Sunday, June 26, 2011

Week 1

I love the smell of sulfur. Kind of weird, yes - but before you judge me, I must tell you why. I love that smell because it is the smell of camp. The water at camp has very high levels of sulfur, so every year when I arrive, I breathe in that nasty smell, and a flood of sweet memories come flooding into my brain. It's a beautiful thing.

Camp is that place where big things always happened. Everything sort of came together there. In fact, I'm thinking this moment of the year when I fought with Candi alllllllll the time, and after getting back from camp, realized that I was the one in the wrong all those times. Camp was the place I accepted Jesus as my King and Savior. Camp is where I surrendered Bible School to God after clutching onto it for so long.

I got the opportunity to serve at camp again this year. That good ol' smell of sulfur greeted me as I stepped out of the car. The levels are high this year, so it smells like I'm showering in rotten eggs. Bah - I don't mind. :) It's the smell of camp! Anyway, my job the first week was hostess. That does not mean I seated the campers when they came in for dinner. It meant that I was in charge of a crew of seven kitchen helpers. They did the work, I made sure it got done. Sounds easy, but it's plenty of work, believe me.

There is a lot to say about camp, and I see that I've already given you four paragraphs that have not a whole lot to do with what I want to say. So here goes. This year, I didn't feel like I really cared that I was at camp. Oh sure, it was great to be here, but I didn't feel like spending time with the kids. I didn't feel like talking to them or hanging out with them or learning their names. Granted, the kitchen is a bit removed from all the action, but we still function FOR THE KIDS... and I was having trouble connecting.

The beautiful thing about serving, however, is that it gives your heart the opportunity to return to the right place. God graciously reminded me of the Genesis account of Rebecca's response to Abraham's servant - "May I water your camels also?" This isn't totally random; rather, it resounded in my heart that Rebecca didn't know that her actions would change many lives. Regardless of my feelings, I had to trust that God was at work though me. Was it an easy task for Rebecca to give all those camels water? Certainly not! Did she have to do it? No. She could have gone the easy route and continued with her happy little life without making the sacrifice of extra work. But she didn't choose what was easy - she chose what was good and right. She didn't know that those few words would change her life, but she said them anyway. So my heart kept saying, "May I water your camels also?" Not exactly the words and actions it wanted - but that it knew were good and right. And truly, by the time Thursday rolled around, I knew that I was at camp for the right reasons.

I also spent a bit of time catching up on Bible. I found myself reading in 1 Kings, where Solomon builds the temple. He finishes it, then all of Israel gathers and Solomon prays a to God and says many things. Two things stood out to me in the passage. One, that God is faithful in His promises and that we can and OUGHT to depend on Him to accomplish them. Two, Solomon mentions in his prayer to God that although it was David who wanted to build the temple, God used Solomon to do the actual building. David did indeed gather supplies for it and was a huge part of God's work in building it, but he didn't ever see it completed - Solomon did.

This is such a picture of what happens at camp "One plants, another waters, but it is God who causes the growth" and we may not know what part we got to play - but the fact is that God's word does not return void. He is at work in the lives of these campers though the staff. We may not get to see His work completed, but we can trust that we get to be part of it.

Seems like these always become much longer than I intend. I'll catch you up on week 2 next weekend.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, Christy! I need those reminders! Love you :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the post. :) And I completely agree with you about the smell of sulfur!!! So many happy, childhood and young-adult memories. I'm glad things are going well over there. :)

    ReplyDelete