**I thought that this site was ending, I had gotten out of the habit of posting and writing. Then I looked on the Apache Campground website and
tadaa, there was a link to the chaplain's sermon site. Just what I needed...accountability. So, the site lives on!!
This past Friday marked the end of our Summer Day Camps at Apache. We had six weeks of
VBS type activity for kids between the ages of 4-12. Groups came from KY, GA, TN, NC, SC and AL to share the Good News of Christ with our vacationers here in Myrtle Beach. This Summer has taught me several things of varying importance, and I am thankful to have the chance to share.
1-Kids love to Run and do stuff that is messy and nasty. If it involves sand and water and disgusting things, then they are all into it. Even the prissy ones get into it quickly.
2- Boys do not usually like dancing and music. I have told Sarah for years that my fear of dancing is hereditary. She still isn't buying what I am selling.
3- Cheap cookies are pretty tasty. Stale cookies are not.
4- There are many varieties of ready mix lemonade. Some are really good and some are terrible. There is very little middle ground here.
5- If you mix orange
gatorade and lemonade, a new flavor is created..called YUCK!
6-Limbo keeps kids mesmerized and has about 15 minutes of high quality entertainment value.
7-Sometimes we learn a lot from observing. Several weeks ago, day camp was getting started and a boy kept riding by on his bike. He would not enter the ministry area, only riding around ignoring us. The Youth leader asked me what I thought about the kid, and I replied, "Be patient, he will be back by." He zipped past several more times but began to look in to see what was going on. Tuesday was a repeat of the previous day with the rider noticing that I was looking at him. Wednesday got him off his bike and he hid behind a huge support column on the perimeter of the Day Camp area. He had some poppers in his hand and would look under the pier at us and then throw a popper in our general direction. He was saying, "Notice me...I am here, Do you see Me?" He through another popper and one of the youth workers ran over and said, "You can't do that here. You are distracting us. Stop doing that." The kid dropped his head, got on his bike and sped off. By the way, I did not see him the rest of the week.
3 Weeks later a different boy came up on a Tuesday and rode his bike under the pier during the day camp. This is not allowed, as a kid could be injured and it is distracting. He saw that a group was under there and his usual area of bike tricks had been taken over by a group in yellow shirts that were doing crafts with kids. He inched closer on the bike and checked out the situation. He hung out until snack time and then left. The entire time was spent on his bike scooting from station to station. The next day he zoomed up as snack time was beginning. I asked him if he knew exactly when it was snack time? He said, "no man, I just woke up." I invited him over to eat cookies and drink
lemonade. The group loved on him and he got off the bike and stayed a bit. Before he left, I challenged him to get there in time for the entire day camp which started at 10am. Thursday morning, Douglas and I headed off to grab a bite of breakfast before
Day Camp. We swung by to drop off our registration notebook at the ministry site. It was 9:20 am and the kid was there already! "Is this early enough for you," he asked. His smile and mine spoke volumes and God whispered to me. "See Richard, love makes a difference. If my church would just focus on the can
do's instead of the can't
do's, the world would see that a life of faith is a powerful transforming thing."
I wonder this morning about the kid with the poppers. I wonder this morning about the kid that came to Day Camp early. He has gone now back to Ohio to be a son, student and brother. I wonder about the youth groups that came here to minister. I wonder about the 225 kids that came to Day Camp this Summer. I wonder about the 4 weeks that we had free because no church came. It only takes 10 people to lead a Day Camp. I wonder if you have a Church that would like to help. I wonder if you have a youth or middle
schooler that God is going to call to ministry through a Day Camp at Apache. I wonder about a lot of things...what about you?
