It was the summer of 2009. I had just finished my last year of High School and I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I didn’t know if I was going to go to Arkansas State for a business degree or wait a year and go to school. I had no clue. I was young, confused, and looking for answers. For the past three summers I had been going to camp called Gasganade Christian Service Camp. A small camp in Eastern Missouri about an hour north of Springfield. It was a beautiful place where campers and peers came together for a week and worshiped with each other. You see friends that you haven’t seen in a while and feel love that is almost unmatched. That summer was a little different with it being my last camp week I was able to attend. I really had no clue on what I was going to do next.
My camp leaders that year was a couple who had not been married long and were getting prepared to leave the country for Japan. Their names were Stephanie and Jared Henke They were the mission for the week and we were helping fund their ministry. They were very loving in the way that they handled the family group I was in. They made it fun and interesting along with teaching us different lessons that go along in ministry and in life.
One of the important things that they taught me was the importance of loving the lost and ministering to them. They told me a stat showing that 99% of people in Japan do not know Jesus. It astonished me. Living in the United States, it blows my mind to think about. That’s like saying one city in the United States knows Jesus and everyone is without Christ. If those people were to die now they would not meet Jesus. It made me think, what am I doing living life every day and not caring enough about the people around the world to go and minister to them.
Jared and Stephanie, with advice from many other staff at the camp, helped me decide to go to Ozark and study youth ministry and missions.
The Henke’s still don’t know how important that summer at camp was to me. They are in Japan now ministering to so many people and showing them the gospel. I see their pictures on Facebook and can’t help but smile every time I see a new person coming to know Jesus and the Church they helped plant there expand. God is using them in so many ways.
You want to know what leaders in ministry should look like. It’s the people like the Henke’s caring more about others than themselves, teaching people around them how to love and care for the lost. They truly live out Jesus’s Commandments.
Camp Family Group 2009
The Henke’s
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)
The people that I will minister to on this world race with will partly because the Henke’s took time to minister to me and love me. They showed me how around the world God is needed and that I have to open my eyes and see it. That summer not only was not only a fun church camp experience but the start of my spiritual journey in ministry to get me where I am today. I am going to share the Gospel with millions of lost people starting next July in The World Race because of the Henke’s. Hopefully I can care and minister to others half as well as they did me.
I am still raising funds for The World Race if you would like to help. You can also look at The Henke’s ministry and what they do by going to mustardseed.org.
