Its Tuesday morning and I finally have had some time to decompress what happened last week with our English Camp for students who were in classes 7-12. The camp was smaller than we had anticipated, which means that I had to eat some humble pie. Last year we had 96 students. They were coming out our ears, and there was too many, so this year we wanted to cut that number back, so we changed facilities and then had only space for 70 students and 30 leaders. We advertised a ton, by printing fliers and then visiting a lot of English classes. We were able to get 40 kids to camp, so I felt like a failure in some aspects, but this was all part of God moving, in ways that I couldn't recognize or understand.
The team arrived on Friday and on our way from Tallinn to Tartu, the guys who had been here before were asking for updates on how students were doing. Cory, one of the guys on the team, just asked me about Eleri, the girl friend of Daniel, and as we were talking my phone rang. It was Kati, another of our LIFT youth leaders, sharing about how Eleri just accepted Christ. Did the tears start to flow. For 4 years I have prayed and longed for this, the Eleri would finally meet Jesus and be forever changed. This is so special, because Eleri is so special to Reena and I and was part of our home groups a few years ago. The team just got here and things were already starting to happen.
One embarrassing thing was I had a small accident. I was driving a trailer that was about 9ft tall, it was pretty huge. Well, I was heading home with 3 guys that were staying at our place. I turned into one parking garage, forgetting how tall the trailer was and smashed it pretty good. What was once a beautiful, canvas trailer was now leaning about 45 degrees in the wrong way, check this picture out.
I will have to pay for the repair. It was just a stupid brain dead moment. I took the trailer back to the company, they were pretty shocked and said they would call me back that day. I haven't heard from them, so not sure how bad it will be, but if you want to help with the Stupid Craig fund, let me know.
We had training and some prep time on Saturday, the service on Sunday and the mad dash out of town. We arrived at the camp, ate dinner, and started to set up. Then to finish the night we had a short prayer walk where we took time to pray for different things and do some experiential prayer. Simply, we maybe held something while we prayer, or we washed each others feet. The purpose was to connect our hearts minds and bodies to prepare for the week. I thought it would take about 1 hour, but God moved and moved and moved. People were crying as God broke them and spoke to them. Guys prayed flat on their faces, on their knees. God made people fix their relationships with each other and gave such a burden for each other and the students that were due to arrive the next morning. It was incredible. I had no experience this type of thing for a long time and it was awesome. God met us that night and we had such confidence that he would do the same with the students.
Camp started Monday morning and was awesome. Meetings and small groups, swimming and sports and, cafe in the evening and lots of time to hang out. The theme was heros and I spoke 5 times in 3 days which was incredibly exhausting. I was barely able to stay up till 11 each night and was usually the first one in bed. But God was moving all week. The students were so open to what God was saying. Our morning devotions which were not required still had about 50% of the camp and Tom did an awesome job sharing from God's word. We didn't have any students at camp verbally share about accepting Christ, but so many barriers were torn down that a visible change took place in each person life. It was incredible! One girl did accept Christ on Saturday after camp and many students said they found God in that camp and they want to know more. I am not sure if we will ever see another camp like that again, but my worry about too few showed me that small is sometimes better and who care how many come, lets rejoice in the lives that were changed!
Thanks for all your prayers for the camp and also for Reena and the boys while I was gone. Reena survived, but it wasn't easy. A 1 and 2 year old can pretty exhausting. I know it was your prayers that sustained her and also motivated others to come and help out. Finally everyone is healthy and Reena and the one in the hopper are doing good, still blows me away that I am going to have a little girl.
This week showed me that God is still at work in students lives and I hope that we are on the cusp of something big and a movement of God that will draw many more young people to Jesus!
