Camp Week 4

Camp week 4 was a week filled with blessings from our Creator and truly a time where God was at work at West Wilkes. There are many stories of how God provided for our camp 4th week, and the theme of this camp week for me was being dependent on God, and then watching him provide time after time.

At the end of the summer, your budget for materials is sometimes a little stretched, as ours was this summer. We knew going into the week that we needed to seek donations to help pay for some of our materials. Since I was the one in charge of the material budget, I prayed that God would help provide for us in some sort of way. So then I get a call from another lead field one day, asking me how I was doing and we eventually started talking about our material costs and such. She told me about a man that she had met that was giving them lumber for projects, and that she might be able to give us some. Turns out they were able to bring to us 2 truckloads full of lumber and some tin, just enough lumber with what we had left to do every construction project that we had scheduled to complete. Another camp was able to give us carriage bolts and a few more boards, and God provided for our camp through the other camps.

The campers from 4th camp week were different in alot of ways, having campers from Goldsboro, NC all the way up to Delaware. They came together to form a great bond and watching them all week was really awesome. Listening to them share about how they saw God everyday was really special, and experiencing my last week at West Wilkes for the summer was a bitter sweet experience.

The families that we were able to work for this week were very special to me, as they are every week. Being able to serve the families that we have been able to serve is such a blessing to me, and being the hands and feet of Jesus every single day is a truly rewarding experience. I worked for a lady on Monday who asked me to give her a bear hug as I was leaving, an 80 year old woman being bear hugged by me, that isn't something you see everyday! We were able to build a wheelchair ramp for a lady that was home bound in Fleetwood, NC, a small town in Ashe County. By the end of the summer I can estimate that we were able to serve roughly 180 families in Ashe, Wilkes, Surry, and Alleghany counties this summer!!

The end of the summer always brings a flood of emotions and of course, change. The summer seemed to end very abruptly, but the things that I learned from this summer have and will continue to shape my journey with Christ. Thank you to all of you who helped make this summer possible, whether you partnered with my financially, through prayer, or both, you helped make CCC 2011 a great experience for me, my campers, and  everyone that we worked for.

Camp Week 3- A little late

Well I am a little late on week 3 and week 4, but hopefully after sharing in this blog you will understand why I am  late on posting this. Camp Week 3 was one of the most challenging weeks of my life. It started off great, pre-camp went well and things were going great. When the week started we were all aware that our camp director might have to leave at some point in the next two weeks because her grandfather was in hospice care. The week started off fine, but on Monday she received news that things had taken a turn for the worse and he had 24 hours. On Tuesday morning she left to go to Alabama, leaving me and my lead program to be co-directors. Our two day projects were crazy and alot of things did not go according to plan. The 7 of us were covering 8 positions and our days were all spent reacting to situations instead of being able to be proactive. The way things came together sometimes can only be explained by the hand of God. If this week taught me anything it is that God truly does not give you more than you can handle.

One of my groups had the privilege of working for a lady named Thelma Dula who lives on Hwy 18 in Moravian Falls. This lady was an incredible woman of God, and the group was building her a deck and a wheelchair ramp in order for her to get out of her house. She  liked to go sing and play piano in a nursing home, and this enabled her to get out of her house much easier. Thelma also wrote poetry. She wrote a poem for the group and myself that is truly beautiful. In my rush to move into school I left it at home, but as soon as I get a hold of it again I will post in on here. This lady was incredible and it was a privilege to serve her and also have her serve us in so many ways.

Another family that we worked for was the Greer family. Sharon Greer had a disability that kept her housebound for the most part. Her mother lived with her and cared for her. We were able to build a wheelchair ramp for her mother to help her in and out of the house much easier. After the ramp was completed Sharon kept calling the ramp "my ramp". Her mother and her were so grateful, and it was truly a blessing to serve them and help them the best way that we could.

