dinsdag 3 september 2013

Teen Camp "Walking in Jesus´ footsteps"



It’s a tradition by now. July is the month to organize “The Sower House’s” teen camp! Like in previous years, all the teenagers were eagerly looking forward to the camp, waiting impatiently and with huge expectations. Good stories and experiences from previous camps were remembered and told over and over again, while the younger teens, those who would participate in the teen camp for the first time this year, listened closely, with sparkling eyes, to hear all about night games in the jungle, the primitive rope bridge across the river, and the swimming pool´s freezing water.



This year, once again, we had a great time. Five beautiful and sunny days, right in the middle of the jungle, a fun group of teenagers, who were very united, and a huge team (15 people!). We are very thankful for all the volunteers who helped us! This year, the theme was “Walking in Jesus´ footsteps”. Together with the teens we studied many parables on God’s Kingdom, repentance and forgiveness, hypocrisy and true faith, and being salt and light in our world. Especially during our Bible study groups we had some good talks and great opportunities to explain to the teens what exactly it means to live your life with Jesus. During that week, many of the teenagers showed interest in living their lives with God and it was very special to watch God work in their hearts. It’s very gratifying to be able to lead them to grow a little bit more in their understanding of the life planned by God, and guide them in their journey of discovering who God is and what He does in this world!




The rules of the game

Imagine participating in a game without knowing its rules, or even worse, thinking that you know them, but having no idea that the rules are totally different. We decided that to teach the teens the good Samaritan parable, the last game of the camp, we would have to mess a little with their minds. We came up with this game where each of the groups had to find one of the staff,
who would be hidden in the jungle, carrying a card with the groups’ color. At least, this is what we told the teens. But in reality there were no staff hiding in the jungle carrying any cards, but what we did instead was put some of the staff acting as hurt “cannibals” (in many of our night games, there were staff with their faces painted in black trying to stop the teens from accomplishing their task, we call them the “cannibals” and they are much hated by the kids) by the side of the trails asking for help.



The game starts and each group, accompanied by a staff, goes after the colored card. The trails, well known by them at this point of the camp, are walked with hurried steps and searched by attentive eyes. Strategies are made and the hope of winning another game increases with every trail they pass. After walking for a long time, the ‘green’ group finds a hurt “cannibal” asking for help. They react surprised. Two of the teens go to help the “cannibal”, but some others start to ask questions: “Which color is the card you have?” When they learn that the “cannibal” doesn’t have any colored card, their reasoning gets interesting: “He is here to slow us down”; “Are you really hurt?”; “Let’s go, we gotta find our card”.

Yes, the “cannibal” was simply left behind. After a little while, the kids of the ‘green’ group hear the other two groups cheering and realize that they lost the game. They went back and were very disappointed. When the group gets to the meeting point, the teens note that the other groups don´t have a colored card. There were no staff with cards, but there was someone asking for help! The fact that they helped the “cannibals” was what made the other groups win the “game”, while the ‘green’ group, so worried about winning the game, left the “cannibal” behind and lost.


You have no idea how difficult it was to make the teens understand that the game they thought they were playing, actually didn’t exist. It was so hard to make them realize that no matter what the “game” is, there are other things that are more important than the “rules”. The thing is that we are often not that different from these teenagers. We are told, all the time and everywhere, that “the game of life” has to do with studying, finding a good job, having success, to retire and then die happy. When other things show up on our path, we think that they are slowing us down to “get there”. So worried about the “game”, we end up losing, because we don’t pay attention to what is most important: life itself. Not our lives, but the lives of those who are crying out for help, those who are lying by the side of the road, those who are not even playing the “game”. Yes, we might win the game, but we lose our lives! Will we get to the finish line just to hear that the “rules” were different than the ones we thought, or worse, that there was no “game” at all, there was only the responsibility of being human, to care for the lives of those who are dying? Are we going to win the game and lose our life?




God bless you,


The Casa Semear Team