8 Days Until Camp

Hey Lightseekers! Well I'm sitting here in Covina at Christ First Baptist with the Design Team and counselors as we prepare for this year's camp. I am soooooo excited and can't wait to see you all. Our theme this year is Wise Up! (Proverbs 1:5) and our speaker is Arol McFadden. Arol and his family will fly in from the Midwest specially to be with us for the week.I have known Arol for over 22 years (since he was Lightseeker age) and he is a tremendous speaker -our campers are in for a real treat!

In addition to great speaking, we will also have outstanding worship led by Karla. Karla and her band will have a extra special guest musician who is coming here all the way from Hawaii to help. I'll tell you more about her later.

As always, we will play great games and have the most excellent fun during rec time.

Sooo, if you haven't yet signed up for this years camp, let your church leader know.

See you in 8 days.

Suit Up Epilogue

It's now twelve hours since we closed our last chapel. Karla led our last worship session with all our favorite songs of the week. We raised oner $1300 for our 5 World Vision children. Carol closed out her cliffhanger missionary story and told us how God was able to provide for her friends' needs with mangos. (ask your kids about that one.) We also heard from our speaker Chris for the final word. All week long he has been speaking on the armor of God in

Ephesians 6:10-18
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."(New International Version) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

The campers have been challenged to put on the armor and to stand firm when facing our enemy, Satan. When we rely on God and His power, we can do amazing things as Chris was able to testify about.

We want this week's camp experience to be more than just a temporary "camp high" but hopefully we have equipped each camper to be effective spiritual warriors who are able to impact their neighborhood, their family and their schoolyard -ultimately even reaching out to the world. Otherwise, we just sang some great songs and had a lot of fun. This is why Lightseekers has existed for these 24 years. Considering that many of our younger leaders were once Lightseekers campers themselves, some of our campers do seem to "get it".

Until next year,bye for now. Be sure to check in for more pics added and info on next year's camp.

The Last Night

"If we could harness their energy, we could power a city...", so said one of the design team members in reference to the children's worship tonight. I don't know when I have seen such enthusiasm for praising God as was demonstrated tonight. No one wanted it to stop. The campers sat just minutes earlier listening to Chris talk about the Sword of the Spirit, the only piece of the armor used for offensive purposes against our enemy Satan. He then topped off his talk by reminding us that we are to pray always -our vital link to the Holy Spirit's power and especially to pray for others.

Now many of the leaders have started to pack away the remains of the week. We still have morning chapel to go, but we can honestly say that we have seen the presence of the Lord in this place this week, particularly tonight. I will blog at least one more time to wrap up our week of Suit Up.

Suit Up -Day Four

This morning we were reminded of why we do Lightseekers Camp. Thursday is traditionally the day that we provide the children with an opportunity to receive Christ as their Savior. Following worship songs, offering and the missionary story, Jim explained that Jesus came to rescue us and to give us the gift of eternal life. He told them that the gift is completely free but it does not become a gift until a person receives it for themself. At the end, he asked the campers to raise their hand if they wanted to receive that gift of eternal life and many of them raised their hands to indicate, yes. Then there were others that indicated that they wanted to rededicate their lives to Christ. Those who made decisions stayed to talk with their counselors afterward.

I asked one of the counselors what she thought of having the opportunity to help lead children to Christ. She was definitely touched by it and even more amazed that although she should be physically exhausted from the activity and lack of sleep, she had supernatural endurance from the Holy Spirit to be able to minister all day long. She knew that the prayers of her friends and family back home were effective this way. I reminded her of God's promise in Isaiah 40:31. This, my dear blog readers, is why the adults give of their time and energy, sometimes months ahead of camp to touch the lives of these children. It's all worth it!

But there is still more to come...

Day Three Redux

I started our last post talking about people going on a hike for free time. What I didn't tell you then was that a bunch of campers had gone off to do paint ball and were using the counselors (in protective gear and more than 30 feet away, mind you) as moving targets. Another group had fun with shaving cream near the pool. You have to see the photos once they are posted. Fortunately, all these activities were remedied by quick trips to the shower.

