Some of you have probably wondered why I have not been online much the past two weeks, or why I have been slow to answer e-mails or telephone calls. Well, the answer is a two part answer... #1 - we have been gone to two weeks of camp at two different Christian camps. #2 - my computer died just as we were leaving town for the first week of camp. We believe we have a solution for getting it fixed at a somewhat reasonable rate, but please pray that this solution works as I am currently "borrowing" a laptop from my husband and using external hard drives to house my many files.
If you have never had the opportunity to visit a Christian Camp, I encourage you to take a group of children or teens to a week of camp. Rusty and I highly recommend The WILDS Christian Camp in Brevard, NC or Southland Christian Camp in Ringgold, LA.
For the past five years Rusty and I have had the privilege of taking the junior children from Tri-City to Junior Camp at Southland Christian Camp on behalf of Kids 4 Truth International. It is a joy and privelege that we do not take lightly. It is a blessing to watch God work in the lives of the children and to concentrate on praying for and loving the children during the week of camp.
Rusty has also been driving buses to camp for the junior and senior high camping trips for Tri-City for the past few years.
This year the two weeks of camp backed each other. And...this year...we decided that we would go on both camp trips.
So...June 11-17, we took 33 junior campers(4th - 6th graders), 6 assistant counselors, 6 sponsors, and one toddler to Southland Christian Camp for a week of Junior Camp. We saw 8 children from our group accept the Lord or receive assurrance of salvation and 16 other decisions from dealing with anger, lying, to surrender to the Lord for full-time Christian service. The trip to Southland takes approximately 14 hours and Rusty and I both drove vehicles (Rusty a bus and me a van).
Saturday, June 17 was an insane day as we tried to save everything from my computer's hard drive to an external hard drive (protecting the computer's hard drive for when my computer is fixed), catching a few hours sleep after driving through the night, washing laundry for 6 people (well make it 7!), and then repacking to leave the next day on the next trip.
Sunday, June 18-Saturday, June 23, we went to The WILDS Christian camp (an 18+ hour trip). Rusty drove a bus and this time I tried to sleep on a bus. (Hey, I actually slept both ways! This is very rare for me - thank you for those who prayed for me.) We enjoyed visiting the camp that we have heard so much about and worked with as Bob Roberts spends no less than 4 weeks at the WILDS each summer. We enjoyed listening to Bob speak to the Junior Boot Campers, walking around the camp, hiking to the 4th falls, I rode the giant swing and land trolly, and visiting with churches. Thursday, we spent the day in Greenville, SC meeting with churches from 9 am to 4:30 pm, stopped by BJU - said Hi to Eileen Berry!, visited my brother Ron and family, and visited our very dear friends Tito and Milly Noel. We got back to the camp at 11:55 pm after leaving at 7 am! What a full day it was. Needless to say....I skipped breakfast on Friday to get an extra hour of sleep.
So for the past two weeks we have been at Christian Camps with the juniors and then the teens. What a blessing it has been to watch God work in the lives of these children and teens. I will be honest with you - we are worn out! Driving two back to back trips like these is absolutely insane! But, I will say it was/is all worth it!
God blessed both trips with not only decisions from the children and teens, but also by giving us the opportunity to speak to many churches about the Kids 4 Truth Clubs and Curriculum. I was able to personally train a couple of churches at both Southland and the WILDS. I was also able to talk to several churches about the flexibility of Kids 4 Truth and what we teach and why we teach it. Many of these churches are considering using Kids 4 Truth in the future.
I know I normally post pictures with every post. I have all of my photos saved on Rusty's laptop (no, not the one I am borrowing, but his computer) so I will try to add some photos to this post later.
A special thank you to all of those who prayed for us while we were away. And special thank you to Julie for helping me out with telephone messages, office info, computer stuff, and all with my computer being out of service. (sorry I couldn't tell you goodbye in person before you left to pick up Erika, but know our prayers are with you & Rob as you are away.)
