Northland Mission.Camp Trip 2007

Our teens are officially Northland Campers now! After a restful morning (Camp staff schedule allows a late morning) we hit brunch at 10am. The teens were already getting excited as Staff meeting cranked up, and from outside, they could hear the cheers of counselors and operational staffers getting pumped about the week. After brunch we headed to our morning devotions, where we wrapped up our study of Nehemiah. Our study finished with the emphasis on the Word of God and the revival that took place in the Israelites when they respected and honored it. Our teens got it! They were broken as they shared how much they needed God’s word to be real to them this week–how much they needed to respond as if God was talking to them directly (which He is.) Our morning devotions got us ready for what’s to come this week.

After devotions, we headed back to our rooms. They were in need of some attention to get them ready for campers coming in a few hours. We spent the remainder of the morning and beginning of the afternoon hopping back and forth between the laundry room changing loads and our rooms scrubbing, dusting and vacumming. We got everything better than we found it, and moved our stuff out.

We all piled into the registration area and the teens got medicines turned in. Then it was out the door to meet thier counselors. We requested some great counselors for our teens that are already doing a great job. Our team moved thier stuff into thier dorms and had free time till thier team meetings followed by dinner.

Family Feud cranked up after dinnger to get all the information out about the games activities, rules, and just stuff around the campsite. Players buzzed in to guess what some of the best activities at Norhtland are.

The game of the evening was Home Run on the Range. Players throw a set number of balls as far as they can out into the field and make it around as many bases as they could before all the balls got brought back into home plate. Its a crazy game, and our team jumped right in and had a blast.

The service started us out on a great note. The singing and special music was powerful and God focused and we were ready to hear God’s word preached from Will. He preached out of Psalm 119, drawing us to our total and utter dependance on God. The message was Quicken Me, O Lord. We need to be made alive, brought back to new life by our God. He gave us 5 reasons why we should pray Quicken Me.
Quicken Me, O Lord, because…

Will closed the service by asking the counselors to take thier cabin and share together what they needed God to Quicken them in. They then prayed together as a cabin for God’s quickening power to be on thier lives.

It was a powerful service. Praise the Lord for His working so far in preparing hearts.

Pray for honesty when our teens are confronted with truth and wills that want to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

After our regular team devotions, which by the way have been great! We are studying the book of Nehemiah. We spend 35 minutes digging into a passage by ourselves and then discuss the applications for 15 minutes. The team has been sharing and learning alot about servant leadership….and the best part is, they can put it into practice all day long. We have been learning to lead only in the strength of Christ. That we don’t have the ability. We must have the God focus that Nehemiah had. Anyways, back to the update…after morning devotions we joined the camp staff for saturday staff meeting. We were introduced to the Northland spirit and exitement quickly as the biggest cleanup day of the summer!!!!!!!!!! was introduced. I’ve heard that its the biggest cleanup day every Saturday, but we didn’t ask questions. They introduced us to the staff as a whole, and we got 2 standing ovations for coming to help. They are so grateful for our help. We’ve been such a blessing both to the staff and the campers to come. God has given us a unique ministry here!

We were split up into teams to help the staff whip the camp back in shape for another week of camp. Some pulled stumps in the picnic area, others cleaned the cabins, some were able to be on super trash duty. The kids jumped right in and helped the staff finish power jobs early. Which is a great blessing to them!

After lunch and some free time, we headed out to a small church that the Program Director is serving as Pastor at. They had nearly completed a new building and were in need of some help finishing off some major weeds and brush that grew up. We were able to conquer a major chunk of that work for them this afternoon. God gave us strength and ability and great attitudes to serve with gladness! The church had some workers out to join us as well. They fed us a great meal afterwards, and we stole over to the park next door to play some basketball, sit on some swings, and enjoy the weather. It has been gorgeous, by the way. Cool 60s at night and 80 during the day…beautiful. You should be jealous of your teens.

Please pray for us tomorrow as we attend church services and try to rest for the week of camp next week!

Today was another full day. We feel a huge sense of ownership in this camp and we are loving the work that God has given us to do. We are learning to take leadership and serve…and God is teaching us how important our heart is in all of that.

