WEEK 3: CAMP MORROW; WAMIC, OR

I can't believe we just finished our 3rd week of camp!! God continues to be faithful and to give me strength and to teach me through everything that happens. I had a group of 8 girls this last week- as well as a co-cabin leader (she was a really sweet girl!). I was struggling on the first day of camp, once again, because I felt like my heart wasn't there. Darrin and I talked about it, and how important and essential it is to have a heart that is present. A heart that is there. But, my heart wasn't, at all. I was tired and worn out- and honestly, I just didn't want to be there. I desired to have a heart that was present- but I didn't know how to make it so it was. As I took this before the Lord though, it was so neat, because I got to see him make my heart present. As I desired and longed to be more like Him, to serve and please Him, to have a heart that was right, I got to see him work and change my heart and change me granting me what I had prayed for- because it was aligned with what he wanted for me. I got to see God give me strength when I had none. Make me awake and alert, when I had barely gotten any sleep. As I prayed for love and compassion for my girls, I got to see Him fill me with love and compassion for them. As I prayed for divine appointments/opportunities to hang out with my girls alone to talk with them and listen to them - I saw God set up those times for almost every one of my girls, where I got to talk, and pray and listen as they poured out their lives and where they were at to me. As I prayed for words and calmness leading cabin devotions I saw God calm my mind and speak through me and make my girls open and ready to discuss and share. I heard when the Spirit would whisper or prompt me to go talk to a certain girl..and even when I didn't understand why, but I obeyed anyway...I got to see how God knows what the girls need, and if I obey he will bring me to them at the right time right when they need to talk and need someone to listen. It was really really neat.
Having Darrin, the speaker from last weeks camp, be at this camp as well, was a huge blessing. He was such an encouragement to our team. He was intentional to encourage us, to check up on us to see how we were individually doing, and to pray for us. God really spoke through him, once again, during chapel sessions- the kids loved him, as did we. But even more than his ability to make us all laugh or his great teaching during chapel- was the way he represented Jesus. He represented Jesus well. He loved well.
It was really hard to say goodbye to Him at the end of th week. We are going to get to stop by his house near the end of our summer for a day or two and hang out with him and his family, which we are all really excited about. I am excited to meet his wife, who he is so in love with, and his children which he talks so highly about. It will be good.
My girls this week were neat girls, but girls who had really really rough lives. It was heart breaking. Constantly. What they had been through was mind boggling. Horrible, horrible things that no one should have to go through. My heart felt pained and broken for them because of their pasts, because of what they were going through now, and most of all, because many of them don't know what it means to walk through life with God. They don't have a relationship with the Lord, and so they walk through all lifes crud on their own. Dealing with the pain any way they can.
I was constantly in prayer for them this week that God would get ahold of their hearts. That he would soften their hearts and draw them to himself. I never saw any huge change in their lives- but I left knowing that I had to trust God with them. Trust that he wasn't done working in their lives and trusting that he loves them more than I do. It was hard though.

It was a good week, but it was a hard one. God continually showed me his faithfulness and his love for me. I continually saw Him working in my life, teaching me, changing me, showing me that I need to drop my agenda and pick up His. Showing me that it is good, and Christ-like to bear my girls burdens, and to have a heart that is broken for them, reminding me to always be real and honest and not make anything professional. Seeing Darrin and the kind of dad and husband he was and the way he represented the Lord was really neat, but also made me cry on more than one occasion out of longing to have a dad like that. It made a longing and pain come alive that I have suppressed for awhile.