Seeing a Whole New World

One of my favorite things in the world is to sleep outside.  I'm unsure why, but every chance I get I love to sleep under the stars   without a tent or anything but my sleeping bag.  It just feels so close to nature and the way God created things to be.  This year, like every year we go to Camp Timberwolf, I slept on the front porch of the kitchen cabin.  A few nights in I decided to ask if any of the kids would like to join me.  To do this they would have to conquer a multitude of fears, dealing with the smallest insects and ending with the biggest bears.  What if we wake up covered in insects?  What if a bear eats us?  What if I have to go to the bathroom?  Being outside of Oakland is foreign enough for the kids.

But, the first night the four boys hesitantly joined me, three of them making it through the night. 

The next morning they bragged to the girls (and the fourth boy) about how much fun it was.  The next night a few more came out and the final night a total of seven kids slept outside on the deck with me!  All in all, eight out of eleven kids spent at least one night on the deck sleeping outside!

That was just one of the many adventures we had at Camp Timberwolf this year.  Canoeing, hiking, kayaking, swimming, paddling, making s'mores, singing songs by the fire, and playing endless tournaments of ping pong are just among the others.  The kids wore us out!  From seven in the morning to eleven at night we were all going a hundred miles an hour doing everything we could in 16 hours.  It was tiring, but it was a great camp.

Every kid did something he or she had never done before, or seen something they had never seen.  We even saw a bear!  It's easy to get kids to do something once one does it, even if they are afraid.  Peer pressure is an amazing tool, and if used right and be used to open up some beautiful horizons!  Sleeping outside was just one of many things that our kids learned to do this week that they would have been uncomfortable with before.

But there is one thing that a few of our kids did that wasn't related to peer pressure.  At the end of the week Lewis gave his testimony at the campfire.  Afterwords I gave a salvation message and asked the kids to make a decision before.  This is something I am accustomed to doing, and all too often I am used to kids coming up because they want to look good, or because their friends are deciding to make a decision.  But something was different this time. As I was talking about Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the kids, the Holy Spirit came down upon us around the campfire.  Many kids felt the presence of the Holy Spirit for the first time.  When I asked kids to come away with a few of the leaders if they had made a decision, five left.  You could feel that for many it was for real.  It was truly an amazing night.

It reminded me of being a kid going to camp and hearing a speaker talk and feeling the Holy Spirit come over me for the first time.  It was such a frightening time!  I had no idea what was going on and didn't know what to say.  I didn't especially want to make a decision for Christ that night, it just happened. I was a follower, and did what my friends did.  Earlier that week I remember denying to a friend that I was a Christian.  I just wanted to be accepted.  But unexpectedly, and because of many people's prayers, Jesus touched me one night. Later on I remember praying that I could be the same person talking to kids at camp someday.  Because of that and many prayers of our supporters, that prayer came true.  

A whole new world was opened up to eleven children from the Lower Bottoms at Camp Timberwolf. 

Check out Photo's from our adventure here!