Transition.

So, here I am sitting in my new room at Adventure Camp by myself. My stuff is scattered all around me on the floor because as of yet I have no shelves or drawers. Yesterday I said goodbye to most of my friends and today I said goodbye to the rest of them. They all got in their cars and drove away while I walked around the lake to my new home.

I don’t really even know what I feel right now.

Sad mostly.

 Not lonely or lost or bitter but just sad.

But in the midst of that sadness I feel joy too and I feel the solidity of Who I’m standing on.

God blessed me with a time of great community and now this week while my Outdoor Ed team is still on their way, in this week of aloneness He will draw me away and love me like this.

I choose to put my hope in God and trust in nothing less than the hands that hold me.

I will find my joy in God alone and I know He will provide for me and uplift me, He will not allow me to fall.

There is a verse in Psalm 130 that says, “I will wait upon the Lord. I will wait upon the Lord and put my hope in His word. I will wait upon the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

This is the cry of my heart this week... I will wait upon You Lord, for You to fill me. I will not turn to anything else. I will stand firm upon the promises of God and nothing else.

I’m learning that I can be sad and joyful in the same moment. To grieve and rejoice in the same breath.

Ordinary, Everyday Miracles

While I’ve been here at camp I’ve witnessed so many miracles, mainly because the community here expects them. To pray for healing and have it happen is not something big that we all write books about afterward... it’s something that as children of God, we expect to happen.  When they pray for rain, they expect it to happen and plan the programme around it, even if it hasn’t rained in weeks. They pray with authority, believing truly that when we ask in the name of Jesus that it will be done.

At first, this was unusual and I would stand at the edges and watch, unsure about how to join in and speak with the same authority... but over time, I came to love this way of praying and of faith and I’m learning to pray and speak words over people with the authority that we have been given as children of God, children of the kingdom from whom He withholds no good gifts.

I want to share with you just a few of the things I’ve witnessed while being here... I could write all day about this, but I will just say a few.

There was an LIT (Leader in Training) here in third session who has a bad knee, it had been injured for a long time and recently she had dislocated it again. She came into the kitchen, barely able to stand up, crying from the pain of it... Anne the staff prayer lady was in the kitchen and she put her hands on her knee and prayed. Patella (that’s her camp name, I’m not really sure of her real name!) began to weep and said that it was feeling a bit better, then she stood up, took off the bandage and began running and dancing across the dining hall! Amen.

There were a few girls over the summer who suffered from insomnia and after staff prayed over them and over their chalets, they slept the full night through, some of them for the first time in years.

This summer began as a very dry one (actually the biggest drought in North America in 800 years!)

And everything was hot and we had a fire ban for a large part of the summer because the fire risk was just too high...In third session the staff team felt that the theme of this session was water, of a big wave that would crash over this place, that it would rain and when it did, breakthrough amongst the girls would also happen, that chains would be broken and people would be set free. So we began to pray for rain like never before... everyday calling it down from heaven and thanking Him for what it would do when it came... On the Thursday I was part of a drama during bible study, I always feel some heaviness when it comes to doing this drama and today I felt that too, but also an expecting that today something would be different...so we performed and afterward I walked out of the dining hall and raised my eyes and hands up... and the heavens opened! A downpour like there hadn’t been in months opened up over girls’ camp, a solid wall of water coming down! So instead of finishing bible study like normal, most of camp ran outside and played in the rain, dancing and singing worship songs, lying down underneath it all.

Half way through the summer I rolled my ankle during a wide game and I was in a lot of pain from it. While I was hobbling back up the hill to my chalet, I came across Becca and some campers coming the other way. They stopped me and asked if they could pray for it, then they knelt down in the middle of the path and prayed for healing in the name of Jesus then continued down to dinner. I continued walking and it was still hurting. Then I felt in my spirit, His quiet whisper telling me to take off the bandage... I was confused because it was still so sore, but I stopped and took it off anyway. I stood there for a minute waiting and it was hurting so I was about to put it back on but I felt His voice again saying “Walk.” So I did. And the second I took the first step all the pain disappeared, the swelling went down and my ankle was totally normal! Hallelujah!

