Thoughts from a beautiful trip to Michigan Timber Wolf, Young Life camp. This past week I got the opportunity to take a young life group from the north side of Chicago; Lane Tech, Lincoln Park, and Lakeview high school students. We spent a week at Timber Wolf camp in Lake city Michigan. The day was split between cleaning the dining hall in order to prepare it for the summer camp, and the second half of the day was free time and activities.
I was in charge of all the boys and got to teach them how to clean. Their amazement over the small things in life was great. For instance on the ride there from Chicago they got all excited when they saw cows and all wanted to see the cows. Everything seemed like a new experience, which they tackled with excitement. The cleaning for the boys consisted of washing all the dishes after every meal. Which although it was work the boys had fun in the midst of it all. We had water fights with the hoses and spray bottles and danced to the music as we worked. Some of the other jobs we did was wiping all the chairs down, and using a lift to dust the upper windows in the dinning hall. We cleaned out all the grills as well. It was great to get to relive moments in my own life with the boys from teaching the boys how to sweep and mop, to cleaning toilets and washing dishes not to mention dusting. Everything was new to them and everything had to be taught which was great.
We got everyone to ride the go-karts they had at the camp as well as to climb the rock wall. We had a gym and game room available to the students during the day as well. From snowball fights to broomball we had a lot of fun getting to know each other. Every morning we spent a half an hour on a bible study and devotion time, which went very smoothly. I got to share on death and judgment which I taught on from Hebrews 9:27, while cross-referencing Psalm 50, and Romans 3:23, 6:23. How we, humans are all sinners. These passages teach that sin earns (wages) us death, but God knew that we could never achieve perfection, only he was capable of perfection and so he sent himself as Jesus his son who traded his perfection for our imperfection so that we could carry his title of perfection to be able to be with God as his perfect creations.
Overall it was a wonderful week. The majority of the students were new to Young Life and Christianity so it was wonderful to get to share something I’m very passionate about with them. Another awesome take away is that, Lincoln Park high school where I work as a Young Life rep has never had an official club yet. But we got eight of the students at the camp from the school and they all plan on coming weekly to club and want to do other activities as a group. Who knows where God will take this! Even if it doesn’t grow he is sovereign and I need to always remember that.
