Join me on a journey, would you?
I went to summer camp with my youth group for the first time in high school. The first year, I surrendered my life completely to Jesus, I was 15. After my senior year, I felt that God had something incredible for me- ministry of some kind, I thought potentially in the church and now I realize that He had called me to Himself while working in a public school. I'm so grateful.
In college, I got to walk with young ladies every year at Camp Cherokee in Tennessee. I got to go back and work at SuperWow, the camp God used to change my life, as a missions/service coordinator and my last summer of college, I got to enjoy Camp Cherokee, SuperWow and got to visit Colorado for a Student Life camp with students from Hope while I was working in Las Vegas. Oh yeah, I went to the UK then too! What a life for a college student! Talk about an incredible summer! At that point, God began speaking to me about living in Las Vegas. It was unclear but became more clear through my senior year of college.
After moving to Las Vegas, I spent that summer volunteering with students at Hope and joined them at camp in California (my first of many adventures there!) and did the same the following summer. In the summer of 2008, I took my first mission trip to Zambia and that part of my life was on repeat for the following 3 summers, varying in length and time and what I did there. That was before most of my friends decided to get married and that took some time out of the following summers to celebrate with them in the great work that God was doing!
Jesus greatly uses me in the school year and it is often draining so by the time I get to summer, I am ready to take deep breaths. I tend to hear Him in my summer silences, without the voices of 200 or so students asking me a million questions and telling me what I should be doing.
I am grateful to have gone back to summer camp with Hope's student ministry, Refuge, this past week. I was a little skeptical (I admitted this to them) about the group of girls I had but ended up loving their sweet, devastated hearts so much. I really had the best of both worlds because the senior girls Arianna and I have walked with for the last year were also there and so I heard a lot of the big things Jesus did in them and then I clearly got to join in God's great rescue of my girls. He met them exactly as they were, exactly where they were. He loved them. Through song, messages, small groups, friendships, walking up and down the hills, playing on the beach, and watching short films. He deeply loved them. Neena and I got to be His hands and feet and put our arms around them, pray for them, and squeeze their hands amidst tears.
Selfishly, Jesus reminded me of the deep, deep pit I had dug for myself and was drowning in the past year. He rescued me and as the bell rang to represent life change Tuesday night, I was full of tears with gratefulness that He chose to extend His hand. He gave me a life to live again, without fear of where it was going next. He spoke to me about waiting, grace, and continuing to walk in freedom. I can't say that camp changes everyone or that summer changes everyone but it has a tendency to do that for me. I'm praying for my next steps, how to follow Him in every environment I'm in and how to love every person I meet. AND I just finished my last class of my Master's degree. I am waiting for a fall internship and will have it complete in December. I am grateful, grateful, grateful for what God is doing. What is He doing to change your life? I hope it's big and beyond your comprehension.
Praying that for both of us- Melis
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