August 2009

It seems to me that I should be far more tired than I am right now. Perhaps my fatigue hasn't set in yet. Or, perhaps the Lord has given me the rest I've needed through means other than sleep. I'm thinking its the latter.

The short version:

1. Camp with the High School students at Covenant College

2. Camp with the Middle School students at Camp Kulaqua

3. Missions Trip with the High School students to Cherokee, NC

And the long...

1. From July 10-15, Hana, Noah and I were up on top of Lookout Mountain in Georgia (right near Chattanooga, TN) at Camp ELEVATE with the High School students from our church. We took a group of about 20. The speaker this year was an RUF campus minister named Brent. He spoke about idolatry. It was the best teaching we've had in three years of attending camp Elevate. Brent explained that idolatry is loving, trusting in, and/or depending on something or someone more than God. He asked a series of about 12 questions, such as:

a) What are you most passionate about?

b) What do you fear the most?

c) What is the most important thing in your life?

d) What thing, if you lost it, would you be totally lost without it?

e) What satisfies you the most?

Then he dropped the bomb. He said, "If you answered anything other than 'God' to any of these questions, you have idols that you are worshiping." The students were numb. So many of them realized that they had been looking to many things other than God for satisfaction, security, and joy. Sports, academics, relationships... among other things, made the list of idols from our group. Tears fell as we remembered the power of the gospel and rejoiced in God's mercy in Christ. We were amazed at how the Lord worked in their hearts as they made commitments to break free from their idols by putting all of their trust in God. The leaders and I realized we had been bowing down to some idols too. It was a very powerful week and I believe lives were changed. I know mine was.

2. From July 20-24, I was in High Springs, FL at Camp Kulaqua with the Middle School kids. Hana and Noah came half way through the week (they didn't have proper housing for a baby there). It was wild! I had never been to Kulaqua and did not know what to expect. We arrived and I learned that the camp had: a water park (with a wave pool, lazy river, and water slide), a gym, go carts, horse back riding, a zoo (yeah, a zoo), and a spring where kids could swim and launch each other from the blob. I was profoundly impressed.

It was a great week, and I was really able to bond with the Middle School kids. The speaker did a great job. He taught about the four main parts of the the Biblical story: Creation, Fall, Cross and the Fulfillment. The kids were impacted by the teaching about the Fulfillment. They had not thought very much about the New Heavens and New Earth. They rejoiced as they tried to imagine a world without sin and evil. It's hard to

even begin to imagine, isn't it?

I'm looking forward to returning to Kulaqua next year. I just hope they don't have the two camps so close in dates again.

3. On July 30th Hana, Noah and I left with 11 High School students, Amy (one of my invaluable volunteers) and Jack (Hana's brother), for Cherokee, NC. We were returning once again to the Cherokee Indian reservation there to minister to the Cherokee people. We had a great time! We worked with people at a Senior Center in the mornings and in the afternoons we worked with kids at a youth center and we also cleaned up a few cemeteries. There are many small family cemeteries on the reservation and, as a way to show the love of Christ to the Cherokee, we cleared the brush and overgrowth away from the graves so that you could actually see that it was a cemetery. It was an experience.

In one small cemetery (two graves) we built a platform for a headstone that kept falling over. The deceased man's son was in a wheelchair and unable to make a way for his father's headstone to remain upright. It made him sad to see it laying on the ground all the time. So, we dug a hole and dropped in two cinderblocks, cut a platform, poured cement, and dropped the headstone in about three inches into the cement platform. It won't fall over ever again.

It seemed like a pretty simple task. There were more of us there than it took to do the work. We wondered why God wanted us to do it. Then, after we'd been there for about an hour, a woman walked up the hill and asked what we were doing. We explained it to her and she said she was relieved. She thought we were grave robbers! Her name was Enci and she explained to me that it was her grandfather's headstone that we were fixing. The other grave in the cemetery was that of her husband, who died in a motorcycle accident.

She explained to me that her daughter was on meth and few other drugs. She rarely came home. When she did, she slept most of the time. She was very concerned for her daughter. I asked her if she was a member of a local church, and she said she was not part of a church. We talked to her about the gospel and about the power of Jesus. We gave her a book that told the story of the life of Christ (using Scripture). We encouraged her to turn everything over to Him and trust Him to save her daughter. Then she said something shocking. She said, "My husband died 7 years ago today." We looked on the headstone and noticed that it was, indeed, 7 years to the day since the man had died. I told her that I was excited for what the Lord might do in her life and the life of her daughter. I told her that I didn't think it was a coincidence that we happened to be up there that day - exactly 7 years after the event that had caused the pain in her daughter's life - the pain that drover her to drugs.

I didn't tell her this, but there was another reason I was excited for what the Lord was going to do for them. As we left Orlando in two vans, we chose code names for each van to be used with our walkie talkies. My van, which was silver, was called the "silver squirrel." Amy's van, which was white, was called the "white fox." 500 miles and a few days later we were standing in a cemetery sharing the love and power of Christ to a woman who desperately needed it. The cemetery was located at the end of a long driveway. The street at the end of the driveway was, and I'm not kidding, "Fox Squirrel Branch." (on the reservation, 'Branch' is like 'road.')

In fact, we were just a few feet from the corner of Fox Squirrel Branch and Warpath Rd. I knew in my heart that God had sent us on the Warpath, to bring light to this woman whose life was in darkness. I believe God is going to do something great in her life and her daughter's life. When we ask for signs, God generally doesn't provide them. He's really into that "faith" thing. But, that doesn't mean that God doesn't give us signs. Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power and love. Our God is an awesome God.

That's all for now. I have a BUSY few weeks ahead of me. I have to finish two online classes for seminary. I have to get things planned for the fall for both the Middle School ministry and the High School ministry. And, most importantly, I need to be a husband and father. The Lord is good and He always provides for us. I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is to have things always work out. It's not luck. It's not just good fortune. It's a loving and graceful God's providence. Let us know how we can be praying for you!

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor. 5:21

For the Nations,

MJR