Too Old for the Creek?

I was very blessed to attend Falls Creek last week with our high school students. I'm not sure that it's "mandatory" that I attend Falls Creek or youth camp, every summer, but I do enjoy going and being around the students. However, I am getting older and the truth is that it's harder to sleep in a bunk bed, harder to get out of the bunk bed and harder to recover from a week of staying up until midnight and getting up at 6:30am every day. But guess what? I wasn't the oldest person there. We had senior adults, 10 to 20 years older than myself, helping cook all week, and a senior adult leader who sat with, mentored and taught a group of 9th grade boys all week. I never heard a complaint.

I was inspired by their spirit. I was inspired by their hearts to "give" of their time and talents. I was honored to get to serve along side them all week because it wasn't about them. They gave up a week of their time so that they could spend time serving, teaching and loving, high school students.

This week was about the students. We were able to spend a lot of time asking them questions and answering their questions. We were able to pray with them, to listen to them and to guide them. Most importantly, we were able to LOVE them.

We sang a song on one of the last nights at worship that said it all for me. "They will know we are Christians by our Love, by our Love, they will knoooow we are Christians by our Love."

Hopefully, some of us older adults were used by God last week to "show" our students that they are loved.

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35