RUN Bible Youth Camp

Our church put on a youth camp all this week. There were 270 kids there in an age range of 11-21 years old, with the majority of them, 15-18 years old. Anyone who remembers going to Twin Rocks camp in Tillamook every summer for youth camp, and thought they were “roughing it” – how wrong we were! These kids get up every morning at 5:30am for prayer (Morning Glory, they call it). There services and sessions are under a large tarp and they sit on wooden benches, while electricity goes in and out on the PA system. They sleep on mats on cement floors under leaking roofs and nightly visits from lake flies. But worse yet, all 270 kids and adults share only four latrines (ie. holes in the ground) for their bathrooms! Many ladies of the church also stay on the grounds and make breakfast, lunch and dinner for them. Close to 100lbs of Mitoki and Beans every meal, and then they slaughtered a cow on Tuesday to have meat for a few evening meals. I learned that a cow is one of the few animals, of which you can eat the intestines and not get sick. As I watched them squeeze “stuff” from the intestines, I decided to not stay for dinner that night.

I had all three of the morning sessions on Wednesday – which equals four hours; 9am – 1pm. I guess you could call this my inauguration to preaching African-style! Since it was so much time, I made it pretty interactive. I purchased journals and pens for anyone that didn’t already have them at the camp with them. Then in my first session I talked about the Seed of Potential that God placed in each young person. So then I had them journal their future dreams and plans and then a couple brave ones came up and shared with the group, what they had written. In the second session, after talking about how they need to protect their potential, which includes sexual purity, I broke them up into groups to discuss the lies of Satan to young people, and to the Ugandan people as a whole. Again, I had several teens come up and shared the results of their group conversations. Finally, in the third session, I addressed past hurts and abuses in their lives. Then had them journal what they needed God to heal them from, in order to move to their future. Over 50% of people raised their hands to the two things I asked if I could pray for them about. I was so relieved that God helped me communicate through an interpreter and more importantly that I had enough relevant stories and illustrations that my points were understood and received. On Friday, they had a testimony time and it was exciting to hear how the kid’s lives were touched during the week. I remember how great camp was every year for me growing up and was an impact it made the choices I made as a teenager growing up. So it was fun to get that same camp feel and to see the same impact in the Ugandan youth.