Third camp week was a big growing experience for me as a person and as a leader. God was with me and my staff every step of the way, and he gave me strength that I never knew that I had. Looking back on it I truly dont understand how I was able to make those last few days after getting only 2 and a half hours of sleep after a hospital visit for a camper with a concussion, but God gave me strength and we had a truly blessed week of camp. God was with us every step of the way, and all the people who prayed for us and helped us just goes to show what God's people are capable of doing.

Camp Week 2

Camp Week 2 was a smaller week than camp 1, as we had 60 campers. I enjoyed having a smaller number, and after a couple of tweakings to our in camp scheduling as well as getting our projects ready, we were once again ready for campers.

From the very beginning I knew that there was going to be something special about this week. We had a loot of first time campers, and it is always exciting to see them grow and learn about Carolina Cross Connection throughout the week. Even the returning campers grow and learn, but there is something special about the first year people.

God was at work all week through my staff and our campers. He was in every minute of every day as one camper put it on Friday. Whether it was the people that we worked for, such as Sandra Reigler and Geneva Miller who we built a wheelchair ramps for and were so kind, loving, and accepting, or if it was through William Childress and his wife who just loved on the kids and were very special. Whether it was the group of kids that I never once heard complain about the heat or the rain, graciously accepting the challenge of being the hands and feet of Christ. Or whether it was in any other small shape or form, God was present at all times.

Two really cool (at least to me) things happened second camp week. The first one was when I was in an auto shop getting a donation and a man having his car worked on started talking to me. Turns out we had worked for him our first camp week and we talked for half an hour about the group and about life in general. This man was so grateful for the work and was excited about the possibility of having them come out in the future.

The other cool story happened when I was in a lumber shop getting paint donated and the guy at the cash register starting asking me what camp I was working at. He went on to tell me that he had been a camper 7 or 8 times but that he had small children now and hadnt been in a few years. He told me he had been to McCall, Loy White, and Pfieffer before they moved to JYC. After talking with him in more detail I learned that he had been a camper in 2002 at Pfieffer when my brother Tripp was on staff there. I thought that was really cool.

God has been at work this summer at West Wilkes Middle School, and I am sure that he will continue his work for the rest of the summer. I am heading back to West Wilkes tomorrow for camp week 3. Please pray for our week and all of the people that will be affected.

Daring to be Different

My camp (West Wilkes Middle School) was blessed with the opportunity to have 86 campers and work for about 53 families in one week!! This also meant A LOT of preparation and not a lot of time to do it, so on Monday, the day after staff training ended I went up to the school to organize our tool shed for the summer. Our tool shed is a tractor trailer, and it took a lot of work getting started.

During our pre-camp, where we get everything ready for the camp, we had a lot of stressful times, but we began bonding as a staff and by the grace of God we completed all of our tasks at hand and were wide-eyed and ready for our campers on Sunday.

The week went very smoothly and was filled with God in every twist and turn. The theme of the week was how we all were at camp this week for a reason, that God had placed us all hear this week for a specific reason, different for everyone.

For me the theme seemed to be all week about how we are called to be different. Through the campers, passages of scripture I read, and the people we worked for it was a theme that resonated in my mind and in my daily encounters. Mr. Wilcox, a man who lives in Todd, NC and who we painted and did yardwork for told me that he enjoyed the group and said that there was something different about them. Mr. Jim, a man from Fleetwood, NC who we built a wheelchair ramp for told me that him and his wife Joy really enjoyed meeting youth who were different. Rev. Mathis, from N. Wilkesboro who we built a porch and ramp for told me that these kids were special and that they had done a good job (which from him means more than you can imagine). Rev. Mathis also gave me $80 for the ramp and told me that he wanted to give so much more, but he just didn’t have the money. I smiled and told him that he didn’t have to give a thing, that we were blessed with the opportunity to work for him and that we didn’t expect a thing in return. To express that was difficult to me, but it really made me think about how we are to serve and give, expecting nothing in return.

You see God calls us to be different, and Carolina Cross Connection gives us an opportunity to do that. For the week these campers were the hands and feet of Jesus, and people noticed that they were different. These people loved seeing youth being different!

