Encouragement From A Counselor

As we are in full swing of recruiting season for summer 2015 our best counselors are our returning staff. Trust us our summers are not the same without a good returning staff to camp. So read this encouragement from Nii about what its like to be a returning counselor and consider filling out your application to come back. 

Thus says the Lord:

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.     -Jeremiah 17:5-8

If there’s anything camp has taught me, it’s that this passage is 100% true.

Camp comes easy to me in a lot of ways. I love being active; I love having fun; I looooooove talking about the Lord. Camp is also very difficult for me in a lot of ways. I’m not (by nature) the type to create intentional conversation with people; I like to work by myself, rather than with a team; I get very, very, very cranky when I don’t get all the sleep I want.

My first year at camp, I tried to get by on my own ability. My first day off was four days into 4^th session. I drove home, walked into my house, and the first thing I told my parents was, “I can’t do this.” Talk about a humbling moment.

My parents knocked some sense into me, and after my panic attack ended, they convinced me to go back the next day. Despite the slight twinge of embarrassment I still feel when I think about that day, I’m very thankful for it. I learned very quickly that I am limited, but God is limitless. I stopped trying to be the best counselor I could be and started trying to be the counselor God wanted me to be. That was one of the most fruitful changes I’ve ever made in my life.

In my three years at CWE, I’ve had the opportunity to share Christ with kids who have never heard the gospel. I’ve prayed with kids to accept Christ, and I’ve gotten to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives as they’ve come back each year. I’ve made incredible, lifelong friendships with other counselors. I learned how to shoot a gun, shoot a bow, climb a rock wall, hold a snake, build a fire, ride a shark, build a rocket, airbrush a t-shirt, catch a fish (and a pig), and so much more. 

My point is, camp is special, and it only gets sweeter with age. I never thought I’d experience anything better than Year 1…until Year 2. And surely Year 2 was as good as it could get…but Year 3 kicked its tail. You just can’t get the full camp experience in one year. Heck, you can’t even do it in three. Every year means new campers and staff, new challenges and opportunities, and another chance to go to battle for your tribe and for the Lord. So come back to camp. And for your own sake, bring your friends with you. Nothing’s more frustrating than telling your friends about Mish Mash and them confusing it with mashed potatoes; trust me, I know from experience. The CWE experience is too big for me, or you, or even for all of us. It’s like God’s love; the more we share it, the bigger and better it gets. So spread the word. And remember, “It’s not goodbye. It’s see ya later.”

In Christ (and go Osage),

Nii Abrahams

Here I Am Send Me

Over the past month Darrick and I have been studying the life of Moses with a bible study that we are both a part of.   It has been…..well a lot of things to say the least.  Challenging, Encouraging, and Convicting are the 3 words that I will focus on though and here is why. 

Challenging:  I am challenged to really take a hard and prayerful look at my/our life to see where God might want to “send me/us.”  I say me/us because well, I have more factors to consider than just me, as did Moses.  After he fled Egypt, he had a family (wife and sons and maybe daughters too) in Midian where he lived for 40 years before God “called” him to go back to Egypt to rescue the Israelites.  You see, I feel like for really the last 4 years or so, I have been living in what I would call “survivor mode” as we have either been pregnant or had an infant to care for.  Now that our fun filled Dez is nearing 2 years old and our sweet Addy is almost 4, we are starting to once again feel a bit more “normal”…or at least as normal as you can be with 2 young ones.  We are getting to a place where we feel like we can serve more and be involved with more as a family now, which is exciting.  Darrick and I have similar passions as far as where we desire or feel equipped to serve (however we also know that he might ask us to do something that we don’t desire or feel equipped for) and we are excited to see the direction that God will take us.   I know that God calls us to first and foremost shepherd our little ones that we have under our roof and that will always be our top priority, but I also know that he calls us to step outside of that when we are able to serve others—and we are to that point.  God is telling us it’s time.    He is reinforcing that through this study of Moses for both of us.  

Convicting:  I used the word convicting because…well…even though I am challenged to see where God wants us, I also see lots and lots of selfishness in my heart as we pray for guidance as to where God would have us.  You see, I don’t want to “rock the boat” per say in our life that has started to become a bit more “normal.”  I am finally “comfortable.”  As you study Moses’ life in Exodus, you see a man who God had been preparing his whole life for the task that Moses was set out to do.  I know that God has been preparing me my whole life as well to do great things for his glory, but it is convicting on how many times “I” get in the way of that due to my sin or my selfishness or my turning away from God’s direction.  And while God had prepared Moses for a very long time, you see a long list of “excuses” that Moses gives God in Exodus 3 and 4.  (Go check it out).   I also see myself giving many “excuses” as to why this opportunity is not right or how I am not “equipped.” 

Encouraging:  While the words challenging and convicting have been lingering in my brain, more than either of those words comes the word “Encouraging.”  Why?  Well, you see Moses had been challenged and Moses had been convicted and Moses had given lots of excuses to God as to why “he was not the one for the job” but through all those excuses and questions, God repeatedly promised to be “with Moses”.  God is with our family as we make these decisions.  God will equip us to do the work he is asking us to do.  God will give us the time we need to do them.  God will teach us as we serve.  God will mold us as we serve.  God is our source in all we do!   God is a God of encouragement and support.  He does not desire for us to “do this life” alone.  (I know that many of us try to do that often) but he desires more than that for all of us!!!  So in the end I am encouraged to know and truly believe that God will help us serve and God will get the glory in the end and as a result of all of that our family will continue to be blessed as it always is, regardless of the situation or how hard something might be. 

What about you? 

