It starts Tuesday

Come Awake Kids Camp 2011

I've been waiting for this since 2010...

It starts Tuesday, and I once again have the honor and privilege of going to camp with amazing children and workers. This is my fourth camp, I've gone every summer except one for the past five years as a youth worker. Every single year it tops the year before and every single year it changes my life in ways only a Creative God like mine can.

The theme this year is COME AWAKE, I have to say that I absolutely love it. I love what it stands for. The dictionary says the Come means to approach a specific thing, to arrive on time and in the midst of progress. Awake means to rouse to action, to bring awareness. So here is why I love those two words put together: To approach a specific thing: Destiny. And to take action towards said destiny and in progress of that, bring awareness to the world that they have a destiny too: Come awake. 

All of me is just stirring with excitement. People talk about how wonderful it is to take a week and devote it to children and Jesus, but I honestly don't think a lot of people understand just how impacting the experience is. Because until you go and see a child who is totally broken inside, who has never been to church come awake and realize they are royalty, you don't know just how capable of fixing lives God is. Until you absolutely pour all of yourself out as a service to other's you don't know how wonderfully exhausting  it can be. And until you spend a week falling in love with kids who are going to be and are, the pillars of the world, and with them you cry out to a God who is bigger than all that's around you, you have no idea how permanently life changing it really is. 


The idea is crazy. To bring slime, creeks, water parks, and worship services all into one huge plot of land, but it is the most ingenious idea in the entire world. 


So by this time next week I will be in recovery from camp exhaustion, but I get the feeling I'll also be a new person. I will discover things about myself only children can teach me, and I'll open up to a new season the way only God can make me do. 


Hey, might as well come awake.