Yesterday I was dropping my 10 year-old brother, Jackson, off at Forest Home Camp. This beautiful camp will be where little man is going to be for the next week. I really wanted to be with him because I won’t be seeing him until August due to my training camp beginning, in Georgia, the day he gets back from camp.
The camp JMan is going to this week, Forest Home, has been a place me and all of my siblings have attended throughout our childhood. It was undoubtably the highlight of every summer growing up here in California. Not only was it a wild playground immersed in the woods, but it was a place where the Holy Spirit caught me and instilled in me an “adventure-seeking-spirit” at a very young age.
I couldn’t help but feel that my little brother, and the rest of this young generation of “adventurers,” would be able to see the opportunity to let God pour into their hearts in whatever way needed this week. Being in His perfect and glorious creation, while being able to be overwhelmed by the majesty that HE Has planned for them in a life WITH HIM.
As we pulled into the main entrance, kids were running everywhere, duffle bags were flying into the camp trucks, and I felt like I was in the movie “The Parent Trap” for a split second….yes, the soundtrack may or may not have been playing in my head as i was taking this all in. The smell of camp fires and parents pouring sunscreen on to their children’s bodies, made me think smile, thinking of all the love and care that goes into the entire experience of camp.
Starting with being dropped off by parents (who will be experiencing separation anxiety for the next week). Next, meeting your bunk mates (AKA your new best friends/ potential pen pal….or I guess Facebook friend nowadays). To the first “Camp Fire Gathering” (my first taste of what freeing and outward worship really looked like). To having you counselors be your new big brothers and sisters (I still talk to mine from when I was 11 and going to camp). Finally ending with the last day where you are running into the loving arms of your parents while giving goodbye hugs to new loved ones in your life.
Your “love tank” is so full when you leave camp that you want to talk about your experience everywhere you can! When I was little I was so excited about telling people my stories of getting launched off “the blob,” learning archery, going on night hikes, or how my team won glow-in-the-dark capture the flag!….still a top ranking moment in my life 
Looking back, those were the things I thought filled me. However, going back yesterday and literally retracing my steps, I realize how many times God was holding me, protecting me, and bringing me a joy that was beyond what I could fathom. I looked back in my journals once I got home to see what my thoughts were during that week of camp. I found an entry that made me chuckle :
July 2002
Today was so much fun at camp!!! Wow!! God is so big and so Real! I mean I know he is real but it is like I can feel Him here. rep don’t really know how to explain. my tent had Devos (devotions) this morning and we were talking about Gods love. It is like a love that is bigger than our parents! We agreed that if we could see Gods love it would be bigger than outer space! Thank you God for being with me and loving me. I love you too!
T Hill – age 10
Although my entries were short and blunt…they were spot on. No questions, no doubt….just trust and adoration for someone that could love me unconditionally. This was an image of a childlike faith.
Matthew 18:2-4
“and calling to him a child, he put him in then midst of them and said,
“TRULY I say to you, unless you turn ad become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heave.
WHOEVER HUMBLES HIMSELF LIKE THIS CHILD IS THE GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.”
As I have grown up, my “maturity” also came with a different kind of dependency plan. I stopped relying on God entirely and believed that I could take on my struggles better than God could…..I learned, through many trial and error, that I was terribly mistaken.
Choosing to go on the world race has almost forced me to return to a child-like- faith. It has not been easy to do but I have continued to see through fundraising, traveling, to people I will meet, to those I am leaving for a year, that it is ALL IN GODS HANDS! THANK GOODNESS!!
I am excited to develop a new form of faith. One of humility, of learning, of listening, and depending of my Lord before all else. Getting ready to go to training camp this week, I go only knowing what I have heard. That is will be one of the most challenging yet life changing weeks of my life. This seems to be a continuous message pertaining to the next year on the World Race. I am ecstatic that this “adventuresome spirit” the Holy Spirit instilled in me, at such a young age, will be able to flourish in a life completely dependent on HIM. To have a childlike faith 🙂
PSALM 71:5-6
For YOU have been my hope, sovereign Lord
My confidence since my youth.
from birth I have relied on you;
you brought me forth from my mothers womb
I WILL EVER PRAISE YOU
