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.