A good Wednesday... so far

We are almost to our halfway point for camp. It is going swimmingly.. speaking of which, pool day was a blast. Doug Dunton took the top score of a perfect 10 with his amazing belly flop, and also won for the biggest splash. Everyone looked like they had a blast racing their rafts, swimming hard, and generally having a nice time in the pool.

Earlier today we had another great morning of worship and learning about God's Word through the workshops. The students all moved onto their second workshop and we are hopeful they are learning lot. I've received a lot of good feedback from the leaders about the students asking some great probing questions about corporate worship, God's sovereignty over evil, and other topics of note that have been covered so far.

What has been so encouraging to me is the huge response to our challenge last week for the students to memorize Psalm 34. We have had 8 students recite the entire 22 verse Psalm so far with many more still working on it. Nice work to all (I'll have their names for you later...). It brings such joy to my heart to see and hear the students walking around campus, alone and in groups, reciting God's Word to themselves. I hope that this has lasting value in their lives.

As of this morning, blue had a commanding 20,000 point lead over everyone else. However, the recital of Psalm 34 and the pool games has again shifted everything around. I'll have an actual update this evening of the actual point totals.

Please continue praying for us. Many of the students and leaders are feeling weary from the demanding schedule and from lack of or restless sleep. I know God has been using your prayers to keep us going, and I would ask that you would be diligent in those efforts.

Tonight, Perry will continue preaching through Psalm 34. Last night was a great challenge to trust in the completeness of God's love and joy. Nothing can snatch that away. Perry told is that "Christ is not challenged (i.e. it is not challenging to him) by Satan. It is not difficult for Christ to redeem a sinner from him. Satan is merely a tool that God's uses to accomplish His will, and to ascribe him any more power is to diminish the power of Christ." That is a rough paraphrase, but you get the idea. He spoke about faith not being a moment in time, but a continuing call from Christ for perseverance and obedience. All in all, a very good and challenging message.

That's it for now. I'll be posting more pictures later this evening after the activities. Thanks for reading and I'll write more soon. Later.....