Youth Winter Camp

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Youth Winter Camp! Where do I begin? Let me just say that we ended up calling it "Plan B." Our original plan was to head up to Camp Metoche near Big Bear Mountain. We were scheduled to leave the church around 2pm on Friday, stay two nights, and then return on Sunday afternoon. But who'da thought that the biggest snowstorm to hit the Southern California Mountains would happen on this weekend!!! The weather report called it "blizzard conditions." Well, needless to say, no one wanted to head up there in those kind of conditions (except for certain teenagers who thought it would be cool to get stuck in the mountains for 'who knows how long').

So we immediately went to "Plan B." I wish I could say that we already had "Plan B" planned, but we did not. In fact, it wasn't until the "morning of" that the camp director called us and said, "it's worse than I thought, you may not get out of the mountain if you come up." So really, Plan B was more like "Plan NOW." It was great!!!

This is what we ended up doing: We stayed primarily on the church campus!!! I know, I know, it sounds boring at first (and it did to the youth initially as well), but let me tell you... we had a GREAT time!!! After we had all the youth check in, we took them to their first activity: Bowling!!
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We had a great time! We separated everyone into four teams of about 17... not including the youth leaders. And we had a chance to see some pretty creative bowlers... as you can see! But my favorite of all the bowling happened with a guy named Zach....

....toward the end of the game, we had something we called a "bowl-off." And we wanted to see who was the most creative bowler... with style (if you know what I mean). Well, Zach decided to get a running start from way back toward the benches. I'm not exactly sure what he was "planning on doing," but he ended up running full force with a bowling ball in his hand... and what happened next he was not planning for. As he was running forward, his foot got caught on something and went flying forward in the air... with his arm outstretched and a bowling ball on the other end helping him plunge forward... he crashed down on his stomache and the ball crept forward toward the pins. It was great... and he wasn't "too badly" injured :-)
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Once the bowling was over, we headed back to the church for dinner and a service. And let me tell you... we have the greatest cook known to man here at our church. His name is Tom and he makes the BEST taquitos, gaucamole, nachos, salsa, tacos and everything else Mexican (he also makes the best tri-tip I have ever had)!! He served up some tacos and nachos and we all headed into the youth lounge to eat dinner.
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After dinner, we headed into the youth sanctuary for service. Let me tell you... God was so good to us during these services that weekend. We started off with about 40 minutes of worship and then Pastor Jerry "brought the Word." And boy did he bring it!!! He talked primarily out of Mark 16... where Jesus said to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." The message was directed to the youth by convincing them that THEY are ministers of the gospel and that THEY need to be telling people about the good news of Jesus Christ. But Jesus wasn't done talking to His disciples... and Pastor Jerry was not done talking to the youth either.

The passage goes on to say, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

There is no way around this Scripture. Jesus is not just merely talking to His disciples here... He says, "These signs will follow those who believe." Read it for yourself.... this is available to "those who believe" and our youth group "believes!" These signs and wonders will follow!

Then we went to Luke 24:49. This was after the resurrection of Jesus and He told His disciples, "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but [wait] in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” What Jesus is saying here is that He does not want His disciples to do anything until the "Promise of [the] Father" comes upon them, which we know is the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus did not just want His disciples to go out into all the world with a mere story... He wanted them to have "power from the Holy Spirit." And we know that Acts chapters One and Two tell us what happened... the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were present and they all spoke in tongues... which is one of the signs that will "follow those who believe."

This same Promise is available to us today (Acts 2:39)... and this Word was preached to our youth during the Friday night service... and, just to give you a head's up, so many of our youth, in fact the majority, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit the following morning. Praise God!!! ____________________________________________________

Once the service was over, we headed over to our kids church building "Treasure Island." Oh, we had quite a bit of fun over there. We had all kinds of competitions, such as boxing with gigantic boxing gloves in a big bounce house as well as"American Gladiator" type games, etc. I particularly enjoyed the gladiator game. We have a large inflatable obstacle course for our kids church and we had races inside of them... but what the youth did not know is that Zach Thompson and I were waiting for them in the middle of the course with the large boxing gloves. Oh it was a blast!!
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Well, the next morning came around very quickly, and we headed into the youth lounge to eat some great breakfast (thanks to our friend Tom). He made some awesome chorizo and eggs. After breakfast, we all did our devotions and then headed in for the service that would change the life of so many of our youth. We started off with worship, Pastor Jerry brought the Word, and then offered the chance to be prayed over to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Out of 67 youth who attended the retreat, more than HALF went up to be prayed for and 45 received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues (they received their spiritual language). God is so good! We are no longer the same youth church we were before this camp. We are now a Spirit-filled youth church!!!!
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The event was far from over and we all headed down to Boomers in Irvine for unlimted rides, go carts, bumper boats, video games, and more. We were only down there for about 2.5 hours before we had to head back to the church to eat dinner. Then we had a our final service.

The final service was led by Robert Arevalos... one of our key youth leaders. We spent the whole night in prayer and worship and so many kids were touched with the Love of God.

What happened at this retreat will stay with me for the rest of my life. Words can in no way capture what happened. But I told the story as best I could with my limited amount of words and pictures. Yes, we had fun... and Yes, we were entertained, but I know this for sure: The youth were not talking about the activities as much as they were talking about what the Lord did in their life at this retreat. I am so blessed to be a part of what God is doing here in Anaheim, California.
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