Camp Life Continues

"Jesus is the Son of God?"  The camper turned to me, her eyes wide with incredulous interest.
"I did not know that."

This girl, like so many, is hungry for answers. Satisfying ones. They want to know about people and God and life and death and eternity, but some of them have never encountered a Bible before. The stories of history told therein are entirely new. Other children have had glimpses of Jesus here and there, unanchored fragments


A perfect footprint impression,
outlined in a puddle of residual bug spray

that rotate like loose pieces of a half-missing jigsaw puzzle. Gathering their pieces together, they ask:

"But can't you only be a Christian if you go to a Christian school? That's what my friends say."

"Don't people become angels when they die?"


"Why did God create bad guys?"

(Click "Read More" to Continue)



Cook-out Night

A collection of tinder for fire-building



I've discovered that letting the campers blindfold me
and paint my nails lends me some valuable down-time.
--Although the results are often striking!

When not answering these questions at Bible study or cabin devotions, I'm usually either moving through scheduled activities with my cabin or teaching a skill. Along with archery, I've been starting to teach "Wilderness," survival skills including fire-building, using flint and steel, shelter construction... Seeing as how I've long enjoyed spending my spare time reading survival manuals, I couldn't be happier with my new role. Supervising the use of knives, hatches, matches and other implements of destruction in the hands of eight-year-olds, however, is one of the more unnerving callings out there.



Speaking of callings, I'm becoming much more adept at performing magic tricks while presenting for an audience. I don't even give away my methods at the end of the act anymore! --Not often, at least. It's exciting to think back to the morning I stood petrified in my mud-stained sandals at the prospect of preaching to a group of Sunday School kids in Africa and see how far God has brought me. By the end of my time in Uganda He had me helping to lead hours of (often improvised!) kids ministry, but apparently He's not about to stop challenging me with those opportunities here either.


Kids ministry.


I would honestly have never seen it coming.