I am at southern youth STRAM Camp in Vista, CA. I am writing this journal entry at the beginning of day three. One may ask, why did you not write the entry on the respective day. Answer: two reasons, one, I was very busy getting camp set up and two, I did not want to. What is really cool; I have four men who have been with me at Southern Youth STRAM camp for several years, Dale Spurrier has been with me at least seven years, Rick Bennett about nine years, Ken Waltman, (counting Northern Camp) 15 years and Charlie Carney, about ten years. These men of God are very special. I believe each one of them took remedial reading at some point because it seems that they can read my mind. They seem to know what I am thinking and then get it done. They are the real deal! Day one, Sunday, started with a great amount of questions but ended with a great amount of satisfaction. I preached at Sierra Heights Baptist Church (where the Father has me serving as the senior pastor). I preached on forgiveness and it was so impressive to see the Father move in some of the member’s lives. Let’s just say that God had His way. Hunter and I left Clovis at around 3:15 to meet up with Shane, my youngest, in the Newhall area. We had dinner at In-N-Out. Excellent food! I really enjoyed my time with Shane, but then I always enjoy my time with my children. I just do not tell them that enough. We left Shane at about 7:00 and headed for Vista. Got to Vista just before 9:00. My team had most of the camp set up including my trailer. It is a fifth-wheel with a pull-out. It was donated by a couple in Southern California who support Disaster Relief. It is very comfortable. We are selling it to put the funds in the DR account to help buy a newer Skid-loader with tracks. We hope to get at least $10,000. It is well worth it. Day Two, Monday, the beginning of STRAM Camp. The campers will start to arrive later this afternoon. This morning is set up time; the kitchen and the worship tent. We have an excellent team to accomplish everything that needs to be done before the campers show. The plan is made and now we wait to9 see it become so. All the people are here to get the kitchen set up and running. I spent most of the morning with Dale and David getting the tent set up. We did not wait for Gene and his guys who help us every year. We just proceeded on faith that they would be here to set up the tent with us. If they are here it will be much easier. If they do not show up it will be much harder on DSale and me. It takes ten to set it up easily. However, three have set it up before. It is just so very hard. We had it all rolled out and were just finishing the stitching of the three parts of the tent when Gene and the guys from Set Free Ministries arrived. I was very relieved. The tent was up in the next hour and a half. If they had not showed up it would have been another hour or longer and a lot more sweat. But then, that IS burning calories. ALL IS WELL! I did what we do every year for the guys who help us out, I took everyone to Carl’s Jr for lunch. We fed 11 people for $104. They were thrilled and filled. We are now ready. Thank you Father. The rest of the afternoon was registering the campers and starting one mtg after another; first the sponsers, then the rest of the camp and then the evening worship. I am the camp pastor. My very good friend, who I do not get to see much, Rick Wiles, had to cancel. For me, that was a big loss. This is the smallest group since we started 20 years ago – 34 paid campers. The whole camp is about 50 people. The northern camp was a total of 191 campers. That was our biggest number and this is our smallest number in recent memory. Day Two, Tuesday. Today is beach day. One of the most moving times for me at STRAM Camp is to witness the campers opening their Bible with their Moments with God daily devotion and see them get into the Father’s Word. Mike Campbell is doing a great job serving as our Camp Missionary. I am very happy that he contacted me, wanting to serve at each of our camps. He brings a good clear word that the kids can understand and begin to process the Father’s direction in their lives. The camp took off for the beach for a day of fun in the sun. The last word I shared was SUN-BLOCK, SUN-BLOCK, SUN-BLOCK. They did well. No one returned to camp lobster red. PTL!!! While the kids were at camp, Rick and I ran errands for STRAM Camp: order pizza for the evening meal at Sea World, reserve tickets for The Wave, Reserve 12 spots on the fishing boat for twilight fishing, and end up at Torrey Pines Golf Course. We did not attend to play but we did hope to hit a bucket of balls on their driving range just to say we have been there. Well, we found Torrey Pines and the driving range but it was in use by the First Tee program. It is a great looking place and I could tell it would be fun to play. We returned back to camp around 2:30. The kids were just starting to return from the beach. I preached on the spiritual contest in 1 Kings 18 where Elijah pitted himself against the Baal priests at Mt Carmel. I wanted to show how a easy it is for a believer to get distracted by the evils of this world even after they have witnesses a true movement of the Father. Elijah went from being a hero to the people to being a coward to an evil Jezebel. I had eye contact with the youth and believe they were into the story. Day three, Wednesday. Today is Community Ministry day. Today the camp will be working with Pastor Frank at Lifeway Church here in Vista to help them clean up from VBS and get ready for worship. We sent two teams to Franks church to help clean up, paint a room, and do some yard work as well. Pastor Frank seemed very pleased with all the work our kids were able to accomplish for Lifeway Church. While half of the camp was in Community Ministry the other half was at camp involved with paintball or archery. We have some good shots with the Bow and arrow. The guys with paintball were moving to win. Everyone had a great time. Dinner came with Hungarian goulash and green beans. The kitchen staff is outstanding. Charlie Carney is working as my blue cap. He is the unit leader. He is doing an excellent job. The meals are on time and the food tastes good. Chuck Ericson would be very proud of him. I sure do miss Chuck. At 4:30, I took 12 of our campers to Helgren’s Deep Sea Fishing. It was time for them to eat their dinner and head out to sea to catch big fish. They left Oceanside Harbor at about 5:30. They returned back to camp about 11:30, just before midnight. Did they catch anything? Let’s just say that we would have starved today if we had trusted them to bring home the “bacon”. One new camper did bring home some food. However, it was barely enough for him. The good thing is that they had a good time and returned to us safely. They did tell us that even though they did not catch, the rest of the boat caught a lot of sharks. One sounded like it was six feet long. I preached on Jesus walking on water and how he is always there when one of His cries out for help and needs to be saved because of their doubt. Again, I felt like I had the campers attention. I feel like we are ready for Thursday when we give the invitation for the kids to make public any decisions they have made while here at camp. I pray that the size of the group does not keep anyone from responding to Jesus. The last two nights I and several others of the staff have stayed up until midnight playing a stupid card game that id addicting. I say this because we would plan to stop so everone would go to bed but someone would say, Just one more game.” After three more games we would finally stop. I am a little tired. (I AM TOO TIRED TO PROOF THIS, THEREFORE TAKE IT AS IT IS)
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 22:15:31 +0000
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