Where is God challenging you to serve or help?  How does that challenge convict you?  Do you believe that God can not only support you in that challenge, but guide you every step of the way?   Maybe it is stepping up in leadership in a campus ministry or in your church or in your dorm.  Maybe it is serving families or other that you see in need.

As you ask these questions to yourself, I challenge you to really be open to the idea that a God centered and directed life will always be the best way.  It might not always be the easiest, but it will always be the best.  We would love to know how we can be praying for you all in your decisions and your paths! 

For many of you it might mean (and we hope it’s many) considering if God would send you back to CWE for another summer even if that maybe doesn’t always make sense for you in every respect.   We of course would love for God to send you back to us!!  God of course can use you greatly there with our kids!  For others it might mean that, sadly the Lord is directing you elsewhere.  And while that of course is sad for us, it is great for whoever else you will be serving.

Where we serve is not really the point.  The point is that we listen to God’s call for us and that call is for us to 1) Know Him and 2) To make Him known. 

While we all at some point will respond like Moses with lots of excuses, I hope that we can come to a point where we respond more openly.  Even if we don’t, God will still use us as he did Moses.  But….here is my prayer for all of us as we respond to God’s call.  May we respond to God like the Prophet Isaiah did below.   

Isaiah 6:8  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Love you all!!  Leslie 

Mentoring Program Wants You!!!

This last year, I thought to myself, “Hey Ryan, maybe you should try the CWE mentoring program.  That might be a little bit cool.” Maybe you have thought something similar.  If that is your thought YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT THE MENTORING PROGAM.  Seriously,  I think it is one of the coolest things that camp does.  You are also in luck because, they need mentors!  That’s right, you could start the process of becoming a Mentor right now.  Do it.

This year, having been a mentor, I’ve gotten to see what an awesome ministry it is.  The biggest and coolest thing I think the Mentoring program offers our kids is CONSISTENCY.  The reality of Camp is that it only comes around for our campers once a year.  What so many of our camper lack though is a consistent positive voice in their life.  Someone to consistently encourage them with their school work.  Someone to consistently point them toward Christ.  Someone to consistently have fun with them.  Someone to consistently be there.  Just one hour a week can mean a ton to these campers.  

My mentee is a senior at RHS named Victor.  He came to Camp War Eagle as a camper for a couple summers and still talks about how his counselors Jordan Lagree and Kolby Thomas changed his life.  This past summer, we talked and he said the one thing he wished that he had was something that could help him in his walk with Christ throughout the year.  And thus, we started the mentoring program.  We hang out for an hour a week and talk about life or study the Bible or learn how to kick a soccer ball without looking like a fool.  (He is the one teaching me the last one.)  

At any age, elementary school, middle school, high school, kids need someone consistent in their lives.  Maybe it’s you.

Our Mentoring Directors have done a great job setting everything up to help the program be a success.  All you need to do is make yourself available.  I wish I’d done it sooner.  If you are interested in checking it out, contact Whitney Charles (whitney@campwareagle.org) to learn more.  

Ryan

A Little Bit On Idolatry

Friday Morning Coffee

I was sitting in a living room with a few other Camp War Eagle women, coffee in hand, some cinnamon rolls in our bellies, and our bibles open to Genesis. “The Beginning.” We took a look into the start of creation and the start of life for Adam and Eve. We came expecting to learn from the Lord, but I left that living room really thinking of ways to relate to that Old Testament passage. I hope you can find a way to relate as well.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) Man! that is a lot to praise Him for in one verse, and as chapter one and two continue you see the great power and attention to detail of the God we “try” to love and serve.

Now, we enter chapter three: The Fall.

Satan enters the picture and does his best to distract and tempt Eve. He asks her what God really commanded her not to do. She answers, adding a little bit to God’s command. Satan tempts her with his lies. And here is the part that really struck me starting in verse 6,

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Here is where I know sin enters the world, and I think the sin is idolatry.

She has taken something the Lord has created and made it her desire over Him. And what it can do for her.

I see three different parts of the scripture that to me resonate with her possible thought processes:

1.     She saw “the fruit of the tree was good for food” which is a true statement about the thing she desires.

2.     She saw it was “pleasing to the eye” and something that looks good, like all the other things the Lord has made.

3.     She thought it was “desirable for gaining wisdom.” She saw something in it that would give her something she wanted and thought she should have.

How guilty are we of ignoring God’s commandments, because we think we know what is best and it “looks good” so why not? It looks okay and the Lord created it, so how could it be bad?

But if that thing becomes more important than the One who created it.

That’s idolatry.

Here is an excerpt from Matt Chandler’s The Explicit Gospel on pride and idolatry:

“ The point is that if we are going to orient around anything less than God—even things that look happy and shiny and pretty, even things that God himself gives us to enjoy—or slip in even a moment’s worship of something other than God, we are declaring our preference for the absence of God. This is called pride, and even a sliver of it deserves its end result: the place where God isn’t. And let’s be honest: nobody has just a sliver of pride.”

So what do we do now?

We praise the Lord that His story doesn’t end there. That is only the beginning.

What happens next is the best part!

Christ has come, redeemed, and will come again!

We can “try” all we want to love and serve the Lord. But we need Him. We cannot conquer sin or death alone and we cannot desire Him above all other things alone. He is the one who Genesis states, “will crush [Satan’s] head” and who already has!!

Let us praise the Lord for His overwhelming love and grace that He would offer us righteousness in His son’s death and resurrection, even when we choose things above Him.

"Lord, I Need You"

Lord, I come, I confess

Bowing here I find my rest

Without You I fall apart

You're the One that guides my heart

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You

Every hour I need You

My one defense, my righteousness

Oh God, how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more

Where grace is found is where You are

And where You are, Lord, I am free

Holiness is Christ in me

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You

Every hour I need You

My one defense, my righteousness

Shelby