summer camp

in 2007 i talked to our youth leaders about making one of our weekends away a week away and having a full five days with the kids in our care. no one really had the time, so i said i was going to do it in the summer and whichever leaders wanted to come could and whichever kids were free could attend. around the middle or the end of 2007 one of the youth group kids asked me if i was still going to do that. i kind of laughed and said "oh yeah, i should do something about that". somewhere between then and january 2008 a lot of things happened and melinda was co-directing with me, we'd booked a site, gotten out notes and fliers and promotional videos, booked a coach, brought a team together and a speaker and a cook and it was all real. completely unknown but real.

the 20th-25th of January 2008 was one of the most beautiful and blessed weeks of my life and the fruit of it is still being seen today as a number out of the forty kids who first attended (and even some of the leaders) would place summer camp 2008 as the point in which they really met Jesus.

and six months later i was leading the country for England. and it was possible that summer camp would never run again (it had faced serious opposition when we had proposed it and the idea of another one was even now being opposed).
but praise God, there has been a summer camp 'o9 and just these past few weeks a summer camp '1o has taken place. and it has grown from the original 40 kids to 80 this past summer.

and Melinda who was there with me on the ground floor was co-director again for summer camp '1o. since my heart's in it, she wrote to me about how camp had gone and i sat and read it tonight. for the first time in so many days i was dealing with really real things. it was so refreshing. and i said to her in response:

i was reading your chronology and it was so ... substantial. it was all this weight of things that matter and real things and big and tired and raw and earthy things. i was listening to a song and reading your account and it made me feel things so deeply.

i guess the things is - this is it.
i mean, this is real life. if we're dealing with real life, that's all there is.
there isn't more than real life. than deep reality and real issues.
there isn't more than people coming to see themselves and to see Jesus.
even when you were tired and it was all so hard and such a 'mess' it's all there is.
and it made me think what an amazing thing it is that these kids get to come away and just have the opportunity to be vulnerable and be cared for and see real love, God's love for a few days.

and that's true. and it was amazing to see life as life is, again, for a while.