The guys and girls split up again today for our work. The ladies spent the morning white gloving the lobbies of the camper dorms while the guys refurbished the mini golf holes. We finished that before lunch and were able to jump into some forest cleanup work. We pulled out some down trees and hauled them to thier massive brush pile. You’ll see us raising our own flag on ghenna. Ghenna is the name of thier brush burn pile. The guys real work started after lunch as we were given the task of cleaning up camp lake. We pulled out some rakes and rowboats and started cleaning algae that had come up to the surgace and created and unsightly…yup, you guessed it, scum. We had a little scum fest going on. All said and done the camp lake looks a whole lot better!

The girls spent their afternoons serving the family camp children’s group crew. They prepared crafts for the younger campers, painted, and were able to clean up and set up for the upcoming weeks of camp. They also were able to do some much needed landscaping around the entrance sign onto campus. Our girls are hard workers! I would put them up next to any crew. They work and smile, laugh and sing. Its fun to watch!

After dinner the team had free time till the service, and they spent it mostly on the basketball courts or hanging out in thier dorms. The service came at 8:00pm and Brother Steve spoke a powerful message on having Life’s defining moments in your life. He stressed the need for a struggle to see God’s will and that the struggle was not a problem…the problem came in the decision. We must go from struggle to surrender. His text was Mark 14. As Christ prayed not my will, but thine be done. He expounded not on the struggle to do God’s will. Christ struggled with it, Bro. Steve said, but in the surrender. We have to let our will go into His will. Our teens responded well tonight. Some spoke with counselors about giving thier life to God for whatever He wanted for them. Others responded needing to be baptized. God really worked in a special way. Many teens from the camp responded for salvation. It was a great night with powerful music, and a great message.

We topped off our night with some time hanging out in the rec hall. Jessica Herwig showed us her moves in a game of Round Robin as she consistently beat the boys. We sat around or played foosball before calling it a night.

God was good today.

Tomorrow, we join the massive camp turnaround crew that gets the entire campus back in order for the next week of camp in under 3 hours. For our afternoon, we are heading to help a small church near Lady Lake. We will be painting and helping them finish off a new building they just completed.

Thanks for your prayers!

Our work officially started today! We had a great morning and afternoon serving the staff at Northland today. We woke to the overly bright sun of Northern Wisconsin and enjoyed breakfast together. We had our first team devotions after our meal. The team is studying the charectar, heart, leadership and God of Nehemiah. We want His service and humility! We discussed his brokenness and compassion for His people. We also reminded each other how much we needed to care about what God cares about.

At 9am, we reported for work. The guys and girls split up. The girls headed todo some landscaping cleanup at the beach front, deep cleaning of the girls dorms, and other cleaning jobs. The guys were given the task to move a large wall of boulders and build a new set of stairs for the new water slide, the Liquidator.

All in all, we were able to get through a wish list that the camp staff was hoping could possibly get done in two days by lunch time…on our first day! Our group worked hard!

But, we didn’t miss any fun, either. We got an exclusive opening of the waterslide for our group after dinner tonight. Most of us took a few trips down the newest attraction at Northland, the Liquidator. We laughed and shivered as we slid down the hammock like vinyl tube. It was great.

Steve Pettit spoke in our evening service. He called us to put away our bitterness and its fruits in a sermon from Ephesians 4. Many from our group responded to the need to STOP bitterness and learn to be kind. In our group discussion with the team afterwards, many mentioned the need to forgive and not allow things to sit and seethe. Anger suppressed never loses its power. God worked in the camp tonight. It was a powerful service!

Today was amazing. We started the day with cool 50-60s and had low 80s in the heat of the day. We put in a full day, and are all looking forward to whats to come tomorrow.

Our day began at 6:35 this morning as the first team members pulled into the parking lot to load up the vans. The Reagan boys win the prize for earliest teens there. All in all, we were praying and loading the vans by 6:45am and we were on the road minutes afterward. A full trailer, 2 full vans and some sleepy eyed teens packed into the van, and we were off for the North.

The fog lifted off the mountains as we snaked around the mountains on 75, and before we knew it, we were in Indiana picking up our next team member. Ben Herwig met us in just outside of Louisville, KY.

We made good time except for the traffic in Chicago. All in all, God gave us a great day on the road. Beautiful skies, and weather for the whole trip. Saftey, good conversations, singing, games and laughter.

We are ready to get to work tomorrow!

Please pray for us tomorrow….

I’ll be sure to post pictures from the road and our day of work tomorrow!