The Perfect Imperfection

“The sacrifices pleasing to God are a broken spirit; a humble and contrite heart ,O Lord, you will not despise.” - Psalms 51:17

Throughout this summer I’ve had the opportunity to be more involved in, as well as be more saturated with, the Word of God.  During a night of solitary meditation I happened upon the above scripture, which is found in King David’s lament regarding Bathsheba.  As I read this I couldn’t help but think how as humans we have the constant drive to be perfect. And with this drive we feel that we can only be accepted when we are solely unmarred.  It is, in fact, the complete opposite.  Christ beckons us to come as we are…AS WE ARE. We are not, in any stretch of our finite imagination, spotless creatures.  We are dirty, broken, and abused; the perfect gift for a God who longs to reconnect with his lost sheep.  Christ doesn’t desire perfection, he desires imperfection so that in Him you will be cleaned, fixed, and polished to such a shine that you reflect the face of your creator.

Would you like plush, very plush, or so plush it could be clouds?

Country Lake Christian Camp/ Southeast Christian Church Louisville, Ky and somewhere just over the border in Indiana:

Country Lake was a really good camp, we had about  150 uprising 6th graders. That is such a good age because they’re not to old to be to cool, and not to young to have to treat like little kids. This camp was like a resort, very big, very nice facilities and very clean. It wasn’t your tipical camp, but it was still a lot of fun. They had their own lake with a blob, trampoline, summit, zip line and trapize, as well as a swimming area and boats. But they don’t flaunt what they have, its all used as a ministry. They made sure the kids were ministered to the whole time, but not preached at all the time. The morning sessions were really good with funny skits and videos. The worship band did a great job of making it all about praising God and not putting on a show. They allowed for group time, where we had devotions and time to talk about the day with the kids. My group at first was not responsive and decided to talk all the time. But as the week went on they began to behave more and really understand what we were trying to teach them. The theme for the week was Advance the Kingdom with your Everyday Lives! which had motions, and their animal to represent this was the Rhino and if you really want to know about that you can ask us at school, chances are no one will.

Each group or team competed together in the daily challenges called Ultimate Kabuke, something japanese, I don’t remember what it meant. There were Two different games that each team would compete in each day, and they were pretty awesome games. The teams were awarded for doing certain things in the games and for winning, and for whatever the ref felt like awarding them points for. My team was scrawny, and mostly girls, we only had two boys. But I wasn’t going to let that get us down. I turned my girls into aggressive over competive contenders, and the boys tried to keep up. My did started to win everygame and the girls were determined to dominate, I was proud of them all. They eventually began to get to competitive, so we had to learn about good sportsmanship. My team went from not top 5 to 4th place, and then there was one last game called RIOT. This game was designed for the counselors. We had 1000 water balloons, hoses and flour. The kids had to get from one end of the camp to the other with their toothpicks, the counselors were to drill kids with water balloons and flour, which was just an opportunity to get the kids that annoyed us most during the week, but our objective was to catch them and break their toothpicks. If they made it successfully to the other side they got a dog bone. Some how my team collected enought dog bones to reach 1st place and were the over all victors for the week, thanks to me.

Also the food was amazing, we should hire these people for the Milligan cafe.

Jacob

Deliverance…. i hear the banjos now.

Bluegrass Christian Camp Lexington, KY

This was our first experience with other camp teams, and Milligan rocks. Everyone played nicely in the sandbox together, although we threw sand in the other kid’s eyes, because we’re bigger and better. But we still love them. This camp was extremely challenging for the campers as well as the staff, due to the topics of the discussions. A week of apologetics rocked us all. Many of the kids were very receptive and were able to understand what was being thrown at them. Many kids were challenged to think about what they truly believe in. For many of them, it was the first time they had to defend their faith, and give a reason for why they believe.

The best part of the week was the kids, they were all down to earth and friendly. We had the most fun with them during free rec where we got to play hours of ultimate frisbee and slip n slide in the rain. Just by spending time with them opened up new relationships that allowed us to really get to know them. Each night there was a camp wide game. The first night was Warlords, which was four team capture the flag and the warlords were the smallest girls on the teams that had panty hose full of flour, that they mutilated innocent civilians with. One girl was severly wounded in action, when her legs were compromised by the intense crossfire, this girl ended up seeing the light and was baptized after this near broken leg tragedy. We played a game called angels and demons where we blind-folded the kids and led them up a hill to a rope course that they had to follow and their goal was to reach the heaven rope, and not to be misled by the demons telling them the wrong direction to go. One night we had a faculty scavenger hunt that still haunts our dreams, 100 kids chasing you down can cause nightmares. At the end of camp two girls were baptized.

Milligan is awesome.

so is team Alpha

JJJJOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!111!!!11!!!!!!1!!

XOXOXOXO

Hugs and Kisses

Night Night

Janie Nicki Michael and Jacob

p.s. Michael is still recovering from a bad case of the bluegrass duicey juicies, prayers needed… for us.

Another one bites the DUST!

Hey y’all this is Nicki and Jacob, holla! We’re sitting in the cafe at Camp Edisto in SC. So pretty much Country Lake in IN with Southeast ruined us for the summer. It was the nicest most luxurious week of camp I’ve ever been to. Camp Edisto is pretty much a complete 180 from it. This is how church camp should be…. no air conditioning, humid, bugs, sweat, and carpet ball. This summer has been awesome. We’ve loved the kids we’ve had and have learned so much from them. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much or as hard as I have over the past month with my team.

Here’s the rundown of camps so far…

Woodland Christian Camp:

This was my(nicki) home camp growing up so it was a great way to start the summer. I love the kids in our youth group and their honesty and openness blew me away. They are all so willing to express their feelings and help each other. It was very surprising to me yet awesome to witness. I gave my testimony to a group of people for the first time. Afterwards a few kids told me they could relate with me so hopefully my story was somewhat hopefull and uplifting for them. David Sternberg did great as the dean. We had a bit of excitement when Jacob hurt himself playing volleyball and I got to take him to the urgent care center. I got to watch the new adventures of Heidi on the Hallmark channel for 45 mins. Enthralling y’all…. I was glued to my seat and maybe even shed a tear. Overall Woodland is near and dear to my heart and always will be.

Woodland was a good start to our summer. The kids all knew each other so instead of making new friends they were able to strengthen the relationships they had. We got to try out the YiM workshops everyday during this week. The second time went better for each one, and we’re still learning to do them better, but the kids were very receptive, even the middle schoolers. Their theme for the week was IT, and not Stephen King’s book IT, but understanding what IT is in your walk with God. This was a really good theme for this group of kids, there was a lot of hurt among them, and beginning to understand what IT is really brought a new light to their lives. The speaker for that week was Scott Ford, who did an awesome job, and this even prepared us for the following weeks.

The Calming Sigh of Peace

Habakkuk 3:17-19