Monday, August 29, 2011

Camp this weekend

I still have not loaded pictures from Kids' Camp onto my computer.  I'll do it soon enough.  I have class tonight, so I'll hopefully get around to it tomorrow.

All I can say is I'm worn out.  I got the 5th grade girls cabin.  Last year I had 4th grade.  Since 4th graders turn into 5th graders in a year, I had the same girls as last year except maybe 2 new ones.  I remember most of them being very sweet, spiritual, and eager to answer questions and read from the Bible.  I had only one girl who suffered from either ADD, bipolar disorder, or plain BAD.  She needs much prayer, but I hope that I was a shining light to her and an example of positive love.

Smyrna did a great job in getting Ty Rumble to do the music.  His dad is a Reformed Baptist pastor in town, and Ty himself is quite reformed, so his songs were full of Jesus and good theology.  For a camp theme mostly based on morals, God's mercy still showed.

Friday night's message was from Lisa Grizzel.  She focused on Matthew 7:12, the Golden Rule, especially the word "Do."  She gave reasons why we should treat others as we want to be treated, mostly because Jesus loves us all, we are created in his image, and we need to treat each other like we would treat him.  For cabin time afterward, the girls seemed to answer the questions before I asked them.  How can we treat others kindly?  Have you ever been treated kindly?  How did you feel? 

Saturday morning, we ate breakfast, then Keith Gray gave a brief devotional in the swimming pool which is one of his best illustrations yet.  He took a bottle named Bob.  Bob still had his lid on.  Bob joined a church and tried to dive into the water/Jesus, but he kept floating to the top.  Finally Bob opened up his heart/lid, letting the water/Jesus in, letting him float deeper.  While we're still alive, we won't be completely submerged, because sanctification -- the process of becoming more like Jesus -- is a lifelong process.

Saturday morning, I gave my talk.  I hope one of the other cabin leaders caught it on camera for me.  I gave him my camera to film me.

After that we did two messy games, one was Organized Mass Chaos, a game put out by LifeWay I believe, and the other was Willy Wonka's Messy Olympics.  We also had hours of swimming.

Then, Denise Martin gave a talk.  It was about being rude.  It was also about what we put into our heads.  It comes out as unclean words.  Her Scripture passage was the passage where Jesus declares that nothing going in makes you unclean but what comes out.  She gave a good illustration through a skit from some of the teenagers.  One kid was the dad and the other two were his kids who wanted to go to an R movie.  They thought it was alright because it only had a "little" cussing, a "little" violence.  Dad said no.  Then, while they were gone, he made brownies with only a "little" dog doo-doo.  The kids would not eat the brownies, even if it was from their dog, a dog they liked. 

The cabin discussion afterward sparked some good conversation.  They would ask questions about what was rude and what wasn't rude.  One girl said, "I don't know where rudeness comes from."  I explained that all sin comes from when Eve ate from a tree that God told her not to eat from.  They had so many questions, some I had trouble answering.  Is war rude?  It can be.  Sometimes it's completely okay because we're self-defending or because we're fighting against people who have taken other people's rights to live.  That was a huge discussion. 

Later on, we re-wrote a section of the Lord's prayer in our own words.  First I explained that rude is not necessarily a sin.  I can sit down and belch real loud.  It would be rude, but not a sin.  I shouldn't do it because it's also unattractive.  But real sin is when we do anything that God tells us not to do or don't do anything he wants us to do.  Then, since our section of the Prayer was "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," we had a huge discussion on heaven.  Hopefully they went away from that knowing that they won't be angels in heaven, that we'll see God, and that there will be no anger or killing in heaven, and that once we're there, we can't leave.  I also hope they realize that Justin Bieber may or may not be in heaven some day.

Finally, Amy Gray gave a talk.  She showed the clip from the old Willy Wonka movie where Charlie almost doesn't win because he and his grandpa drank from the Fizzy Lifting drink.  Charlie humbly gave up his Gobstopper, so Wonka gave him the factory.  She explained that Jesus also will forgive our sins if we give them up to him. 

Sunday came.  We held worship service with the parents and the rest of Smyrna Presbyterian Church, and we went home.  I could not remember what day it was though I knew it was Sunday.  And now I'm in a classroom at Clayton State feeling sunburned, arms achy, and feeling like it was one of our better camps.  God can move through anything.

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