God loves seeing us be different. The question I had for my campers was how can you take this week and be different everyday of your life? And I don’t know the answer to this question but they had a few. One was helping someone just like they did at camp, or something smaller like helping a lady with groceries. And that is a start. But as I told them, anyone can do that, how do we show the love of Christ in our actions?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. Everyday I struggle knowing how to live for God and how to be different. But my challenge to myself and to you this summer is find ways to be different, and let those differences in your life be noticed by others, because they will notice, and when they do, tell them all about it.

Please feel free to leave comments or to ask me questions about anything I have said. I look forward to hearing from you all and I will keep you updated after next camp week. Please continue to pray for all of the campers who will be coming to camp, all of the families we will be working for, my staff, and Carolina Cross Connection in its entirety as a mission organization.

Staff Training

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I have not been home for more than 24 hours since staff training started June 2, so this was the first time I could update everyone.

Staff training was a blast. 3-4 long sessions a day learning every nook and cranny of the job may not sound exciting, but it is the people there that make it what it is. This summer there are so amazing people that God has placed on Carolina Cross Connection staff. This year staff training was a bit different for me being a returning staff member, and many newer staff members looked to me for answers and guidance in what it means to be a field coordinator. Staff training was pretty exhausting, and all of the work heading into Camp Week 1 seemed very daunting and overwhelming. Staff selection was very exciting once again this summer, and I was blessed with 7 staff members along with me,  that God placed together to form the West Wilkes CCC summer staff. God truly had his hand in placing this staff together, and it has been evident to mean since the moment it happened. Each member brings there own special strengths to our staff and makes it strong.

The Act of Service

Tonight was the last night at home before I head for staff training. We were given a book to read before staff training, entitled "How to Inherit the Earth" by Scott Bessenecker. At first this book was difficult to read, and somewhat confusing. The past few days have been busy, trying to cram everything in at the last minute, but in the time of business I found this book to be a breath of fresh air, and at its conclusion an important blueprint for my summer.

The entirety of the book focused on being meek, citing Matthew 5:5 which says, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." What does it truly mean to be meek? Being meek requires an entirely different set of values and an entirely different lifestyle than the world around us portrays. Being meek requires us to be in constant service to others, a lifestyle carried out by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Being meek requires a life free of comparisons to others, and in complete dedication and service to God and to others. We are to answer God with an unconditional "yes" and to live in submission to his authority and to our fellow leaders in Christ. 

As I start this summer, this book was a great reminder for me to cast myself aside and to be completely submissive to God and his authority. A call to be meek and to be in servanthood for him. To abandon any feelings of independence and rely entirely on him. To rid feelings of entitlement and anything that resembles a prideful nature.

As Christians we are called to life a life in service to others. That is different for every person, but together we are the body of Christ. There is no doubt in my mind that God is going to use this Summer to do great things, and I thank you once again for choosing to be a part of my journey.

A Summer of Serving

First off thanks for joining my blog for this summer. If you are reading this then you have most likely helped play a part in my Journey to this summer in some way, and I thank you tremendously for that. God has truly blessed me with incredible family and friends and you have helped nurture me in my growth and willingness to serve the Lord.


Now for some details.


I will be a lead field coordinator for Carolina Cross Connection at West Wilkes Middle School. We will be serving Wilkes, Ashe, Alleghany, and Surry counties. My job is to plan, schedule, provide materials, and supervise the completion of work projects in these counties, such as yard work, painting, floor repairs, and wheelchair ramps. I will be working with 7 other college aged people, and we will have up to 100 high school aged campers for four separate weeks in the summer. My job also includes helping plan and supervise in camp activities and worship services.


Prayer is such an important part of this ministry. I would ask all of you to pray for this ministry, the office staff, the camp staffs, the cooks, the campers, and most importantly the people that we will encounter and work for this summer. God is going to do some incredible things this summer through this ministry and all of the people who will be involved in it.


Staff training begins on June 2nd, which is just over a week away now!