancleave Church of Christ, which has been a wonderful partner with us in providing housing for volunteers. So, after our visit, I took Dusty to Vancleave and was able to see Jason and also meet the youth ministers from Texas (one of whom says he reads this blog!). The time flew by too swiftly, but I was thankful for the moments we had. David Kilbern called last night to say that the group from the First United Methodist Church in Lebanon, IL left us $1,000 to assist in refurbishing our church building. I never cease to be amazed at the generosity of our friends who come to help us from all faith families. This is even true locally. The First Presbyterian church just a few blocks away from us has offered the use of their facilities for weddings and funerals and other occasions. They even offered to forego the usual charge for the facilities. God has certainly used people from all faiths to bless not only our community, but our church as well. Today I'll spend getting ready for tomorrow at Central. There are some dark clouds in the sky and the wind is blowing steadily. Perhaps we'll get some needed rain today. Thanks for reading and for your prayers.