Jumonville Update I

Hey everyone! Thank you for your prayers for me and the people you know and love up here… and those you don’t know yet. You know, I’d been thinking of all the things I wanted to say… and now that I finally have a keyboard and a few minutes to collect my thoughts, I can’t think of any of them. Except the GOD IS SO AWESOME!

This is the first week of camp (actually, it’s week 2, but the first since training was over). On Monday, I found out in part just how much I desperately need God to work in and through me. I was facilitating one of the activities and basically just being a jerk – to the other counselors, to the kids, to the dean… It wasn’t right. My priorities were all mixed up – I was so crazy worried about getting stuff done right that I didn’t take into account that these are PEOPLE I’m working with – and kids, even more! So Saturday night I got a chance to pray with James, my accountability partner, and I found out more stuff that’s broken in me. I guess I tend to push people’s buttons.

Ree gave us a talk during the beginning of training that really stuck with me. It was three different kinds of candy bars – one pure milk chocolate, one with nuts, and one with crispy rice (crispies). She told us Jesus is the only pure one, and the rest of us have nuts and crispies. And it’s true. So Monday morning I found a few nuts and crispies I didn’t know about. And James and I prayed about my nuts and crispies… and about his. Then I came back and changed my status.

And today was better. Today was much better. Me and Will got to talk to a couple kids about getting along better, about Jesus, and about trusting God, and how that’s like the way you trust climbing equipment: you throw all your weight into it. It was good stuff. …I just hope the 12-year-old didn’t get thrown off by my explanation of Pascal’s Wager…

Thank you for praying. God is at work. The Holy Spirit is changing me, and doing work in these kids. I feel… I feel like what I’m doing matters. Even if it’s just doing inventory or my nightly rounds. It’s worship. It’s all worship. I still have nuts and crispies. I pray (will you pray with me?) that God’s purity will cover my impurity, and that I’ll be a clearer light and a better imager of Jesus for these kids, and for the rest of the staff?

Thanks to Anthony, Cindy, and Victoria for your prayers, and to those of you who’ve been praying but not commenting. God is listening.

I love you all. I’m going away. ;D

Father, I give you this day as my worship offering. The good, because You are the only One deserving, and the bad, because You are the only One Who can do anything good with it.

VERSE FOR THE DAY: I Peter 3:8 & 9: Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.