Two Weeks Gone!

Back again!

As stated in previous posts, the pasts two weeks I've been at camp which is a black hole for Verizon and connecting to the WiFi can be difficult. So I decided to just postpone my post for two weeks, and give you an extra long one today!

Let's review the past two weeks now.

June 14th I hopped in a white creeper van (Greg's van) and we made our way down to camp for Senior High week.That particular week I was the mission so every day I got to speak about campus ministry. Basically what I went through was first what campus ministry is and how it's a mission, why campus ministry was important, why the students, when getting in college, should get involved in a campus ministry, why they, their families, and churches should support campus ministry, and finally I talked about my walk, how God got me to where I was at, what campus ministry had done in my life, and how I came to be the man I am today. It seemed to be received well, and I hope some of those students will be reading this post. If so, HI GUYS!

The theme of the week was Covenant, I believe, and we focused on the Banquet as seen in Matthew 22 and we connected it to Revelation 19 with the Marriage. We had three teaching times, the first was worship and a sermon, then missions, then separated guys and girls lessons. Two of the guys lessons I taught, with the first being on Jesus as the Groom and what we, as men, can learn from that, with Jesus being the perfect husband. The second lesson I had was over the Banquet. I at first had some trouble figuring out what I wanted to say with that, but God eventually showed me, and I had a good lesson on salesmanship. We looked at the Banquet and I pointed out how we, as Christians, are the servants, going out and telling of the Banquet to those who don't know or aren't there. In the parable the servants are selling the feast, the party, as put on by the Master. The Master then is what the servants have to sell, that he's wealthy, able to provide, and has the best available. The servants have to know the Master and what he has to offer incredibly well. In the same way we as Christians need to sell God in the same way to those around us, and the only way we can do that is by knowing him extremely well, meaning we need to be in prayer and scripture often.

Throughout the week I was a family leader, and being a ministry major I was kind of the main leader for discussion times in our family. During which I had many opportunities to put my teaching skills to use, but also got to just lead a discussion between students seeing where they're at and their thoughts. There's not much more satisfying than students having a discussion with minimal prompts from you. I grew close to a couple students, forming a good bond with them, with some even opening up to me with concerns about life and all other sorts of things. Also, Tuesday I completely destroyed my throat, which was fun. We were at campfire, and I decided to join in on Romans 16.19 Says (the song) and well that wasn't smart. I could taste blood by the end. But God gave me the volume to be heard when I needed to throughout the week which was all I asked for.

As soon as I got home I got to do laundry, pack again, and head back to camp for a second week. This one was video game camp, along with 3 others. Luckily we didn't have many students because my staff was lacking and so were the number of systems and controllers. We played a lot of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, a good bit of Nintendo 64, and some GameCube the first part of the week with the younger kids. The second part of the week we added Xbox games, but mostly stuck with Nintendo because it was awesome.

The theme of that week was Trust, and I spoke every day, twice a day, which wasn't great for my throat, but god again provided! The first day we looked at how God has entrusted us with the building of his temple, ministry, and gifts. That was a bit hard to get across to 8-13 year olds. But we tried! The second day we looked at how God has called us to trust those he puts in our lives. I talked a bit about those who encouraged me and discouraged me to go into ministry, and I went with those who agreed with what God was telling me. The second part of the week we also talked about the idea of accountability, and both halves we looked at companionship. The final day is why we are to trust God, and I talked all about how throughout my life and ministry career I trusted God and he provided as he always does.

That week I had to leave early on Friday, the camp went until Saturday. Saturday one of my best friends Shawn got married down in West Virginia. It was a great wedding, though the town didn't have water until Saturday morning, which was a huge blessing because I had two weeks of camp stank on me. Saturday was also the annual big CSFPA board meeting where I was approved to be the campus minister in Altoona. So I got a job for the foreseeable future! I'm going to be starting in July, and be moving out there in August so please be in prayer for that transition that that I'll be able to get funds raised to effectively minister to that campus. If you're interested in supporting the ministry, feel free to contact me and I can provide any information you need! You can also just contact me if you just want to talk, share prayer concerns, or whatever else.

I think that's all I got for now, and this has been going on for a while, so yeah. My girlfriend is here this week and we're having a good time with having gone to the zoo today and later we're going to be doing a lot more awesome stuff in the 'Burgh before I leave.

Thank you for all your support and prayers! Looking forward to seeing/talking to some of you soon!

Your minister in the field,

Mike