Our evening chapel was definitely the best so far. Our speaker, Chris, talked about the next two pieces of God's armor -the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith. He shared that faith means trust in God and told us how he and his wife had to trust God when faced with bad news from the doctor -they thought Jenn had cancer. In trusting God to take care of her, they were able to see God's healing power (there was no cancer found when the doctors operated). He talked about how God provided salvation for us by sending Jesus to die on the cross for us. Chris also gave us an example of a father's love by showing a video of Team Hoyt (Google them to see the Youtube story). This a man who competes in Triathalons while pushing his son with Cerebal Palsy along too. Very Inspirational!

Ooh, I gotta go to a leadership meeting, I'll blog more tomorrow.

Day Three of Suit Up!

"We're leaving to go on our hike," the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie just said. And so begins another afternoon of freetime here at camp. It's my chance to to blog and catch you parents up on the day's events. After sleeping soundly last night, we were awakened to go to counselor meeting then breakfast. This morning's chapel followed shortly thereafter.

Once our musical worship was over and the offering taken, Miss Janet shared the morning message. She talked about how God never lets go of us even in the most difficult times of our lives (and believe me, she really has experienced some tough days.)She shared with us about how she found and met Jesus; she also shared about what He gave her once she put her trust in Him. One of the verses she shared was:

"The Lord loves us very much. So we haven’t been completely destroyed. His loving concern never fails. His great love is new every morning. Lord, how faithful you are! I say to myself, The Lord is everything I will ever need. So I will put my hope in him." Lamentations 3:22-23

After that Miss Carol, began our cliffhanger missionary story which will continue tomorrow.

End Of Day Two (Part 2)

I wanted to post a rock climbing pic in the earlier post but blogspot wasn't cooperating.

End Of Day Two -Suit Up

It's very quiet right now -the only sound is the sound of crickets and the frogs in the nearby pond. All the campers (except for a few of the leaders and missionary students) are safe and sound in their cabins. It was a wonderful day in which God did many amazing things. The kids of course, had a blast rock climbing in addition to all the other activities mentioned previously. Tomorrow, some will try paint ball.
After free time, they cleaned up for dinner and went on to chapel at 7.

Tonight was the best night for worship so far (hopefully I can get Karla to blog and give your her impressions too). She introduced a song -Take A Stand that we have deemed our camp theme song and is based on Ephesians 6:10-11. Although how we got this song isn't nearly as fantastic as last year's theme song story, it is still an example of God working in unexpected ways.

Prior to camp, Karla had not found a song she liked for a theme song and instead planned some other new songs that she thought the kids would like. Karla had asked me to throw in a children's worship CD to play before chapel started. Since I don't have children of my own and don't work in children's ministry regularly -I volunteer in High School ministry, I just grabbed the only two children's sampler CDs I receive as part of my subscription to SongDiscovery. (Note: they send out ONLY 1 Children's sampler per year). The CDs were still in their wrapper when I got to camp because I hadn't time or desire to listen beforehand. I popped one in the player just before the first chapel but I really didn't care for the style of music -not upbeat enough for our high energy opening chapel. The second one started out better but I didn't pay attention to the lyrics last night because I was busy with last minute tech issues. As it was, I only played the first few tunes before the worship band started. This morning however, I got to the fifth song and recognized they were singing the words to our Bible passage for the week. I grabbed Karla and replayed the song for her. She said that all we needed was the music for the band to play. Well, the sampler contains the chord, leadsheets (with all the music on them) and the words. I had the computer, the printer to make the charts and she taught the band, so tonight we sang "Take A Stand".

Oh, I must not forget our speaker Chris (That's him with his wife Jenn). Tonight he spoke on putting on the armor and described three of the pieces -the belt of truth (which holds all the armor together and is used to counteract Satan's lies), the breastplate of righteousness (which guards our most vital parts and comes from being in right relationship with Christ) and the shoes of preparation in sharing the good news of peace. All of these , plus the ones we will learn about tomorrow night, enable us to stand against the the evil schemes of the Devil and his demons.

I'll continue to keep you posted on what we are learning. Right now I'm going to bed.

Put It On! (God's Armor)

It's Day 2 on our Lightseekers Camp Adventure. If you've following along via the blog and the flickr pics on the lower left, you know the kids are having a great time. This morning's chapel started out with worship led by Karla & Co.(they sang one of their favorites, The Fruit Song in addition to many others) and featured a talk by Mary who reminded us that our enemy is Satan. She also told the children that everyone must not only acknowledge that we are sinners and in need of a Savior, but we must receive Him into our lives. Miss Janet also shared about our remaining World Vision children and then we collected our offering for them.

