It sure is amazing how God can speak to us sometimes. Last night we spoke about how the enemy was strong and how he was attempting to gain strength. God wants us to follow Him, have faith in Him, love Him, go to
Him…but so often the enemy’s temptations and offerings catch our eye first.

Lord, we need your blessings today.
Prayer Warriors, we need your outpouring of prayers today!!

Our first night I asked the campers to communicate their needs – if nothing else, communicate to us your needs (slow down, thirst, hunger, fatigue, etc).

As I write this and a crazy storm takes over camp we are stuck in our bunks and being confined to one space is nerve racking for our leaders as the boys have had a tough day. I laid here and said God show me where my heart needs to be, help me clear my mind and calm my heart. Help me be a good leader and support to not only these eight young men but also the two honorable men I am blessed to be on this journey with. He spoke to me. I opened my bible as a thunder rolled above me, to this:

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” (‭Luke‬ ‭8‬:‭22-25‬ NIV)
titled none other than JESUS CALMS THE STORM

So, what’s the storm, why the need for extra blessings and prayers? How has the enemy expressed his desire for growing strength?

Last night during our fire we had a struggle with the boys as we talked about Gods plan around the fire. The enemy worked for distraction technique having other campers walk by, whistles sound, and other distractions occur as we shared more of the gospel with our teens.

This morning came with panic and disappointment. I entered our center room for devotions with the guys and Patrick told me Kevin’s phone had been stolen during the night and they were looking for it. We struggled in our hearts on how to approach this. We woke the boys and told them there was a problem. We gave them 5 minutes to fess up to one of us and handle the issue privately and immediately. However after no progress we had to do a cabin search. Finding Kevin’s phone and charger under one of the campers mattresses. This broke our hearts. We again had to talk and process on how to handle this. We moved along with our day for some horsemanship and then spoke with the boys one on one. Still nothing. No confessions. No clues. No insights.

After lunch we had the group work together on this. The group sat with two objectives: encourage the person or peoples to confess and discuss how this impacted the group and leaders. The leaders sat to the side and listened. Teens among the group stepped up as leaders in such unexpected ways. AD spoke first about how this hurts the group and can make others feel vulnerable as well as they all sleep in the same space. LG stepped up expressing that trust is like a stick and with each lie a piece is broken resulting in less stick and eventually no trust at all. There was talk of betrayal and vulnerability. TK stepped up checking others and keeping people on task and serious. While this was happening Kevin said to me “if this had to happen to create this conversation then I’m ok with it.” And as those words left his mouth one teen began verbally assaulting another. Then a punch was thrown. This resulted in TA exploding as a leader to separate the two and immediately help the leaders defuse the situation.

While all teens are good and well now I know that tensions are high and feelings confused, jumbled, and scattered.

God does not want bad things to happen, however when sin entered the world bad things shortly followed. This is hard to understand as TA teared up telling me “I prayed so hard last nothing that nothing bad would happen today and it would be a good day, and look.” To help him understand that he did not pray a bad prayer or not pray hard enough is nearly an impossible task. So I continuously pray that God speaks to him to keep praying.

Please keep praying for our teens. Please keep asking God to soften and open hearts to His way and His word.

Oh and a little nicer weather would be kinda cool too 🙂 – however if rain now means no rain for the hike – bring it on!!! 😀