Here We Go Again

I'll start this by admitting that I am eating lots and lots of crow. When I wrote the post saying my time as a summer staffer was over, I genuinely thought I was saying goodbye. When I left camp in August last year, I was sure I would come back. I was sure I would be coming back to visit old staffers and meet new staffers and hang out with friends that are incredibly important to me. I was sure that whatever I would be doing May 11, 2014 was going to be, it would be something other than introducing my family, watching them leave, finding out who my AP is and jumping off into the craziness that is summer.

Basically, the only part I had right about it was buying a truckload of fruit snacks to drop off at the Nest. Now I just get to take part in the eating of said fruit snacks.

So, here it is: I am going back to camp. It's fantastic. It's terrifying. It raises all sorts of questions about my sanity. It isn't going to make me any reasonable amount of money and it won't help me get a head start on grad school. I could give you every reason that I should have forgone my 4th summer, but, honestly, I feel like it is something God has asked me to do, then, when I told Him I couldn't, He opened up my summer. I would try to explain everything going on in my life right now, but maybe we should just talk in person.

So, here I go again.

I have written to ask for help and prayer in previous summers, including this post. I still stand behind those things. I need help to do camp well this summer. I always have; now I just need different and more help because while I know many things about being a summer staffer, I have no clue how to be a 22 year old college graduate that is the grandpa of a group of young and gifted staffers.

There will be new staffers to invest in, new campers to teach and serve, new memories to be made, a new AP (My 4th! Wow.) and there will most assuredly be challenges, heartache, sacrifice, and difficulty. Stories will be told about staffers from long ago, stories that they don't even remember they were a part of. There will be off-day adventures. There will be nights spent on the porch trying to figure out what in the world God is pushing us to do with the lives He has given us. This summer will be a glorious, joyful season full of hard work, full of lots of laughs, and, above all, a time where everyone we cross paths with at camp will be presented with the lordship, kingly authority, and immeasurable grace of Jesus.

What I have asked before I will ask again: please pray for us. Put simply, we can't do camp without our God sustaining us. I have nothing to pour out for guests that He hasn't filled me up with. Pray for the guys, mostly that we don't do something stupid or prideful, but also that we would remember who we are as God's sons. Pray for the girls, asking God to make clear to them that they are forever His daughters and, because their identity is secure, they can be the life-givers that they were created to be. Pray we would lead well and follow well. Pray that we would have the mindset of Jesus, who, although He was God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but subjected Himself to humility and servitude to the point of death, even death on a cross (sorry for the paraphrase).

Guys, I'm going back to camp. I'm excited. See you when you come down the hill!