Saturday, July 11, 2009

my first three weeks...by Counselor Andrew Anderson

My first three weeks of Camp Gilead have gone extremely well. All of the guy counselors have been having great discussions with our campers on how godly men should act. As a group, the guy counselors have found a few ways to get the male campers involved with us in respecting the ladies. So far, every week starts out with a lot of complaints by the kids but by Wednesday it becomes second nature. One of the ways we show respect is by standing in chapel until all of the ladies are seated. On Monday and Tuesday we have to remind our campers to remain standing until all of the ladies are seated. By the end of the week all of the guy campers are standing without having to be reminded, and sometimes they even need to remind me. It is amazing to see all of the boys standing for the ladies because you rarely see that today. Over all I feel that the campers are going to go home and thinking twice about their behavior around girls.

When I was younger I always knew that I wanted to live my life the way God had intended it. During staff training week we discussed why we needed to live our lives the way God intended. Today more and more families are pushing God out of the picture and it is causing huge problems. I never really thought about the repercussions of a divorce until God put some campers under my authority whose families had just divorced. One of my campers was so upset, hurt, and confused at what happened, it made my heart hurt when we talked. Later that week he had prayed and asked Jesus into his life. I pray that his family will turn things around and get him into a church. The next week God put more kids in my group who came from difficult family situations. A couple kids just had their father walk out on the family a week earlier. I know God is showing me that families need parents who are strong in their faith. Obviously it doesn’t work to try and leave God out.

I pray that this year at camp, all of the male staff can be an example for the kids to live a godly life and hopefully help save some marriages from ending in disaster.

-Andrew Anderson Cabin #17

1 comment:

  1. I'll be praying the same thing right along with you Andrew!

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