Training and First Camp

This is Tyrome and I am writing my experiences for the first part of the summer. Sorry for the long wait and thanks again for your prayers.

The beginning of our journey began with training. Training was amazing it was so fun and we all received tools to better serve campers this summer. We also learned many games that would help us on our journey. We went through training with another team, Selah, it was so fun to interact with the other team and bond as a huge group.

Summer ministry team is a richly rewarding experience if you go into with an attitude of service and that is what I felt the whole time during training. The people on these teams really want to serve Jesus by serving others. Or as Ken Dill would put it " Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others."

So after training both teams headed up to Indiana since both had our first camps up there. It was fun being with the other team and sharing the first part of our journey with them. We heard a kid say the funniest thing in a chinese restaurant, he said "not all chinese people are black." It made Chen and I laugh really hard (I know that is random but it was really funny).

After a long day of traveling to Indiana we finally made it to our hotel, and we hung out for a while until we found out that one of fellow SWU students was in the hospital and the prognosis was not good. When Melissa found out she stepped up and had everyone gather to pray for the student. It was beautiful and I believe healing. Almost immediately after we prayed we got another email saying that the girl was doing miraculously better and was being sent home!!!!I believe that our prayers combined with many other prayer warriors were responsible for her miraculous recovery. Soon after that we had a late night worship session and prayer time which just help get excited for the ministry we were about to embark on.

The first camp was Camp Dunamis in Frankfort, Indiana. I was particularly excited because I was there last year and I had kept in touch with many of my campers and was really excited to see them. Seeing my campers a year later was cool, some had become taller than me and others had taken huge steps spiritually. The band Atlantic was there and our team found out that the lead vocalist for the band was going to be the speaker also, since the original speaker had some personal things come up, and made the right decision by not speaking at our camp.

The speaker, Cory, was really good and connected well with the teens. He talked about the practice of confession and how we are suppose to confess our sins to one another, and not so you can be judged. The reason you confess is to bring things into the light so that God can redeem those things. If we keep things in the darkness the devil can control it. Christ dwells in the light and that is where we should place our burdens. This really resonated with the campers and I had a few confess things to me and I had the priveledge of hearing their struggles and getting to talk and pray with them about it. I was deeply honored that they trusted me with the shame, stains, and imperfections.

There was fierce compettions between 6 teams at camp Dunamis. Competition was fierce and every team went all out. I can not tell you the winner because it was not my team :(. The staff was truly amazing and activities and afterglows were so well put together. I had an amazing time and so grateful that God allowed me to an instrument for his kingdom!

More to come later...

Tyrome