“What in the world are we doing here?†we all asked as we pulled up to camp and saw our new home for the next four days.
We arrived at a church camp expecting air-conditioned, comfortable facilities only to find ceiling fans and plywood walls in our sad cabin.
Someone mentioned a river somewhere around, so my closest friends and I decided to go check out the whole campsite to find something positive about the place. We were instructed to stay close to the cabin, so we couldn’t go off to find the water. Instead we settled for a swing set that was poorly equipped with pathetic swings that quickly caused pain in our rear ends.
Our attention was transmitted to the near-by, broken down slide where some other campers were talking.
One of them walked up to the swings where we were sitting and said, “That kid doesn’t want you to stare at him. He just wanted me to tell you that.â€
“Umm…. Okay.†We replied, a bit wierded out by this request.
As the small girl was walking off to return to her friends, my best friend said, “Tell him ‘Jesus loves you’!â€
We were greeted soon again by this girl along with the rest of the group, and I was really scared. I thought they were going to try to fight us, but I just stayed calm and watched as an unusual looking boy marched up and started yelling at us pretty inconsiderately. He was saying things like “You are all so weird.†And “I don’t like you. You’re strange.†So we all stayed calm and began to talk to the disturbed boy, and we let him talk about his family, telling us that his mom was in prison and his dad, along with his siblings, passed away.
I don’t know about anyone else who heard all of this, but I was nearly to tears. I felt so bad for the poor boy. Unlike him, I grew up with the most loving family and everything I could possibly wish for. After hearing so much, I couldn’t handle anymore, so I went back across the campus to our cabin, leaving this group of strangers standing at the swing set.
That night while some friends and I were sitting outside of our cabin, this same boy walked up to us and apologized for his words from the previous afternoon. He continued with saying, “I just got so mad at you because you said that Jesus loves me, and He really doesn’t. I’m gothic, I’m a skater, and I have no family, so Jesus doesn’t love me.â€
We all gasped in unison to this outlandish response.
We realized then that the answer to our question about our purpose there was this boy. We were at this horrid camp because of him. We didn’t even know his name, but all of us who heard what he said began to pray for him. My friends and I prayed that God might come into his life and set his problems free. It was apparent that He was what he needed, so we continued to pray for him.
We all talked to the boy every chance that we got throughout the day, just learning about his thoughts and his normal life, trying to help him get on the right path.
The first night of camp passed, and by the second, our prayers had miraculously reached God and back to this boy in need.
He had been sitting in one of the many gazeboes throughout the camp when a counselor walked up to him and asked him to share his thoughts, obvious that something was bothering him. The boy replied, “I want to have Jesus in my life,†so they walked together to the worship hall, and he talked and prayed about his life and how he so wanted to change his life to walk with God.
He saved this boy who denied Jesus’ love one day the next!
Everyone in the entire camp who heard of this news was ecstatic about the amazing news. We were all in complete awe of what God had done at that dirty, uncomfortable camp.
This one boy has changed many lives without even trying or knowing he’s done so, and he has taught a number of lessons to so many people. I know that I learned how extremely powerful God is no matter what. He created a new person out of this lonely, washed-out 14-year-old boy at an old, stinky camp in Menard, Texas. God has definitely shown His astonishing love and amazing power through what He’s done for us!