After chapel, the kids had recreation time which is broken into 3 groups (we call them Units). One group played games in center camp, another did a special craft and the last group was at the pool. Tomorrow they rotate to a different activity so that each camper does all three recs by week's end.

After lunch (BBQ Chicken), we had our Walk The Talk teaching times which are also divided by Units. Today we talked about hiding God's Word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11 & 105). The best part is that each child received a brand new Bible of their own (which is why they were told NOT to bring Bibles to camp, BTW). Each Bible had been highlighted with the favorite verses of the Design Team. The students were then able to highlight their own fave verse inside as well.

Now everyone is off to free time. I will post more tonight after chapel, God and internet willing.

Our First Day

Greetings from Lightseekers Camp. We just finished our first day of camp and all the campers are off to bed. Definitely, today has been a very tiring day beginning with the bus rides here. We then had a very full afternoon swimming, playing minature golf, playing in the gym and doing crafts. Of course, we also were treated to a wonderful lunch and dinner by the Oak Glen staff (wet burritos for lunch, ham and great mac n' cheese for dinner).

Our chapel began with the ever fabulous worship music led by Miss Karla and the band. Karla usually chooses songs that are based on Scripture. This year she's introduced a new song based on Colossians 3:17 (ask your kids about the whatever song when they get home.)
Jim then had the kids play some crazy games (with food-ewwww!)followed by our missions spotlight on our World Vision children. We closed our evening with our speaker, Chris Charon who introduced our theme of the week, Suit Up, The Full Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). As the week progresses, I will post more on what we are learning.

We're Here (At Least the Design Team)

A new week of Lightseekers Camp is ready to begin. The Design Team, grunts and the student missionary helpers all arrived last night. After an early dinner at the local coffee shop, we set up the chapel for worship and the leadership "headquarters". Right now, we are about to meet for prayer before the children arrive. You can be praying for all the children too. Of course the leadership team would appreciate your prayers as well.

To see what God is doing, check into this blog later today - I typically give updates twice a day and I will be posting the first pictures later today.

Lightseekers Camp 2008 Is Coming!

Hey kids! As you may or may not know, Lightseekers Camp is only a little over a month away (July 28th -August 1). We are going back to Oak Glen Christian Conference Center, where we went last year.
This year our speaker is Chris Charon and our theme is "Suit Up!" (Armor of God).

Be sure to sign up as soon as possible. If you would like more info, visit our Lightseekers' website.

See ya there!

Lightseekers Camp Epilogue

So now we have left Oak Glen and returned to our respective homes. Hopefully, our young campers have had a chance to wash off the dirt collected during the week by now (sorry parents a lot of them didn't want to bathe very much, the "cleaner" ones were the ones who visited the pool daily. One parent told me that kids are somewhat like cats -they are afraid of bath/shower water). More important than becoming clean on the outside, we pray that this week has refreshed and cleansed the souls of all our campers.

In our final time together, Karla closed our worship by leading us all in the songs that the kids loved to sing the most. We collected our final mission offering and collected over $2700 this week, more than enough to support all 5 of our World Vision children for an entire year, plus provide special gifts to them. Finally, Jeff gave us as a send off Paul's benediction from Ephesians 3

"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen." New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright ©1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

It is the goal of our Lightseekers Camp to have each camper know "how wide, how long, how high and how deep" God's love is, not just the week we have them, but for the other 51 weeks and beyond. We live in different cities -Torrance, Bakersfield, Alhambra, Covina, West Covina, Montclair, Pasadena, Corona, and Gardena so may not see one another for a while. Until we meet for camp again, "let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith " as our camp theme verse, Hebrews 12:2 reminds us.

P.S. Keep checking for additional uploads of photos (there were about 2000 taken) and for occasional updates as we prepare for next year. A DVD with the photos will be mailed to each of the churches once I finish burning the discs.

