Day 5: Saying Goodbye to Mission Camp '10

We are now all officially home from mission camp 2010. It was a great trip filled with a lot of fun memories. We served others, heard some "good preachin'", celebrated the fact that many of our students more fully surrendering areas of their lives to Christ, had a student dedicate herselves to missions/ministry, witnessed two guys devoting themselves to lifting each other up for the rest of high school and generally grew together into a stronger group. The theme of the week challenged us to ask, what am I 'DEVOTED' to? We redefined passion from faith based on personal feelings, emotions and excitement to faith based on continual sacrifice to God's will. Being passionate for something doesn't mean that we are simply excited about it, it means we would die for it. Much of the week was devoted to understanding that living as a Christ follower means that we will have to face trials and we will have to pick up our cross and walk daily but in that trial we have one thing the world doesn't, hope.

Personally I love the time at camps to connect with students and share in the wonder of watching them walk toward God, watching them make decisions that will change the course of their lives for good, watching them grow into young men and women of God. Those students who wanted to be 'unstuck' in their faith were moved and that is one of the most exciting things to watch.

• Students: I appreciated your general willingness to open your heart to God both through the camp and also through us as leaders.
• Parents: Thanks for sharing your kids with us this week.
• Meghan, Tyler and Taylor: Thank you so much for your dedication to sharing God's love with our students! As always, it was great to serve with you.

- Todd

Day 4: Saying Goodbye to the Children's Center

Day 4: We Are All Sleepy

Good morning everyone. I'm really tired. So are the students. Isaiah
40:30-31 is our verse for strength.

Day 3: Missions Continue

Some of the crew finishing cleaning all the outside toys at the
children's center.

Day 2: Getting Ready For Worship

Day 2: Missions Begin

We made it to the mission site today. Here's a quick pic of a few
girls hard at work spray painting a fence. Will update more tonight.

Camp Day 2: Morning Celebration

We woke up this morning to all the girls singing Justin Beiber.

8-9th Grade Mission Camp Day 1

Day 1 at camp is all about settling in, finding your way around and seeing how the group is going to become a team. This year's camp is shaping up to be an exciting one with a great group of students. Just to give you a few highlights of the day, after getting on the road, eating at Wendy's and checking in we migrated to our dorms. It always seems to take forever to get checked in and then in a matter of minutes the everyone has their beds setup and bags unpacked. This year the guys are in a hall style dorm with bathrooms shared 1 bathroom for two rooms (1 shower: 4 people) but the girls hall style dorms are 1 bathroom to an entire wing of the dorm (4 showers: 40ish people). That should prove an interesting challenge. After getting all unpacked we had our camp orientation, dinner and our evening 'celebration' worship service. Our band is called 'The Museum' and they are really engaging the whole camp in worship through music. Clayton King is our camp Pastor speaking each morning and night on what it means to be a devoted follower of Christ. The whole camp is centered around Deuteronomy 6:5 which Jesus quotes in Matthew 22:36-37 as the greatest command. Clayton really drove home the idea tonight that a devoted follower of Christ isn't driven by feelings or emotions but rather by dedicated seeking of God's will through a healthy daily walk. He conjectured that passion isn't just this emotional high of being on fire for God and making a shallow commitment but rather being willing to endure pain and suffering in order to glorify God.

Please pray for our group as tomorrow we begin our daily mission work at the Children's Center for the Physically Disabled, a public school not far from the university here in Winston Salem. We will be playing with the kids and helping wherever needed. I know they plan for us to paint and do yard work. I hope our team really takes hold of the words in 1John3:16-18 as they serve tomorrow. Please check back for updates and leave comments.