live from camp: Thursday night, or techincally friday morning

Whew,
Thank you for all your prayers this past week. All i can say is that i am plain exhausted. :-) We are hoping to be home in no more then 12 hours. I will probably write an entire re-cap of the week in a few days, so check back, but in the spirit of this, here are a few highlights of the day...

A few guys woke up early to surf...
In the morning meeting we had a time of worship then split up into individual churches. We sat on the steps of a building and talked about the cost of discipleship since that just seemed to be a theme for the week for our group. Many people in our church have been waking up to what it means to be a Christian. I have literally seen changes daily from Landon, Angela, Gannon, and Josh Studley where i feel they have significantly changed their routine of camp to reflect what they want to be. The whole group seems to be growing. Just about everyone wishes it could be longer (the only exception is the weary leaders). Tonight Tessa stood infront of everyone at the share time and said how much she has enjoyed it when coming she didn't think she wanted to go. She said that God can do anything and used her attitude towards camp as the example!
After the meeting we had our final time or REC and it was the great race where our teams had to hold hands running arround campus to different stations to do rediculous challenges. The one that stands out the most to me is Angela volunteered to eat 1/2 a bottle of mustard. Let's just say she doesn't think she will be eating mustard ever again.
At lunch we all sat together and quickly left for an afternoon as a church. We went to the historic lighthouse to check it out, explored some abandoned millitary bunkers, and played in a tidepool for almost an hour or more. It was high tide, and almost the entire group swam across to this further beach. It was exciting because a lot of people were fearful, but as they saw others do it, they kept wanting to go. I specifically helped Alex, Noah, and Tessa across. Josh Fisher morphed into a guide for everyone and it was amazing to see his heart show that much mercy. We dropped off a few people who were done, and went to the beach cliffs just under the campus for some more exploration. Looking back it was pretty crazy getting down, where you had to hold onto a rope while going down the hillside, but amazingly we all got down and up safely with the exception of Jordyn stubbing her toe. While down there the boys found a natural rock slide where it was worn smooth and the waves would throw you up the slide and then you go down with the wave. It was pretty neat, but as the tide was coming in, i shut down the rocks. It was honestly a fantastic afternoon and i really felt like our church came together and it was great seeing everyone work together on the obstacles getting down to the beach.
Tonight's meeting we saw the camp video and headed out for worship and the message outside watching the sunset and the stars come out. Chris's final message was on the doctrine of the Bible. He used "hefty gallon storage bags" to make his point that the bible is necessary, clear, suffiicent, and authoritative. After he talked we had a sharing time where anyone from camp could stand up and share what God had been teaching them this week. Josh Studley, Tessa, and Gannon stood up and shared different aspects. This meeting was incredibly looooong (3hours!!!) and our students were getting very ancy at the end of it.
After that we headed to dorms where we started packing and cleaning for our early morning departure. (we are hoping to clear out at 9 or earlier.) Because the guys were hungry we ordered some pizza down here and enjoyed a late snack. If you get this, continue to pray for us on the road, but also that your sons and daughters would carry what they have been learning with them after camp. There always is a spiritual down turn form the daily hours of worship, teaching, and praying. It isn't a sustainable place for them, but i want them to be able ot retain the decisions they made here at camp.

Before i head to bed, here are some questions i would recomend you ask your student about their camp experience:
-What was your favorite thing to do?
-What team were you on in the games?
-Tell me about the games you played for recreation.
-What were the 5 grocery items Chris (the speaker) used, and what did they all mean?
-What do think God was teaching you this week?
-What was your favorite worship songs?
-tell us about the opening lazer show. What was it like?
-If you had to pick your favorite 3 things about camp this year, what are they?
-did you make any decisions this week?
-What can we do to help you keep your decisions?

that is all for now. I am going to go pass out in my sleeping bag...

-12:42 am
-rob