God is Awesome

I titled this post "God is Awesome" because, as usual, He does many wonderful things on our last night of camp. We thank Him for:
1. No one was injured or became really sick this week beyond the usual scrapes and bruises or minor upset stomachs.
2. Carol was able to finish the missionary story about Von Riddle by reading from this dear lady's own words about what a privilege it was to share God's love with the Congolese people. She and some of our campers modeled clothes that had been obtained when some of them visited the Congo recently on a mission trip. Also modeling was Von's granddaughter and great granddaughter.
3. Our camp dean, Jim Condon, shared with campers about Jesus being the bridge to heaven and invited campers to give their lives to Christ for the first time or to rededicate their lives to Him if they felt they were not following Him the way they should. One of our Counselors-In-Training had already shared earlier in the evening that he had felt convicted by the previous night's message. He confessed to us that he did not feel his walk with God was right and so had decided to give Jesus control of his life anew. Jim says many campers raised their hands to indicate a decision and about 35 stayed behind to talk with a counselor.

As the students left quietly for their evening snack, I am reminded that we still have one more time in chapel -one more time for God to speak to them in the camp environment. Even as they go home tomorrow, Satan will try to discourage these campers from staying true to Christ. We need to remind our children that Jesus Our Hero can help them in their Christian journey.

Stay tuned for more posting tomorrow when I get back to fast DSL and am able to upload more pics for you...

Day Four -Heading Into The Home Stretch

As we awakened this morning, we realized that today is our last full day of camp. As I sit here blogging, I hear the sounds of children laughing and squealing in delight as they play during rec time. Chapel finished about an hour ago -it began with the most active worship set yet (where do they get so much wiggle and energy?) But then they sat in rapt attention as Miss Janet shared about our World Vision Children -today was Enkelada from Albania and Emmanuel from Rwanda (our other children are Sneh from the Phillipines, Luis Antonio from Mexico, Nowinda from Indonesia). Our children have been so generous in their mission offerings, that so far, we have raised enough to provide a whole year's support for 4 of the 5 children (we still have at least one more offering to take).

Our speaker, Jeff spoke on how we are tempted to be self-focused, just as Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness with an offer to let Jesus rule the world if He would worship him. Instead, Jesus knew His mission was to die on the cross so that we can know God and make Him known to the world. God gives us the superpower to have a God-focused vision that helps us overcome our desire to be me-focused. Jeff left the campers with the question: who is the leader of your life, Jesus or self/Satan? Satan of course, wants us to focus on ourselves because it turns our eyes off God.

More later....

I have posted more pics on flickr.... also please pray for chapel tonight, we will be inviting children to make decisions for Christ. Some of these will be for salvation, but some will be rededicating their lives or stepping up to live for Jesus in a deeper way.

End of Day Three

We have used a lot of energy getting to this point in the week. I know the kids seem like they have unlimited supply in reserve, but the older crowd is having to rely on God's supernatural endurance. From wall climbing to dodge ball in the gym, spending the afternoon in the pool to keeping up with children bouncing from place to place, it's then that we need God's strength the most. We gained some energy through dinner, pineapple ham, mac and cheese, and of course...a quality salad bar, and don't forget the brownie!!
From dinner we moved into the chapel. There we started off with our camp theme song as we start every chapel, then into our lively worship songs (songs that require our bodies to MOVE) Then we learned of our missions offering totals so far....over $1600 collected over VBS and Camp to support our 5 World Vision children in places all over the world. Carol continued her mission story of the life of Von Riddle, "Mama Riddle", missionary to the Congo. Tonight she told us how her daughter fell in the river and had to be rescued by Mama from the poisionous snakes and crocodiles. It was God who gave her the strength to lift her daughter out of the river unharmed. We'll find out more tomorrow. Boy, she really leaves us hanging.

Our chapel speaker, Brian Wang, shared about his hero, his dad. Unfortunately, even thought he was a very good hero, failed him at times. Brian also shared what it was like loosing his hero to cancer when he was 13. He also talked about why Jesus is worthy to be our hero today, because: 1.He rescued us 2.He showed us the way 3.He is with us. Lastly, we ended our time in chapel with reflective worship songs.

What an amazing day....we will fill you in on tomorrow's adventures...

Camp Day Three

So here we are again at freetime blogging on our morning events. God has been so good to us this week here at Oak Glen; I know He is changing the lives of children this week. Be sure to ask your kids when they get back about what they learned or what decision they made this week. At first they may only talk about the fun activities but with the insight you can glean from these postings, you may be able to ask them how Jesus is their hero.

