For about 30 years now, this is simply one of my favorite weeks of the year, SUMMER CAMP! And no one does it better, in m humble opinion, than Hume Lake Ministries. And this year is no disappointment!
We arrived safely, and without delay, to camp on Sunday afternoon. We did need to do a bus swap in Yuma, (little to no a/c in our first bus), but we were able to do that over our lunch break...a few of the high school guys gave up part of their lunch break to move all the luggage from one bus to the other
Sunday Night's "Opener" was simply one of their best ever. We have a Pirate Ship, INSIDE OF THE BUILDING, that MOVES! Crazy...
The theme (Aye Aye Cap'n!) is based on the life of Peter, and challenging students to "say yes to Jesus". (By the way, all the camp videos and speaker's messages will be available at http://www.humelake.org/yohoho-sandiego at the end of the week! We are Week 3)
The band, For All Seasons, is fantastic. Led by Emily, the students really seem to enjoy them. There had been some nervousness for some of our "veteran" kids, b/c the prior band was no longer here. But those fears have been alleviated and they are truly engaging and enjoying singing and praising God with their peers and leaders :)
The recreation (rec) is off to a great start, with a number of our students participating and even winning rounds in their events!
After lunch yesterday, about 60% of our group went into downtown on "Urban Missions", which mainly consisted of preparing, and then handing out food to the homeless. Many of our students, for the very first time, were able to look into the eyes of, pray with/for, and shake hands and provide a simple touch to people who are living on the streets of San Diego. A common experience has been hearing how our students, who were going to provide the blessing, were actually the ones blessed by those they went to serve. I'm proud of our students and leaders who willingly gave up their first free time in order to serve.
Our evening speaker, Darin McWaters, is exceptionally gifted. The students are connecting to him well and being challenged by the words God is planting on him to share with us. (side note, he actually graduated from Ironwood High School, so there's a little bit of a neat connect there too!)
Darin presented the Gospel last night, a number of students responded! Some good conversations are happening with our students and counselor, and I'm asking you to continue to pray for God to use these "divine appointments" to break down barriers and open hearts.
Chapel time this morning was focused on Missions around the world, and we heard about and saw a video for a ministry called Harvest India. As I write this, the students are meeting with their counselors to talk about a statement that John Alvarado made: "There is so much you can do if you take your eyes off of yourself"...not guilt ridden at all, but very encouraging and challenging!
If you'd like to see pictures of many of the happenings this week, please feel free to look them up on Facebook! A lot of our staff people are posting pics throughout the day! If you search #humesd you might find the pics a little faster!
I'll try to post more tomorrow!!
God Rulz!
TN
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