Let us begin by saying Windy Gap is SO far away from Kinston! But, it is totally worth the long car ride to end up at Clint and I's favorite place! We traveled the long 6.5 hours from K-Town to Weaver-Vegas with our new friends! Our new friends has never experienced anything Young Life let alone Young Life camp! Our friends Katie, Amanda, Dacie, Jess, Walker, Brian, Clint, and I were the representatives from Lenoir Greene Young Life. We had a blast getting to know one another better, becoming familiar with Young Life, drawing closer to Jesus, and just laughing!!!! We for real were just like campers! We did the camp hike, hiked to plunge, did the ropes course, zip line, blobbed! We did it all!
Here are a few pictures of the weekend!
The crew! Such fun friends to do ministry beside! Trusting The Lord for what he has next for all of us!
This was on our hike, or as I told them "it's just like a walk up a ramp!" My new friends did not agree, it was a pretty difficult hike! Please notice Clint and Walkers twin like characteristics (bottom left picture)!
This butterfly was on my shoulder the whole time! Let me tell you, I love butterflies!
Chris Cockerham was the speaker for the weekend. Chris was a Young Life leader all 4 years while I was in high school, his precious wife Jenni was my Young Life leader, and Chris married Clint and I. He is a big deal to say the least! He gave us an incredible nugget...
"God is on a search for the lost and his mission is to make a search committee! This is our unique calling, we are on Gods search committee!"
Chris also shared a poem called "I Stand By The Door" by Sam Shumaker
I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world-
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
There's no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind people,
With outstretched, groping hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it ...
So I stand by the door.
The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for people to find that door--the door to God.
The most important thing any person can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch--the latch that only clicks
And opens to the person's own touch.
People die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it--live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him ...
So I stand by the door.
Go in, great saints, go all the way in--
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics--
It is a vast roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms.
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture in a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening ...
So I stand by the door.
There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them
For God is so very great, and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
And want to get out. "Let me out!" they cry,
And the people way inside only terrify, them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much:
Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving--preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not, yet even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God,
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there, too.
Where? Outside the door--
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But--more important for me--
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
"I had rather be a door-keeper ..."
So I stand by the door.