Today's theme was Jesus Calms Our Fears and Gives Us Courage; the theme verse was Mark 6:50b. Jeff talked about how we are faced with the following temptation: Not trusting that God and His plan are good. God gives us the superpower of Trusting in God (“God-sense”).

We also took our camp picture this morning which you can see posted here. I would post more pictures on flickr but our internet connect is really slow and flaky. If I can get some good uploading time, you'll see more....

A note from Karla....

Hello all! I've been given the great privilege to lead your children in worship. We have learned that worship is saying "thank you" to God for His goodness. We have sung songs that remind us He is faithful, strong, our best friend, so good to us....and of course, Our Superhero!!! We have also learned to memorize scripture through songs....Ephesians 4:14-15, John 3:16, Matthew 19:30, and Psalms 106:1. I catch the kids humming and singing these songs throughout the day. It's amazing!

I have a story to share about how I found our camp song, "Superhero." (Which goes with our theme this year, Jesus My Hero) When I was in India this summer on a short term mission trip, I was teaching at a school that hosted an orphanage. When we had free time, I would teach the girls a couple songs that I knew. Well, when it was their turn to teach me a song, the 17 girls from the orphanage started to sing this song. The words of the song were...."Jesus, you're my Superhero, you're my star my best friend!" I said WOW! I'm headed to camp in a few weeks without a camp song! I knew that must have been from God. So...when I got home a few weeks later I typed the lyrics I could remember in a search engine and found the CD with the song!!! Little did I know that it would be a hit! I shared this story with the camp and they were amazed that God was thinking about them in India! I get goosebumps thinking about how God works! Well...be encouraged that God had plans for your children way before they got here!!!

I look forward to worshiping and saying "thank you" to God with your children the rest of the week!

End Of Day Two

Today's Theme was "Jesus Gave His Life to Free Me" and our memory verse was Romans 5:8.

The leaders in the Walk The Talks shared how Jesus paid the debt of our sins in full, a debt we could never pay, no matter how much money we had. The teachers illustrated this by listing a bunch of sins and allowing the campers to "assess" what they thought the value of those sins was. When all the sins were added up, it show a debt valued in millions. The teachers showed a check signed by Jesus, paying it in full.

Freetime was filled with numerous activities -crafts, swimming, wall climbing, basketball, dodgeball, ping pong, minature golf, and of course, squirt guns. One child remarked that the day went by so fast because there was so much to do.

In chapel tonight, the campers enthusiastically raised their voices in worship led by Karla. The icebreaker game was a scanvenger hunt by church, each group had to produce a list of items in their possession - a picture of mom (how many of you moms actually sent that photo with your camper?), chapstick, 57 cents, a superball for examples. I thought it was funny when the students came by the sound equipment table asking for a paperclip (alas, I had none). Carol Wilcox began her exciting missionary story about the life of Von Riddle, ABC missionary for 40 years in the Congo. She had to travel by boat to get there eventhough she was very afraid of boat travel. Yet, every time she felt afraid, she prayed. We will hear more of that tomorrow night.

Mary Winchell was our speaker tonight and she talked about her childhood hero, Mary Poppins. She told us that she wanted fly like Mary Poppins, but her only attempt at flying with an umbrella was unsuccessful (read: disaster). Later, as a young adult she discovered her real hero, Jesus because He is actually perfect in every way, not just "practically perfect" like Mary Poppins.

After chapel, the campers received their camp t-shirts and were sent to their cabins for devotions and "sleep".

Camp Day Two

Here's what has been happening today:
After a night of restful sleep, we were awakened just in time to get ready for breakfast (pancakes AND French toast with strawberries). Once we had finished, we went over to chapel to sing songs about God, and to listen to our speaker teach on Matthew 4:3,4. We learned that Jesus was able to resist Satan's temptations by using God's Word and that he has left us with the superpower of God's Word so that we can live by it too. He encouraged us to get a Bible that was easy to understand and read, to read it and to memorize verses.
When chapel was over we broke into our unit groups and each unit went off for a fun activity; one group went to the pool, another to crafts and a third played outdoor games (ask your kids about the pipeworks game as well as the Alka Seltzer game).
We had burritos for lunch and then went to "walk the talk", our time when we get a practical application to go with our lesson. Right now, the kids are taking a nap in "cabin kickback" before they get into their adventure groups for free time. I'll post tonight with more....

P.S. If you click on flickr, you can even make picture comments (nice ones please!)