DEEPER!

I have returned!

"Deeper" (that's the name of the camp I was just on) was incredible! We had a lot of fun and God really moved in pretty big ways. Let me share a bit....We took 10 kids (6 boys & 4 girls), 4 staff, and one bronze medallion (an aussie lifeguard) about five hours north into the Atherton tablelands which are mainly rolling green hills filled with dairy farms and reminding me a lot of Switzerland. We stayed at a huge dairy farm in which a big section has been turned into a camp for kids. There was a large pond with a 50 foot slide and two diving boards, covered wagons that were our "cabins," a good size lake for canoeing, and a nice cooking hall. Evey day we had a at least one major activity planned and also time devoted to learning more about God, spending time with Him, and really just going "deeper" with Him as the camp name implies.

I'll just give you the quick list of the fun that was had: waterfall tour, waterskiing/tubing, milking cows, late-night canoe tour, birds of prey show, cheese and chocolate factory, 300 foot mudslide, and horseback riding. Good times were had by all.

In the middle of all that fun though, God really made His presence known to the kids in a big way. I want to tell you about the kids in general and then tell you a story about one of them. We had 10 kids from Youthsteet go on this camp. Out of the ten, nine profess to be Christians. The longest tenured Christian was one year. The shortest was 3 weeks. Two kids (brother and sister) come from a Christian family. The rest do not. In fact most of the families are actively discouraging their faith. With the exception of the two, all of the the other kids have only become a Christian through Youthstreet. Youthstreet is the only way they have learned about God, there only source of information about him, and the only reason they have decided to follow Him. For most of the kids on the camp, Youthstreet is the only place they are shown love in any form.

I was blown away by these kids' testimonies. None of these kids were from my Youthstreet team, and so I had the opportunity to really get to know these guys for the first time and was just amazed at not only where they come from...but also who they have decided to be in the midst of where they are. Two of the kids showed me the scars on their arms and legs where they used to cut themselves. Several had been drinking since the age of 13. But now they are in the middle of a radical life change. They have all stopped cutting and stopped drinking and have decided to follow this God who loves them and has been their only source of love that their life has ever known. And as we taught them more about who God is, as we told them who they are as children of the King, as we showed them how loved they are and how much God cares each one of them....I was again blown away that as these kids soaked it in, their hearts ached...for their families. For the very ones who have not shown them love and often hurt them more than any one else. What a testament to who these kids were...and to how God can transform someone from the inside out.

Let me tell you about Dylan. Dylan is 13 years old and his parents didn't want him anymore so they kicked him out of the house several years ago. He bounced from place to place and now lives with a friend and his parents along with another friend. Dylan wears black eye makeup. He routinely wears Marilyn Manson shirts. He often likes wearing girls clothes. He has already been drunk many times. He showed me the scars up and down his arms where he has cut himself time and time again. Safety pins, broken glass, razor blades. But Dylan has come to Youthstreet for a few months now and a few weeks ago he was listening to a speaker talk all about God and acceptance and love and when the speaker asked if anyone wanted to know this God better...Dylan stood up. He was in sitting in the middle of his group of friends...all wearing makeup and dressed completely in black. Dylan was the only one standing. You see Dylan is strong. He is willing to do things on his own and not follow his friends blindly. He knew that his decision to stand would cost him. It might cost him friends, he might be made fun of and teased, his world might come to an end as he knew it. But Dylan wanted to be loved. At that moment he was giving it all to be loved. He considers this moment the moment he became a Christian. I think I agree with him.

Dylan came on Deeper with much to learn. He didn't know how to look up a Bible verse or pray out loud. And day two of the camp...Dylan got sick. Tonsillitis. His throat hurt, his glands were swollen, and he felt horrible. He couldn't talk and he did not participate in a lot of the activities. He slept everywhere we went. We took him to the doctor and he got a couple of shots and ended up feeling better the day before we left. But even though Dylan couldn't talk at all, he was always listening when we were discussing God and was always writing. When he finally regained his voice he came to one of us and told us that he had written something. He had written his first worship song. The entire camp sang it together the night before we left. Ivan (YS staff) was talking about where God is when it hurts and how even though don't always understand why things happen...is always there and always working. Dylan said that at first he didn't understand why God didn't heal him of his sickness first thing since God can do anything. But then he said if he hadn't have been sick then he wouldn't have had to listen to God so much. Dylan said that now if he had the choice, he would rather have been sick on this camp and written the worship song then have been healed right away and not written it. He was basically saying that he understood that even though he was miserable, he grew more in his suffering than he would have if he was content.

Dylan is thirteen and has been a Christian for 3 weeks.

Dylan still has a ways to go. He still wears makeup and I saw the Manson shirt again yesterday. But the lesson he learned on this camp transcends any of that. God's plans are so much bigger than what we see. I told Dylan later that God is a good God and I don't believe that God made him sick. But I do believe that although God 98% of the time does not cause our suffering...He always want to use our suffering to draw us closer to Him. As much as he cares about our comfort he cares about our heart so much more. Dylan experienced this on a small level. God used Dylan's sickness to draw him closer to Himself and Dylan recognized this...and wouldn't have traded it for all the comfort in the world.