Tillensburg

Week Eight. Last camp of the summer. Bittersweet. It was bitter because I didn’t want the summer to end. I was learning so much and was having a lot of fun with the team and all the campers. It was sweet because we still had one more camp to make a difference. One more week of camp fun. One more week of sharing our love for soccer and Jesus with the campers and volunteers. Our saying for the week was “just leave it all on the field. It was our last week of camp – we were going to make the most of it before it was all over.

Monday was something we weren’t expecting: rain – all day. It was hard to be excited about being inside all day, especially when all we wanted to do is be on the field. But we didn’t let the rain stop us. We weren’t going to hold back. Although we couldn’t do any soccer inside, we had plenty of games for the kids...and coaches. We also were able to hold our Coaches Corner and small groups without any interpretation. The rain did not hold us back.

Tuesday, we were back outside. It was good to be back on the field. We were ready to “leave it all on the field.” During small groups, I had the youngest group, which can be interesting, but the kids listened well and had questions of their own. As the campers and I were talking about what we learned during Coaches Corner, Cashew (nickname) started asking Callie (assistant coach) questions about God and what Jesus did for us. Callie was really excited about it and couldn’t wait to tell us. Later on in the week, during one of the breaks, Cashew and Callie went aside and Cashew asked Jesus into his heart.

Friday during small groups, I went with the group that wanted to know more about Jesus. There were a lot of campers in that group and they asked good questions. Those campers reminded me what it meant to have faith like a child. Cashew was one of them. There was also Sapphire, who was worried about how to pray and thought that she wasn’t doing a good enough job. No wonder Jesus says this in Matthew 18: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place – becoming like this child – is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Thursday night we hung out as a team and wrote down all the highlights from the past eight weeks. It took us pretty much the whole night. A lot of laughs and remember whens. We figured that during our eight weeks of camps that the church partnership camps had impacted over 1000 people: campers, volunteers, parents, church members, and the community.

Friday after all the campers had left, after we debriefed with the assistant coaches, it was just the four of us left. After eight weeks of being together, our summer was over. We deflated all the soccer balls, ending our amazing summer of camps.