Wilds Live Update

Hello everybody!

I'll be posting live updates from the Wilds as the week of camp goes on. Check back often to see whats going on!

All the pictures are online from the week. Click here for more information!

The van is packed, and we are ready to get on the road. The teens lumbered out to the van this morning with crackly voices from cheering and stories about their 6:00am tubing trip this morning. The week went great, and God is to be praised for the great things He has done in changing lives! We will see you at 12:30pm at the church. See yah!

Every Friday night, to cap off the week, the Wilds builds a fire in the back of the service building. The service is built around giving the testimony that our lives are like a little stick we throw on the fire. Crooked and dirty, we aren't worth very much...but when we allow ourselves to be used, we can become fuel on the fire. God wants us to come to Him to be used. Every camper passes the fire and throws a stick in. The testimony is that everything is right between them and God. Throwing a stick in the fire is a testimony of God's work in thier lives this week. It is a moving time and a fitting ending to the week.

The service tonight was very powerful! God truly worked through Brother Goetsch. He spoke on builiding our lives. He called us to make sure we have a foundation, emphasizing how important it is to be sure of your salvation. He also challenged us not to skimp on the framework by shortcircuiting the system God has set up, and he called us to be sure our works will be tried by fire and last. Our work that is done for God will be gold, silver, and precious stones. What we do for ourselves will be wood, hay and stubble. The teens responded to God's working! It is a wonderful thing to watch God work.

Here they come, everyone. Here are a smattering of the pictures I've been taking while we've been up here. The game in the pictures on the fields was called Tag-a-lot. The teens had to avoid being tagged by jumping back and forth from one side of a field divided into sides by a row of buckets to another. The other team had a baton and couldn't cross to the other side of the buckets. They could only pass the baton to the other side, that person could then run and try and tag them. Slippery jumps and reaching tags were great to watch, and the teens loved it even more. Tag-a-lot is probably the best game the Wilds does. It is a lot of fun!

Sorry about the quality of these...although we are back online...its a bit slow. It is camp after all. :)

We had a huge storm roll in both today and yesterday. Some of us got caught in the rain.

The evening service Thursday night.

Final scoring! The red team pulled out a win!

Thursday afternoon is the time where the Youth Groups get together and share what God is doing in thier lives. Our girls were very open as to what God is doing. Special exciting specific things! God has done some great works!! They are all learning alot! And we pray that they are being changed for the rest of thier lives. We walked away very excited about this week so far, and we still have tonight! Please pray for God to work! Tonight's message is usually a dedication/service message. Pray that our teens will avail themselves to thier counselors who are trained and set up to work through thier needs with them. Pray for honesty and brokenness!

Good afternoon everyone! Sorry I haven't been keeping up the last couple of days. The internet has been down up here...people are thinking it is the heat and a big storm we had. Who knows...Anyways, we have had a great couple of days. John Goetsch has been really bringing God's word to us. And it has been very applicable to our teenagers. Wednesday nights message was on the cross. It is a huge motivator not just for salvation, but for service and separation. He encouraged us that Christ's wounds are still visible, therefore, we must be moved to do more for our Savior that died for us. The Christian Life Seminars have been very practical and have hit our teens in areas of Television, devotions, and gender specific morals. God really worked through these on our teens. Last nights message was from Ecclesiastes 10. He emphasized the importance of ridding our lives of even the small things. Because they become dead flies in the fragrance of our spiritual lives. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. He applied it to friends, thoughts, attitudes, etc. God worked in me last night, and I trust that God will cause the Word to take root.

Tonight, everybody headed out on the ballfield for another big ball game. Big Ball Volleyball for the girls and Big Ball Basketball for the guys. Everybody had a blast trying to move the massive multicolored ball.

The service was powerful from the beginning. Matt Herbster led us in singing some powerful choruses together, including the theme song for the week, God's Word Shall Stand. The Operational Staff choirs sang 2 great songs. Lift Up the Cross and a new arrangement of Come Thou Fount. Before the message, Matt Herbster sang, Wash Me Now. The special right before the message fit perfectly. Brother Goetsch preached from I Kings 5--the story of Naaman being washed. His focus again tonight was on the gospel. He shared that a believer in the regime, a maid who spoke a little word about her God, was able to impact the commander Naaman, and even though he had a battle of his resolve where he had an infuriated response (upset at seeing his sin) ignorant reasoning (where he made excuses) and an inferior replacement (where he suggested the Damascus rivers.) He had his blemish removed by washing. We can also be washed clean. The challenge was for us to be sure we are washed and then to be outspoken in our regime. Who do you know that you can challenge with a little word about your God? All for now. Good night, everyone!

The theme for the morning chapels is Living in the Face of Ridicule. The messages and God-and-I times are all taken from the book of 1 Peter.

Caught some of the girls before dinner. A group of them headed down the river for a tubing adventure, only the river is not much of a river due to the lack of rain. They spent a lot of time walking...and a little time floating. :) Some of them braved the Giant Swing...and Alyse, Allie and Stacey were sporting matching Fiery Red Team shirts. The service is in about an hour. Pray earnestly for God to work in our teen's hearts. Pray for our speaker, John Goetsch, and also for the teens hearts--that they would be honest and broken before God's Word. All for now. See yah.

Good morning everyone. After a nice drive up the mountains, we pulled onto the campsite at about 3:00pm yesterday. Our girls got assigned to some great counselors. 6 of the girls are on the Red McCoys team and 3 are on the Hatfield Blue. First things first was pizza for dinner, followed by a game on a crazy orientation. The theme for the week is Family Feudin', so they had the start of a genuine Tennessee feud while we watched. A live pig even made an appearance. Legend has it that the Hatfeild and McCoy feud all started with a dispute over a pig, so the Wilds was true to history for their skit. Which involved describing why each family deserved the pig...because they take him to all the cool places the Wilds has to offer. They showed all kinds of pictures with the pig in various places across the campsite. Pretty funny. :) After orientation, we headed to the ballfield for a game of big ball. The "big balls" are about 4'ft tall and weigh quite a bit, the object of the game was to get yours across your teams line to score points. It looked like a lot of fun. The service was next. John Goetsch is going to be great for our teens this week. He started the week off with a sermon on hell, and he communicated the truth that the description of hell from the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus must motivate us to salvation, separation, and service. Dr. Goetsh has a unique way of blending the scripture into his sermons. He has memorized a lot of the Bible and he weaves it into his preaching. Its going to be a great week! The Wilds said there is record attendance for the summer--814 teen campers--here this week. See yah.

Posted by jonkopp at June 20, 2006 9:55 AM | TrackBack