Those are some of the bigger things, but also everyday there were little miracles...

Girls being freed to dance during worship when before they have never been able to.

Girls understanding for the first time that they do have value and they are loved.

Girls who felt safe enough to tell secrets they had kept in the darkness for a long time and because they spoke up they were able to get help and begin healing.

Girls who were so shy when they came to camp, but left feeling so much more confident and sure of themselves.

We serve a God who loves to give good and wonderful things to His kids when they ask Him...

“Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.”

He is so faithful.

Laura, Amber,me and Avery

“My God, you are faithful and you will provide for me this summer, people to love deeply and who will love me also. I trust you.  Please bring people to camp this summer that I can form intentional God honouring relationships with... people I can laugh with and cry with and grow with.”

This was my prayer at the beginning of summer, going into a place which I knew no one and no one knew me. This was unusual and I was used to having a solid community already set up at camp to walk into each holidays, but suddenly I didn’t have anything.  I was the new kid.

And friends, I cannot even begin to describe to you how faithful He has been in answering this prayer and the reason that I grieve and am sad to have come to the end of summer is solely because of the women He has placed in my life these past few months.

I was part of a community that built eachother up daily with words and notes and hugs, a community that prayed together even while walking along the paths to meals or going to the bathroom, a community that was so aware that we could never do it on our own but needed the power of God and the support of eachother. I have been so blessed by them.

I want to share with you, a little but about some of the people I spent the most time with and loved the most deeply, because they have been such an important and central part of my life these past months.

Becca (Camp name Frazzle) was my section head, so she lived in the section and would support the staff and organise section times and events during the session. Becca lives in the Spirit of God in a way so beautiful that I haven’t seen very much before...she loves Jesus so deeply and it’s so evident in her life.  She has a passion for dancing and dances before God during worship in such freedom and watching her allowed me to step into the same freedom like never before. She is intentional about asking questions and listening and quick to give hugs and words of truth. Whenever I hit a wall and was convinced I couldn’t continue to love these girls well, let alone do this for another 6 weeks, she would let me cry then tell me truth that I needed to hear and then send me out again. I am so grateful for her friendship this summer!

Amber (Camp name Rukkus) is one of my closest friends this summer... she is 17 but has a wisdom and passion for God greater than I’ve seen in Christians a lot older than her.  She has an annoying ability to make me laugh even when all I want is to cry and be grumpy and sulk about things, but also has the wisdom to let me be sad when it was needed. The Pioneer girls were naturally drawn to her and I loved watching how they would enjoy being in her chalet so much. Amber has such freedom and such a childlike spirit which I have been so blessed by.

Chloe (Camp name Cadet) has taught me so much this summer. Wow. Sometimes when we talked about grace and about the cross she would begin to weep because she has such a deep understanding of it and of how much she needs grace, but at the same time she is so hungry to know more and understand it more...when she speaks of grace like she does, it makes me want to love Jesus more than I ever have. Chloe taught me how beautiful it is to be broken and unashamed of it, to cry and be okay about it. She taught me what it looks like to be so honest, both before God and before people. She’s just 16, but again, has such a hunger and wisdom so far beyond many people in their twenties.

Avery (Camp name Take-out) was such a blessing to me in so many ways. Almost all summer we played the question game whenever we had a few minutes together. For those who are unfamiliar, this is simply a game that you ask questions of eachother to get to know someone on a really deep level. This became such a joy to play with Avery and I loved to know someone so well and be known so well. She loves hugs and would always hug me when I saw her, which for me was so special because I also receive love well in the form of a hug! She has a gentle and kind heart which, in the craziness and pace of camp was so refreshing.

There are so many other people that I could write a lot about but for now, these people are enough. I love them deeply and miss them a lot already. I’m counting on Canadian public transport not being too expensive so that I can visit in the next few months, as all of them live several hours away.

God thank You for Your faithfulness and the way that You have loved me so tangibly through these women.

