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
