Mountaintop Musings: Time Well Spent

The past month has been fantastic. I did not win the lottery. I did see the results of many months of preparation as we had our annual five-day Bible camp. It is a great but stressful time. Stressful because there is a lot of preparation. I should not stress about camp because God always blesses my feeble efforts and camp always turns out to be a great time.

I did not stress out too much this year. Maybe after 19 years of being involved with camp I finally “get it”! There are at least 90 people who pray for us on a regular basis, and it is probably 10 times that as they share our requests with their friends. Not having a permanent camp or staff I have to recruit staff to help out as cabin leaders, counselors, music and such. There is a core group of folks who faithfully come each year bringing their skills, and that is wonderful. My dear wife Lisa is the “craft-Queen” and always has memorable things for the kids and youth to make.

This year we had a friend from Illinois who is one of the leading children’s creative ministry teachers in the country as our main speaker. Brett has trained national championship puppet teams and is a balloon artist. This year we had four young people trust Jesus Christ as their savior. That is a great encouragement and really the whole point of Bible Camp!

Our camp facility is close to home, located on the Little Blackfoot River. The chapel is an old log structure and the kitchen facility neat and clean. The cabins are well built but over 50 years old and have lots of character and smells to go with them! This year the one thing I lacked was an adult leader for the younger boy’s cabin. I couldn’t find a young man to do the job, and so I was given an opportunity that I actually enjoy! I was the cabin leader! Wow…that was not on my plan for camp, but I thought “Why not me?”

Sunday evening came, and we had 29 campers. I had five young guys 8 to 9 years old. This age group has challenged my cabin leaders in the past, but God blessed me with a great group of guys. And the best part was four kids prayed to receive Christ as savior.

Planning and directing camp requires a lot of faith. One of my favorite Bible verses is II Corinthians 5: 7, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” That is a verse a child, teen and adult will learn many times in their Bible studies, Sunday school classes, or hear from the preacher. It is an excellent verse of what being a Christian is all about. My paraphrase for that verse is, “Since we get saved from our sins by faith in the work of Jesus on the cross, why be surprised that God’s plan for each day in the life of his people is to be one of trusting in His plan for the day!” This applies to being a camp planner and director. I spend all year teaching others to embrace this aspect of their Christian experience, and then I relearn it each year preparing for camp.

Do I always enjoy relearning this lesson, no! I pray and trust God to work things out and He does! I prayed for 25 campers and we had 29!

Then we had Vacation Bible School in Lincoln and two more kids prayed to trust Christ as savior and two more prayed for assurance. What a blessing to part of that. Plus, we had some great ladies teach, and help at the VBS. God truly blesses me way more than I deserve. But then that is who He is!!

I don’t know what things are stressing you out right now, but I know the cure…his name is Jesus. Christians are not perfect people, but they are forgiven. I hope you will seriously think about asking Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior. Then I hope you will receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior! Thanks for reading this column and feel free to call me any time.

(Dave & Lisa Carroll are area missionaries with InFaith, America’s oldest Christian home mission agency. You can contact Dave at 406.459.8935 or [email protected])