The Summer Being Zeal.

So to set the scene for the following posts, I thought I would describe a bit of what camp life in general looks like, since it’s such a different world to the rest of the year.

Firstly, Pioneer uses camp names for all their staff... like a nick name but usually from something stupid or funny they did or something about their personality or history...the campers call them by this name, and usually real names are a bit of a secret that the staff will share at the end of camp with their girls.

For the past two months my name has been Zeal. Partly because I am from NZ and also because zeal means passionate and that is something that I want to see in my own life.

Camp names can’t be chosen by you, you have to be given it, and at first I never thought I would get used to it, I just wanted to use my real name... But over the weeks, I came to love it and now it’s completely natural for me to answer to that.

I think that I assumed that since we were there for so long, the pace of camp would be slightly less than it is at home, but I was wrong...we went to bed at 11 and got up at 6 the next morning almost every day and never stopped moving between getting up and going to bed...brutal. But over time your body gets used to it and because you know it wont be forever, somehow this becomes possible.

During the days I would teach activities that I had been trained in during pre camp, which was great because I got to interact with a lot of different camper other than my own. For most of the summer this meant going on a bus and teaching horsemanship for most of the day, but I also did wilderness, first aid and crafts for a while, which was a nice break.

There is a team of 5 people solely dedicated to programme, so for each session they had a different theme which they would centre games, skits, decorations, trips etc around...honestly some of the funniest people at camp and they always created such a fun, joyful community through it. From watching them I have been given a lot of ideas which I will take home and hopefully be able to see some of this come to life back at Teapot Valley too.

Every day we would have worship and bible study in the morning which was always one of my favourite parts of the day. The worship was more alive in that dining hall than I have seen in many churches...girls dancing and singing and lifting their hands or on their knees...so beautiful. We also had time each day in our chalets to do devos together... a time where we would discuss things in the bible and how it looks like in our lives. Sometimes this went better than other times, but the majority of the girls were hungry to know more and wanted to have more of Jesus in their lives back home which I loved seeing.

All summer I lived in the Pioneer section, which is the 15/16 year old girls and I am so incredibly grateful for this! Firstly, because that age group is so on the edge of discovering who they are and what they want their life to look like so they are usually so engaged and want to talk about things a lot. But also because living with the same staff for two months allowed me to be part of such a tight small community and they made my time at camp so rich.

There is no way I can sum up everything that went on, but hopefully that is a tiny glimpse of the crazy wonder I threw myself into.

Pilgrimage

Blessed are those whose strength is the Lord, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. Even when they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. Even the autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. They will go from strength to strength and each of them will appear before God.
Psalm 84

These past two months working at Girls Camp have been a pilgrimage, but through so many different landscapes...I have walked through the Valley of Weeping, as I sat with girls whose stories broke my heart, as I faced another session not knowing if I had anything left in me or as I said goodbye to friends that have become so close to me over the months we lived together. I have walked on the Mountain Tops of Praise, as I danced and leapt during worship, as I laughed so hard with the girls who were living in my chalet, as I saw girls leave camp having been transformed by Jesus. I’ve walked paths that always looked the same and that didn’t seem to have a point, I’ve walked narrow cliff paths that I wasn’t sure if I would make it round and I’ve danced across the open prairies, my heart feeling like it couldn’t be contained in my body...

But now this part of the pilgrimage has come to an end and I’m standing looking back on everywhere we’ve walked, sometimes together, sometimes alone but always with the Spirit of God alongside and I rejoice even in the same moment that I grieve having come to the end of the path.

God has been so incredibly faithful to me and I have seen His Kingdom come in power to this place and saw lives transformed, including mine.  Some parts of me don’t even want to try and describe or record what happened this summer because I know you will not be able to understand it the same way I have, I simply can’t articulate it well enough. But I also know there are people who have been thinking of me and praying for me and loving me while I have been here so for you, I want to try and share some things about this summer.... But it will have to be in a few different posts because there is no way I could put it all into one. May my words somehow express my heart about this journey.