Well, it’s been far too long since I posted last, and I do apologize for that. Life’s been a little hectic, but I know that’s no excuse. There are 68 days left until training camp. Wow, that really isn’t that long. When I first got accepted into this program I was in shock for a little while and not really sure about doing this. But as time has gone on, I feel more and more at peace and a growing excitement about this. Now the word, “Africa” sends chills down my back and brings a big smile to my face. I’m having fun reading everyone’s blog and will hopefully get better at posting more regularly.
So, a couple weeks ago my church had Adventure Camp. We wanted to move away from the traditional VBS and try something new to connect to our community. We instead put on a day camp (well, half day, 8-12). I was a camp counselor for five eight year olds. I was really pumped going into the week. There wasn’t going to be regular games but instead things like a wacky olympics, an amazing race, and a huge maze made out of refrigerator boxes the kids got to crawl through. We also had something called “footpaths.” We would go on hikes and meet someone from my church who would be dressed up as a great Christian from history. We also had Bible studies and more. Our goal was to engage kids for the gospel and keep away from the babysitting that a lot of VBSs have become.
We hoped to have about 50 kids: 25 from our church and 25 from the community. We knew that was a lofty goal but we believed God would provide. In the end, we had 86 with only 30 from our church. We wanted to take more but we just couldn’t with transportation and volunteers. All of the kids in my group were from the community and I was really looking forward to getting to know them and telling them about the God I love. I love working with kids so I was pumped about serving in this way.
That was until the first day. Most of the volunteers went on and on about how good their kids were but my kids were, well, less than angels. They were disrespectful and not interested in doing anything productive. They wouldn’t sing, cheer, listen, or other things I asked. By the first day I had already had to make rules like, “You are only allowed to tackle your imaginary friend,” and “It is ok if you like the other leader better, but you still need to listen to what I’m saying.” Once I went home after Monday, I really didn’t want to go back. I knew I couldn’t face a week of that.
It was about this time that my friend who had a similar experience with his kids called me so we could encourage/pray with each other about the week. As we were praying and talking I remembered what a girl had said in Bible class this past year. She kept saying, “Love is a choice, not a feeling.” I thought about how Jesus felt the night before he died. He was in the garden sweating blood praying that God would provide another way. Of course I don’t know the mind of Christ, but it seems like he didn’t have that daisies in the field kind of feeling of love that people talk about at the moment. It seems like the love he had was a choice. That even though we were sinners and enemies of God, he chose to go through with it and show up and die. I think that that kind of love, the choice when there’s not the background music or perfect lighting or any kind of warm and fuzzies, is one of the greatest kinds of love. I decided that with God’s help, and I would need a lot of help, I was going to choose to love my kids even though I didn’t have the feeling of love for them. I decided to show up the next day and keep pouring myself into them. I prayed for them each the best I knew how after only knowing them for one day and prayed for the week.
And of course, God is faithful as he always is. It never got really easy and my kids didn’t all of a sudden turn into obedient, well behaved children, but God continued to give me strength to choose to love them with my actions. And by his mercy and grace, by the end of the week He gave me the feeling of love for them.
Overall I think the week of Adventure Camp was a success. The kids heard the gospel in a fun yet clear way, had a blast playing games, and the leaders were all challenged in some way or an other. Even though I didn’t want to go back after day one, I am now really looking forward to next year and hope my campers will be back.
Wow, thats awesome! God is good and has a purpose, even when we cant quite see the whole picture. Sounds like you have a cool friend too!
Hey! Good to hear from you again. I suppose I can forgive your lack of blogs since this one was a nicely written and long one.
It really does sound like God’s been working in your life in a big way recently. I totally get how you felt after that bad first day. I’ll often get into a situation with expectations and have them totally destroyed. I’ll want to give up but I need only look as far as Jesus and what He did. He’ll never give up, no matter how stupid we are and we should do the same for others.
Anyway, that was an awesome bit of blogging and I hope to be reading more from you in the future.
God bless ya!
Yeah Aaron, I’m glad you didn’t have to kill me too. It was partly out of respect for the hard work you and Jennifer Ross put into Adventure Camp that made me come back for day two.
And thanks Luke for the encouragement to post again.
So, Colton must be that “friend” if he is talking about how great that “friend” is.
Excellent post Michelle. Great observations about love and the parallel to Jesus’ obedience to submit to the will of the Father by His choice to obey, even though the feelings of suffering and isolation were great. I’m glad you came back to camp the next day. It would have been bad for me to kill you before you get to fulfill your dream of going to Africa.
If you don’t come back to the USA I will have to kill you because I miss you and I’m glad that you have been fufilling your dream but if you dont come back soon I will kill you. After you come back to the USA you can go back to africa where i will snipe you. J/K