SMT, Part 2= Mt. Gilead- A Road Trip to California

After our 3 weeks of being at home (or Hawaii), we all traveled back to Cannon Beach to pack up our van, which we named "Martha", and head out on our 8 week adventure together! We guys got in Martha and the girls got in Katie's car and we headed east to Redmond, OR to go to Matt and Katie's brother's graduation, which was that night. We went to that and then stayed at the White's house for that night (Lisa, Rhianna and I slept in their trailer, the girls in one part and I in the "man" area haha). The next morning, with much apprehension, we headed south on a 12 hour drive (or so, I cant remember right off) to Santa Rosa, CA, which is just north of San Francisco. We ate at an In-and-Out, visited with Abbi Sanchez, and headed to our first camp: Mt. Gilead. Now this camp was HUGE. If you're familiar with the concept of a mega-church, well I liken it to a mega-camp. It had around 300 kids and around 23 cabins, with each being able to hold 8 campers and 2 counselors. That was a weird week for me. It was the first time I'd ever legitly been a counselor. But God worked amazingly and allowed me to be one of the few guys with a co-counselor: Jeremiah Auer. I am eternally thankful for that guy. Whether he meant to or not, he slowly integrated me into the position of counselor. At the beginning of the week, I was lost. But by the end of the week, I had a firm grasp of what I was doing :)

My campers that week were Justin, Nick, Devin, Dominic, Nick, Justin, Nick, and Adolfo (for you campers, just know I did that from memory :) ) We had our ups and downs that week. At first, they didn't get a long much and hated our "cabin time", which I found to be a brilliant binding tool. Even though they hated the stuff we did, they grew a lot in that week! And so did my leadership skills.

The activities were great that week! We did a huge slip and slide, pool games, human clue, a rock concert, and "the gauntlet", among other things. As I said, Mt. Gidead is a MEGA camp! This was the camp that I definitely had the most FUN at, just cause their program staff and program was just plain amazing and very much one of the biggest main focuses of the camp.

Chapel and one-on-ones with my campers was my favorite times of the day, as it would be for the rest of the summer. Being able to just go and worship God twice a day for 8 weeks was SO awesome, and I do miss it a lot! Also, having a Bible teaching every day twice a day on top of the worship.. wow :)

On a more serious, personal note, in the weeks leading up to SMT, my family had found out that my Grandma Moore had cancer, and didn't have much time left. Now, my Grandma and I were extremely close. My sister and I spent a huge amount of our childhoods at Grandma and Grandpa's house, especially in holiday events, and we went camping every summer. They had even come with us on our trip to Hawaii two years ago, which was so amazing! So to get the information that she wasn't going to last much longer was tough... but God was in every moment of it. The only set of 3 weeks I was home in two years "JUST HAPPENED" to be when we found out. The day she was put in the hospital and we got the news "JUST HAPPENED" to be the day that I was in Portland for the day and I could just drop by on the way back home. She "JUST HAPPENED" to be put into ER room 23, hospital room 23, and the meal number my mom and grandpa "JUST HAPPENED" to be 23, all reminding us of Psalm 23! All I can say is God is good. My Grandpa kept that attitude through the whole thing. He is an amazing man!
Anyways, it was during this first week of camp that my Grandma passed away. It was hard, but God made it easy because I was to be distracted with camps for the next 8 weeks, thus allowing me to recover with out even realizing it! And I want to thank Mt. Gilead's director Steve Todd for all of the support he gave me during that week! And for all of the support of the staff and, of course, Matt, Rhianna, and Katie!

Camp has a profound influence on kids, and it's so essencial to any kids growing up experience, especially a Christian in high school. High school is a time where nothing makes sense and you think that your life just sucks (for some that continues into college, if you don't let God address it). I don't know what it is about camp, but God uses those one weeks in kids lives so much, more than I ever expected to see. I mean, I knew it was always that way in my own life growing up, but I had never seen it from a counselor's perspective, and counselors see 100x more than campers ever do! And over and over, I saw God work in kids lives, transforming them right in front of me. It was a perspective that was easy to take for granted, a view that, if we weren't careful, could easily become "I'm doing this, not God", which was NOT TRUE AT ALL. All I was was a vessel used by God, no more, no less.

For lots of photos, including some of our team, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mt-Gilead-Bible-Camp/77656014121?sk=photos, and go down to "Daily Snap High School 01 Monday". There is also Tuesday through Friday albums after that! :)

Before we knew it, it was the last day of camp. We had to say goodbye to the staff and campers whom we had become close to in only a week. Time had gone by fairly fast and we thought we had an idea of what "being tired" was. We didn't. We had just barely begun our journey. So we packed up, prayed, and started our journey north, back to Oregon.

This is John Friend signing off for now... Part 3 coming soon!