Last week, my team and I got the opportunity to serve at a youth camp for a group of kids who come from rough back grounds and who have been labeled as trouble makers by the adults in their lives.
We gathered all of these kids at a camp hosted by a substance abuse awareness organization called Turning Point. We were there to invest in them. The camp staff was there to teach them about substance abuse, Jesus, and to feed them.
We showed up at the camp around 9 in the morning on Monday. The kids pulled up right as we did. So we immediately jumped into ice breaker games. These ice breakers make the ones back at home look childish and lame. It was a lot of fun.
Then we got divided into teams. I got paired with a group of six boys; six sixteen year old boys to be specific. This was the biggest struggle of my day… Not only am I female (who they culturally don’t respect), but I couldn’t speak their language (OSA). Yet there I was. By the end of the night my team was so unruly that they were debating sending them home dividing them up. They didn’t know what to do with my boys- they got to stay.
My group wasn’t the only unruly group. Things got stolen night one. No one was listening and it was pretty bad.
Our ministry host (Anthea) came after work to see how things were going. Here is what she found:
Unruly kids.
3 sick Americans.
2 crying Americans.
Kids who wouldn’t eat the food – apparently Osa kids don’t eat spaghetti.
Worn out camp leaders.
Dirty dishes.
No plan.
No money for breakfast (long story).
And, on top of all of that it was FREEZING COLD.
Anthea responded by giving us a pep talk in the name of Jesus – actually, Jesus gave us a pep talk through her!
After that the two world race teams (Wildfire and Wimbi) went to have time as teams where we voiced all of our frustrations and prayed. Then we jumped in bed. The next morning we woke up… well, some of us did.
I woke up and felt the need to pray for the Holy Spirit to come into this camp, so I did.
Jace decided to wake up and walk around the camp in circles praying evil out and the Holy Spirit in.
Kelsey woke up and went for a run. As she was on a mountain top looking down at the valley, she saw a darkness, a physical darkness hanging over the camp. She watched as light slowly filled the place and then dissipated the darkness.
At the same time, Mary layed in bed asleep dreaming about the camp. She saw smoke hovering over the camp and light from the sun came in and literally filled the place casking out the smoke. It even made the small patches of dark glisten like illuminated smoke.
All of this was happening at the same time as Alysa and Chantia who had been sent home (J Bay) sick lay awake praying for the Holy Spirit to move into the camp.
We finally began our day, but it was completely different.
God was there, physically in the camp. The attitudes of the workers and of the youth were completely different. We had patience beyond human ability. The youth were filled with joy and many of them gave their lives to Christ that day. The air in the camp was different. You could breathe. It didn’t feel like we were being attacked. It felt like we were in a place of peace and comfort, all this in stark contract with the day before.
What I learned from this is that we need to go to God as we enter a place and not after things get hard.
At home, people go to God after the doctors have no more answers, after the therapist isn’t helping, and after we can’t figure it out on our own. God came into the place when we asked him to. I can’t imagine what would have happened if we had asked him to show up before we arrived or when we arrived instead of after the enemy had the opportunity to show up.
I want to make God a God of first resorts and not last resorts. I want to go to God first when I am sick or in pain or struggling or things aren’t going as planned. Of course, I want to utilize the doctors he provided, but I want to go to God first.
He is a good God. He will provide for our needs and show up when we need him. He my God. And He will be my God of first resorts.
