Endure hardship like a good soldier of Christ

This has been an incredible week here at the camp. The high school youth group from Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie, TX has been here. They were scheduled to go to Mexico for their spring break missions trip, but had to go somewhere else because of all the violence going on down there.

They ended up here because, I believe, God is blessing this camp. As we talked to their group leader, Matt Cameron, we all saw that God had his leading on the group coming to MBC.

One of the major projects that they did was to extend the basketball court - a project that needed to happen for our camper's safety on the BB Court, but was just not going to happen because we didn't have anyone willing to do it. When we first talked to Matt and showed him around the camp, he wanted to know if there was concrete work to be done!

Matt and his group were willing, and they worked hard on the basketball court and many other things.

Let me try to list the things that they did:

• Painted five retreat center rooms
• Extended the concrete all the way around the basketball court
• Painted the entire inside of the Mark Dorm (Left side)
• Cleaned windows and blinds in Mark and Luke
• Completed the framing for the Retreat Center basement laundry room & meeting room
• Cleaned up the burn piles at both entrances
• Moved the pile of broken cement rocks from behind the Retreat Center
• Painted the bathroom shower area of Mark dorm (right side)
• Raked up massive piles of leaves and burned them
• Cleared out areas of the camp that had downed trees and limbs
• Hauled piles upon piles of tree limbs out to the south property
  
• Finished clearing the white pine trail
• Raked leaves around 7 shelters and cleared brush around them
• Moved rocks and cut logs from area in front of Penny's house
• Cleaned the MPB kitchen
• Painted the ball shed & constructed shelves for balls.
• And several other "here and there" things

I am thrilled that this group has chosen to spend their time and energy and money on MBC. I figure that they accomplished almost 1,000 man-hours (and woman-hours!) of work. At just minimum wage, that is worth well over $7,000 worth of work.

I kept mighty busy running around trying to keep them all going. I enjoyed hanging out with Charles, who desperately wanted to chop down a tree. I gave him my axe, and he got after it. I encouraged him that, just as an axe needs to be sharpened in order to be an effective tool, his spiritual life was important to keep "sharp" through the study of the Word and through fellowship with believers. I hope and pray that he will remember the lesson.

I am pretty tired, but I feel like this was a desperately needed boost to getting us toward where we need to be for this summer. Now is the time to endure, and finish the work of preparation. I keep praying that God would lead 2000 campers to come to us this summer. I want the camp to be ready for every single one.

On the third day (Wednesday), I encouraged the group I was working with on the trail clearing that they were doing a great job, but they needed to continue and endure until the end of their time working. I reminded them of the Scripture in 2 Timothy 2 that says to "Endure hardship like a good soldier of Christ Jesus." Many of these young adults were delightful, diligent, and almost cheery about the hard work they were doing. I didn't want to slack off or give in to weariness, because they were being such a good example to me. What better reasons are there to do hard work than to glorify God and to keep up with diligent young people who are working their rears off to glorify God?

Next week, I am off to our Church's youth group missions trip to American Indian Christian Mission in Show Low, Arizona. I pray that I can be as diligent and faithful as the Crossroads Christian people were.