Monday!

Today was the first full day with these campers. Our chapel speaker for the week is Pastor Ron from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He gave a very good message with a couple of powerful demonstrations.

First was about sin. He started with a glass of clean water and asked who would drink it - 0f course everybody would. Then he showed a glass of "toilet water" which was actually made with a few bouillon cubes and different seasonings and stuff from the kitchen. He asked who would drink that - of course nobody would. He then dipped a fingertip into the dirty water and put it into the clean water and asked who would still drink that. Again, nobody would because even a little bit made the whole cup dirty. That's the problem with sin. Even a little bit makes us totally unclean in God's eyes. He then drank from the "toilet water" cup (one little girl was gagging in her seat, poor thing). That represented Christ taking the punishment for our sins. He then poured clean water from a pitcher into the remaining "toilet water" until it overflowed and ran clear. That represented Christ washing us and making us clean in God's eyes.

For the next demonstration, he had help from David - our program director (seen in previous blogs as Mr. Incredible). Ron asked the kids who would like a Snickers bar. Almost all hands went up. He said, OK...if you can do 250 push-ups you may have one. One very confident girl did try and got up to about 5 before giving up! Ron said that if David could do 4 push-ups for each person, he would give them their candy. So he went around the room, person by person, getting each camper's/counselor's name and asking them if they wanted the candy. As one said yes he would tell David "Will you do 4 push-ups so this one can have a candy?" and David did them, and the person got a candy. Even if someone did not want or could not have one he would still tell David "Will you do 4 push-ups for this one who does not want a candy?" and David did them. After all the campers and counselors had their turns, Ron went around the back of the room to myself and others and went through the same routine, and David did more push-ups.

I had to leave then to get lunch finished, but Ron told me later that he ended the message with explaining to the kids how Christ died for everyone! Even though some people may never accept the free gift of salvation, Christ still loves them enough to have paid the price. Amen!

All in all poor David did about 200 push-ups on that concrete floor. He is Mr. Incredible indeed!

At evening fireside the high school students did a skit called "Is it Time Yet?"

I did take a good video of the kids singing, but I need to change the format before it gets uploaded. Check back in tomorrow for that.

My overall BEST part of the day was getting chocolates in the mail from a good friend back home! The kitchen crew was very happy that I shared with them too.