Indiana Central Family Camp

Frankfort Indiana

Family camp was interesting! This was our first camp that ran from Sunday to Sunday without any sort of break before the next camp – FCA - which began Monday morning. Since I have already explained this camp to many of you in person, I will [try to] be brief. However, if I haven’t personally told you the stories from Frankfort yet… hopefully this will be helpful.

When we arrived Sunday night we met with Ryan, the youth director at the family camp, and found the youth tabernacle where we would be playing. After some interesting complications with our lodgings, the kids and our team were thankfully allowed to move to another building for the week. After setting up the stage that night, we got to meet some of the kids and finally fall into bed, which may or may not have been a good choice since the mattresses weren’t the most comfortable things in the world. It was difficult for some of the guys to get to sleep, which made the next day a bit more challenging. However, the neat thing about this week was that our entire team was staying together in the same cabin with the kids. This gave us cool windows of opportunity to build unique relationships.

The schedule at Fankfort was simple. Wake up, breakfast at 8:00, group game at 10:00 (ie, shaving creak whiffleball, volleyball, softball, amazing race with blow up water slide and slip & slide, and beach ball soccer), lunch at noon, 3:00 youth service, 5:00 dinner, 7:00 Family Tabernacle, 10:00 night game (grog, pizza party/concert, scavenger hunt, mission impossible, movie night, and rain date card night), and lights out at 12:00 am. Chis K, Denny, Seth and I decided to throw in our own event in the mornings - a 7:00 a.m. trip to a local coffee shop! As you can see, the camp was pretty simple as far as schedule and busyness. The rest of the time was free time for the families and the kids. Needless to say we played lots of euchre, ninja, and ball that week.

In the afternoons we played teen tabernacle. We played a concert for one of the night events and we ended up playing twice for the family tabernacle event in the evenings. The tabernacle services were always inspiring and something to look forward to. The sermon from John 3:19-21 especially stuck out to me Tuesday night. It was a message that summed up the whole summer for me since it seemed that the basic message at every camp was about letting our light shine as Christians (Matthew 5:14-16). The speaker, Dr. Mark Weeder, presented the passage by showing how our purpose is to seek out the darkness with our light. We are not to retreat from evil and sin, rather we should seek it out and share the light that we have been blessed to receive. The verse tells us how the darkness hates the light because its deeds are evil. Therefore, we who have the message of reconciliation are to seek out the darkness and simply burn bright. This illustration was given:

“As evening shadows faded and dusk was giving way to darkness, Robert Louis Stevenson, a small boy at the time, had his nose pressed against the window pane of his home. He was fascinated by the old-fashioned lamplighter coming down the street lighting the gas street lamps.
"Look," he cried out in excitement to his nanny, "there's a man coming down the street punching holes in the darkness."

I love this illustration. A vivid analogy to what our lives should be like: springs of hope amidst the surrounding shadows, which the world will see from miles away. Heads will turn when we burn for our Savior and remove the “bushel basket” that may be covering us from the eyes of those who need the light to set them free. Therefore, we let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and give glory to God!

Worship this week was tough since the response was far from overwhelming. However, the effectiveness of God’s ministry through us happened during our cabin time and hang-out time with kids. We were able to minister to lots of kids, getting to hear their stories and then helping equip them for going back home. One of the senior counselors purchased several bibles for kids who didn’t have one. We were able to personally give them to the kids and encourage them to live in the power and peace that it possesses.

We learned a lot from this week! We discovered just how addicted we are to coffee, we found we always need to prepare for sets (even when we’ve been playing together for 2 months), we experienced the full extent of what body odor can do to a cabin (AaAhhHhhhhGhhh), learned that old people cheat at games when playing with kids and teens, and finally we got to experience the blessings of a random act of hospitality and kindness. It was truly a week well spent!