Day One

Day one at work camp was awesome! The day began at 6:30am with our wake up call. Then we have 1/2 hour of devotions and quiet time. During this time I read Thesolonians 3 and was somewhat troubled by verse 6, 'keep away from any brother who is living in idleness'. As Christians aren't we supposed to try to help others? That's what we are doing here this week, everyone we serve may not be Christian, we are here to try to spread the Good News and bring some of our Faith to the residents.

After breakfast we listened to the speaker who is here for the week. He talked to the kids about evangelism and how they could share their faith with others. Then they sent us on our way.

As a crew we met on Sunday and got to know each other a little. One kid, Seth, said Hi I'm Seth and I'm your Check in Cheif (each teen has a specific job they are responsible for on the crew). So my first impression of this kid is that he is a little pushy and full of himself. As we talked about the job he had an attitude like he knew exactly what to do, more like he was in charge. So I was a little skeptical about how this would all work out.

When we got to our house we met our resident. She is an older women, living alone, with a daughter and grandson in the area. She loves to talk as she lives alone and had my ear for about 1/2 hour. She is having some real financial difficulties and is pretty depressed.

At lunchtime we do devotions and Mary joined us. We read from Isiah 43 v 18-21. This passage talks about letting the past go and looking toward the future and what God has in store for us. Mary started talking about her problems and shared some of her history with us. She lost a few people really close to her from cancer. Seth speaks up and tells her not to worry God will provide all that she needs she just needs to trust and pray about it. Another teen says that she should also pray for her tenants who are unable to pay their rent which is causing a lot of her financial problems. Mary is negative about this and does not think this will help. Seth is persistent and shares his story with us all. He was heavy into drugs and drinking, just going down the wrong path. He says that God spoke to him through some people who are close to him. He told us that God provided the strength he needed to stop the wrong behavior and leave the friends who were following the wrong path. He was very persistent with Mary and strongly believes that God will provide for you.

This just blew me away. This kid who I thought was full of himself was really full of Faith. He freely shared his struggles with perfect strangers and testified that he had found Jesus and that is what saved him. Seth is 17 years old.

This is when the verse from Thessolonians struck me. Seth had no choice but to turn away from the friends who were going down the wrong road. He had strength from God to do this and he was convinced of this. I find it truly amazing how our readings do find meaning in our everyday life, you just never know where or when it will happen. Matthew told me that I would be blown away by these kids and he was absolutly right. The teens here are amazing, including our own!

We just finished up our evening program and the speaker talked tonight about sin and how easy is it to do the wrong thing but alot harder to do the right. After he spoke we had some worship time with the band, during this time Seth came down from the bleachers and knelt in front and broke down. This was a very moving experience.

And this is only DAY ONE!!!!