Well, "Hello" from Southland! I am sure you guys have been wondering where the blog posts have been. We have not had internet access for the last couple of days here on the Campsite. As frustrated as that may make us to not be able to communicate like we would wish to I can only imagine how the Staff here has been feeling as their main phone lines and everything related have been down. There was a major construction project going on in the nearby town and a worker mistakenly cut a major fiber optic cable so the entire town of Ringgold has been dealing with this! Anyway things are back to normal and as you can tell we now have our access back! Yeah!
Instead of writing a post for Monday and Tuesday I am just going to try to summarize for the 3 days here in this post.
Monday--------------------
We were absolutely shocked to see that most if not all of our teens actually made it to the Church pretty close to the 7:30 time we asked. I think that was probably a record! We have a good number of First timers with us this year so as soon as we got on the North side of HOUSTON they stared in with " Are we in Louisiana yet? Where are we? How long until we get there?" It would probably be annoying except for the fact that I always have a little fun with them and tell them we are almost there or tell them we only have 12 hours left, or something ridiculous like that and they are like "Oh, man Texas is huge". LOL.
We had a great and safe trip to camp. Believe it or not we only stopped twice all the way to camp. Once for lunch and then a bathroom break about an hour later. (small bladders) We stopped at Dollar General for our bathroom break and as usual there we kids who tried to load up on food, candy, drinks and etc. I usually stand close to the register and try to help them by suggesting they put most of it back and try to buy only what their parents would want them to buy. Here comes the funny part. There are always a few kids who say "Please, my dad buys twice this much". The funny thing is I can actaully imagine them doing it. So yes your kids tell on you!
When we got to Camp the kids head to the Chapel and meet their counselors for the first time. All of our kids ended up with at least one other kid from our Church so that was a blessing. I have been praying for a few of the Counselors specifically this week as they ended up with 3 or more of our Jr. High boys in there cabin. LOL. They will earn their paycheck this week.
My wife and I were headed over to our first sponsor session and all of the teens were in the Chapel now divided into teams and they were already beginning their cheering. No kidding I could hear them all the across the lake. remember they are IN THE CHAPEL with the doors closed. WOW.
Tuesday------------------------------
Tuesday being the first full day usually brings the first signs of homesickness. We have been through a night and as we awaken to a new day moms in the Houston/Katy are getting homesick! LOL. Oh, you thought I was talking about your teens. Please, by now they have made 5 new friends, they have ridden the Gator Glide, they have found the Rec. Room and they have had 2 team competitions at least. Do you think you would be homesick? I don't think so! Honestly there were a few kids I was wondering if they would be a little homesick but those are the kids I see running everywhere trying all of the things Southland has to offer. Good for them.
This afternoon right after Chapel we were getting ready for the traditional Sponsor vs. Staff volleyball game (which we ended up winning) right outside the chapel. The teens filed out for the most part walking quietly and seeming to really be contemplating what they had just heard preached from God's Word. I saw Jared walking quietly to the little prayer chapel on the front of the campus and I thought " Oh he is probably headed over to pray or just spend some alone time". I continued to talk with the other sponsors and about 2 minutes later I hear a little voice yelling "Pastor Robert, Pastor Robert, get a cup, get a cup"! I looked over and here comes Jared running full speed toward me waving his arms yelling at me. I am thinking what in the world is going on. Some kind of emergency? No. Jared gets to the volleyball court all out of breath and still telling me to "get a cup, get a cup". I was like whoa what's going on buddy? He said, "I found it get a cup hurry, hurry"! I said, "You found what?" He said, "I found the biggest lizard and I have to catch it". Lol I know, exactly what I thought. Jr. High!
Tuesday night's message was amazing. I am not going to tell you what the whole message was but let me encourage you to get the CD from me when we get back and if you would please listen to that message. Bro. Farrell really nailed the pride that many Christians have and what it will lead to in their life. You would be surprised how applicable it will be to your life. I know I was surprised. God spoke to my heart and He spoke to many of the teens. The response to the altar call was overwhelming. It took every adult on the campsite to help counsel and even then we got to counsel with multiple kids. I won't share the exact decisions and who made them as that would be too personal but let me share a few in general. We had one young person get saved last night, we had multiple decisions on pride and multiple decisions to repent form sin! All in all I would say we have had a wonderful start to the week and I can't wait to see what the Lord will do the rest of the week.
Check back tomorrow and see how things are progressing.
We will not be uploading pictures as it is taking forever with the speed of the internet connection here so just be patient and we can all share when we get home!
No comments:
Post a Comment