Mount Hermon is a week-long summer conference in NorCal with all the churches under our "umbrella" group. It was the week of hanging out with friends from all over the California (and the Pacific Northwest). Every year I spent a week at Mount Hermon in a cabin with other crazy girls and a cabin leader. Every year I heard sermons and attended seminars and played ridiculous games (peanut butter elbow relays, capture the flag flour bombs in the rain, and ultimate relay race to name a few) and came up with crazy skits about the camp theme. This was just junior high, interhigh, high school, and college camps.
I remember even back to Family camp when my dad was the dinner emcee. Every night he awarded a dinner table with a pot of fresh white rice (only Asians might understand the significance). During the afternoon free time, we went swimming and creek walking and hiking. We stayed up late and ate candy and played ping-pong. It was a week of hanging out with church families and convincing everyone's dad you needed another ice cream cone.
But that's not really what I thought about yesterday morning as I walked to school. It wasn't some convicting message I heard because I honestly can't remember a single sermon or camp theme in the many years I went to camp. It wasn't crazy games or sermon illustrations or funny skits or embarrassing moments--all though there are plenty of those.
What came to mind were the men and women who served me at camp all those years. The cabin leaders of my cabin and the ones next door who prayed over me. The staffers who took care of me when I was injured and sat next to me on the benches when I couldn't participate in the games. The older men and women who invested in me for those week-long camp experiences, and the ones who continued to invest even after their obligation finished.
When I was a junior high, interhigh, high school, and college camper, I never would've imagined I'd be serving God in a tiny dairy farming village in the middle of nowhere Japan. It's not because I didn't love Japan back then, but I was so angry at God. Though it took years after my last summer as a camper to get things right with God, I'm thankful for those week-long God experiences every summer. I never had the opportunity in college to serve at Mount Hermon to "pay my dues" but...
Thank you to all the cabin leaders and staffers who served me over the years at Mount Hermon. Thank you for praying for me even when I could have cared less. Thank you for trusting God had bigger plans for an angry and rebellious teenager who always seemed to get hurt at camp. Thank you for having faith God could use a week-long summer camp to change hearts, especially angry teenage ones. Thank you for loving Jesus and faithfully serving Him so one day I could do the same.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that isset before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
Hebrews 12:1-2
This is beautiful Kar, and brought me back to those days. Like when we both got sick at junior high camp and when your family drove me up and adopted me for the week, and we hung out with your cousins and ate my 5 lb. bag of gummy bears. Our God has been faithful...it's encouraging to know that even in the short time frame of a week, He can mold and inspire. Agreed--a huge thank you to our leaders and mentors :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. We all have those that have poured into us, and I thank Him for His work in and through you and all of us... His grace truly is magnificent.
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