How God's Amazing Agenda Unwinds

          Today is a Happy Sabbath at Camp Au Sable as the staff are preparing our hearts for Summer Camp ministry. My family started coming here for Pastor's Retreats, Family Camps, and Summer Camps when I was three years old. Learning how to canoe, being blobbed for the first time, and sleeping under the stars are moments I want to keep forever. Being at the boardwalk's dedication and fellow camper's baptisms were priceless.




Haystacks make us happy!

          Camp Au Sable was a place where I also was rightly disciplined by my loving parents and confronted on my choices by God-fearing adults. At one point my unbecoming teenage attitude from Camp Meeting carried on as my family went to Tween Camp, as my dad was the Pastor for the week. Instead of staying in the cabin with all of the other girls I was detained in the air conditioned Deer Lodge. My parents put a hair net on me and had me clean the silverware during meal times at the cafeteria. I am so thankful that I was held accountable for my actions and taught in the way in which I should go.

         Besides gleaning spiritual insights, seeing Bible stories come to life throughout the plays, and witnessing characters change and mold more like Christ's, my ultimate favorite place to be was at the Camp Store. Maybe it was Mrs. Baker's bubbly personality greeting me every time I walked in or the creative stationary waiting for me to write letters on, or perhaps it was because God placed a desire in my heart to someday serve right there in the store.
         
          I learned valuable life skills through working in the kitchen and keeping an eye out for the allergy list (I'm on it for fructose-intolerance) and spontaneously being on board with teaching the Vegan Cooking Class. I cannot stop praising God for placing me in the store starting my first staff summer during Family Camp. Miss Tammy Micheff and Mrs. Morgan have mentored me moment by moment as they seep sunshine all around me! I just love getting to see every single camper come in to get their favorite ice cream, snow cone, or camp souvenir. It touches my heart every time one of the kids tells me that they want to give some of their camp money towards, The Worthy Camper fund. I always look forward to praying with each cabin before we go inside together. It is fun to observe each counselor's "parenting" style from negotiating how many treats the campers can pick out to keeping them on their best behavior. There is usually a camper who did not bring money and their face lights up when their counselor chips in to save the day. There is always freshly popped popcorn ready for each camper to munch on.

Marcia Boothby taught me how to make Pizzazzy Fruit Pizza!

         Parents can buy their children gift bags that I make in the shed. I have enjoyed wrapping presents since I was little, even my parents let me wrap my own Christmas presents with my eyes closed! What I treasure so much about the gift bags is that it gives me time to pray for each of those campers as I put their name on their package.

          When I am not in the store I am soaking up time with my Cabin Family. I love going to morning and evening worships with them and sitting with them for meals. For one week at a time I get to know about seven to nine young girls as they share their pressing prayer requests, biggest dreams, hardest heartaches, and spiritual breakthroughs. It is awesome to see previous campers come back and come forward for the call for baptism and dedicate their lives to Jesus.

         A special camp scholarship is given from Seventh-Day Adventist colleges and Universities that match up to a certain percentage of Summer Camp earnings. Andrews University faithfully blessed me with that scholarship for two years. This is my third and final summer working at Camp Au Sable. This is because graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln starts in August and the Master's in Speech-Language Pathology lasts throughout the summers for two years. After praying about coming back and asking the Holy Spirit what to do, I enthusiastically agreed and wanted to be stationed at the store. Realizing that a public university would not give me a summer camp scholarship I trusted that God would take perfect care of me. Not too long ago I received two fellowship awards totaling in about the same amount that a summer camp ministry scholarship would have been! God had a grand plan that totaled in over a grand!

          We can never, ever, out-give God! When we show up to minister, Christ shines all of His blessings brighter than we are expecting! God is constantly coordinating to bombard you with blessings and His intense love for you will never stop! There is no good thing that our Heavenly Father wants to withhold from us. When God calls you to do something, do it with an irreplaceable joy as His amazing agenda unwinds.




Sabbath sunset around the boardwalk!

 

2 Corinthians 9:8 says, "And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."