I know that it's been a while since my last blog post. I've been quite busy! Last week I volunteered as a head counselor for the People of God Summer Camp. Let me share with you some of my experiences.
I arrived at camp two Saturdays ago on what felt like the hottest day of the year. While Pittsburgh is no Phoenix, Pittsburgh in July is quite hot. First on my to-do list was to decorate my cabin, the Firefly cabin. We female head counselors tend to go a bit overboard with our decorations, and this year was no exception. As fireflies I wanted our cabin to be very bright, so I hung enough Christmas lights to make any other lighting superfluous. Looking back it probably wasn't a good idea to plug 3 power strips into 2 outlets, but miraculously nothing melted or exploded during our week.
On Sunday afternoon my campers arrived and the madness began. While 8 campers, ranging in age from 9-12 doesn't seem like too much for 3 experienced counselors to handle, it at times was. Although my official title was "head counselor" my job description included mother, traffic director, swim coach, cheerleader, playwright, pastoral leader, performer, singer, master of disguise, teacher, mover, waitress, and shower assistant. Thankfully I had really well-behaved girls and my assistant and junior counselor excelled at the art of convincing exhausted campers that they really wanted to go to bed.
My favorite part of camp was the Friday morning combined prayer time. My favorite head counselor calls Friday's "marathon day" because on top of our regular duties we counselors must: forfeit our afternoon break, invent a really nifty hiding place for "Capture the Counselor," and must stay awake until the wee hours of the morning decided which cabin won which award for the parent's program. But the Friday morning prayer time makes the rest of the day more than worth it.
As a teacher you don't always get the opportunity to witness your students "a-ha!" moments. That moment where the seeds you've sown take root and the child starts to take ownership of the plant. All week we'd been teaching the kids about charismatic worship and the gifts of the holy spirit. We talked about using our bodies to honor God by lifting our arms and clapping our hands. And all week my girls really weren't feeling it. It didn't matter how loud I sang or how high I raised my hands, my girls clung tightly to their songbooks and kept asking me what time it would end. Needless to say my expectations weren't too high at the beginning of the meeting.
One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we taught the girls about was prophecy, or sharing with the group a word or Scripture verse that God puts on their heart. To be honest, I'd always been pretty freaked out by the gift of prophecy because it requires...gulp... public speaking. But that Friday morning I felt God tugging on my heart to share with the group a word of encouragement. So I took a deep breath and made my way to the microphone. I don't remember very clearly what I said, but I could feel a change in my girls as I walked back to my seat. No longer did I have to work to convince the girls to participate in worship. They started singing the songs. Some of them even raised their hands. At the end of the meeting I lead a train around the Pavilion that every one of my girls participated in, even the "cool" ones!
The funny thing about "a-ha!" moments is that we usually recognize it in others before we recognize it in ourselves. That prayer meeting taught me two things: 1. It reminded me of the power of the Holy Spirit and the personal ways it speaks to everyone. 2. It reminded me that the girl's unwillingness to participate in worship annoyed me because they mirrored my own reluctance to fully engage. I now understand why we counselors abide by the motto, it's a privilege to serve at camp. God uses our obedience to his call of service as an opportunity to draw us closer into his presence, a feet that is truly FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, GREAT ALL DAY LONG!
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