The bus for Senior High Camp leaves for Oregon two weeks from today on August 27th! Sign up here.
Last month, Mars Hill Students held their junior high camp at Island Lake over in Poulsbo. In three days, 35 students met Jesus! Here are a few stories from their leaders.
Reading verse numbers out loud
“I had five girls in my group. They all come from different backgrounds and have different family situations, but they bonded as a group from the first day. Three girls didn’t own Bibles until the first session when we gave them each one, but all of them were taking notes in all five talks. The youngest in the group, Rosie*, was so new to church and camp that she read the verses with the numbers out loud (‘and Jesus said to Peter, seven . . . blah blah blah, eight . . .’).
“For the last quiet time, I encouraged the girls to dig into Romans 8 and told them to read the whole chapter or just a couple verses and to write down any questions they have or any thoughts they had from their reading. That night at cabin group, I asked them to share, and they literally were talking over each other in excitement about all the verses that were so amazing to them! They kept saying they wanted to read more but there wasn’t enough time. Genuine shared excitement to read the Bible from a group of 12–13-year-old girls who didn’t know each other two days before and half didn’t own Bibles until the beginning of camp. These girls blew me away with their sponge-like soaking in of the teaching.”
Sarah
Olympia
Birthday party in the church parking lot
“Will has been coming to Mars Hill Students for a couple of months. I couldn’t tell at first if he liked coming or if his grandmother just made him come. When we mentioned Junior High Summer Camp, he got really excited and told us he wanted to go. I know his home situation was pretty difficult and that getting his parents to fill out the paperwork was going to be a chore, so we applied for him to get a sponsorship. Once he got as sponsor, I had to do whatever I could to get his parents to fill out the required paperwork. I Facebook messaged, told Will to tell them. As the days got closer and closer to camp and I began to think he wasn’t going to get to go. All I could do was pray. Then out of the blue, his mother called me asking what she needed to do to let him go to camp. She filled out the forms and packed his bags. Will was going to camp!
“During the camp, I kept checking in on Will to see how he was doing. He said he was having a great time and I could tell that was true. I got to drive him home from camp and so we got to talk for a while. He told me he wanted to be baptized. When I asked why, then he said, ‘Because Jesus is my Lord and Savior, and I want everyone to know.’ I pretty much was speechless and just said, ‘All right!’
I got to take him to Red Mill Burgers and we ate food and talked about video games and his family, and I taught him the valuable life lesson of giving a unique name to the server when ordering so when they call the name ‘Dallas’ you know the food is for you and no one else.
“I also found out that he was about to move to Spokane with his grandfather. He said he didn’t want to go because he loved being in Seattle and near his dad. But he said above all he wanted to be with his baby sister so he would go to Spokane so he could take care of her. My heart was really full just listening to a 10-year-old boy talk about his life and having to basically be a father to his little sister. I asked him about Students and he said ‘I love it there.’
“He told me that at camp he and his friends decided they wanted to get together the next week for his birthday for an ‘after-camp reunion’ and that he wanted to have his birthday at Mars Hill Ballard. They assumed the building would be closed, so they were just going to have his birthday in the parking lot. I told him we would open the building and have a party. So, for Will’s 11th birthday, we had pizza, soda, and Halo, all for the glory of God.
“As I write this I am pretty sure Will has left for Spokane. I am sad to see him go, knowing that he is going to have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders and he is leaving a community of friends that he has just gotten to know. But I rejoice that in the short time that he has been here, he can now proclaim that Jesus is his Savior and Lord. And when he orders food he will use the name ‘Dallas.’”
David
Ballard
The preaching finally stuck
“Anna was raised Catholic, but because she was young and the sermons boring and monotone, she told us none of it stuck. Eventually, her family had stopped going to church since her parents no longer agreed with what the priest was saying. These days, her parents still don’t go to church, and her older brother now says he is an atheist.
“Anna didn’t go to church either or know much about Jesus when her friend brought her and two other girls to camp. After the first talk, when we got back to the cabin, she was amazed at how the worship was loud and fun and everyone enjoyed it, and the talk. She told us she had never heard a more convicting and emotional sermon.
“As the days passed, Anna opened up more about her life and what she was learning. Later she confessed that her and her dad often fight over anything and everything and it always ended with her dad giving her a lot of work and that was that. She had started to lose hope. The more we got to talk with her, she eventually came to humbly realize that it wasn’t all her dad. ‘When I came here to camp, I finally found Jesus and it’s the most amazing thing in the whole wide world. It gives me hope that I can fix things with my dad,’ she told us. During this camp she committed her life to Jesus, got a Bible that she has been studying, and is ready to follow Jesus!”
Emma
Sammamish
God can rescue anyone
“Just two years ago, Carson was in an abusive home, where he and his siblings lived in fear, malnourishment, and frequent injury. The police raided his home and separated him and his siblings into foster care. He was brought into a home of a family that attended Mars Hill Bellevue, who were the first people to ever pray for him. This family encouraged him to come to Mars Hill Students, something Carson had never experienced before. Just two weeks into attending, Carson heard the gospel for the first time and responded saying he wanted to become a Christian.
“At camp this summer, Carson shared this testimony in our cabin with a group of young men, telling them that he wasn’t sharing for selfish reasons, but rather ‘to show that God can rescue and change anyone.’ This week, Carson came as a student leader, to love and encourage other young men in Christ. He did an amazing job, and taught our cabin the difference between religion and grace through faith.”
Josh
Bellevue
*Some names have been changed.
