Our 2019 Summer: God's Work At Camp

Dear Friends and Family,

Forrest and I wanted to keep you all updated about what God is doing with our summer this year. We love and appreciate you all and are thankful for the support you have given us over the past two years. It feels like only yesterday when we embarked on our mission trip to North Myrtle Beach with CRU. Those 10 weeks were jam-packed with evangelism, training, and deepening our relationship with God. And then, last summer, we were off to East Asia with CRU again to share the Gospel with people who might never have heard about Jesus. On top of that, we joined Praying Pelicans for hurricane relief work in Puerto Rico.

This summer we are not fundraising for a trip since we feel called to serve God locally. We are both working this summer, and I am doing summer school. I anticipate God teaching us how to be missionaries right on the home front. Just last week, we had the privilege of being counselors for junior highers at Crystal Springs Baptist Camp. Instead of sharing the Gospel with strangers, we were investing daily in the lives of our campers. Let me tell you, it was both a challenge and a blessing! We want to share with you some of the ways we saw God move at camp.

For me, it was a difficult transition moving from working with kindergarteners and first graders to junior highers. I constantly thought about how to balance being a friend with being an authority figure. But, I had the honor of leading a cabin of 11 girls, each at a different stage of their journey. Some were on fire for the Lord, while others were struggling to find their way. Rea*, one of my campers, was going through a rough time with depression, anxiety, and the recent loss of her best friend. The devil seemed to have her in a tight grip, keeping her away from anything related to God. She constantly ran off away from the group, left chapel during the worship and refused to go back in, and took meds to go to sleep before our nightly cabin devotions.

But you know what? God works in amazing ways. Our lead counselor (who I truly believe God placed there just for us) became such a rock for Rea and me. She spoke truth into Rea's life, and over the week, we witnessed a remarkable transformation. Rea began doing things with the rest of the cabin girls and formed relationships with them. She started coming back into the chapel for the message after the worship. By the second to last day, she stayed in the chapel for all but one song and stayed awake for most of our nightly devotions. On the last morning before we left, Rea asked me to come outside with her and said she was ready for a relationship with God. It was so humbling to see how mighty God was over the week in Rea’s life. However, I ask that you keep her in your prayers, as battling depression is hard and she learned when her Grandma picked her up that her friend had committed suicide. Pray that she will see that God is good and is the perfect comforter.

God had prepared the hearts of two of my other girls and they both prayed to receive Him for the first time during the week. Elsa is Rea’s sister who struggled with feeling responsible for keeping Rea from hurting herself. We talked about how she can give that responsibility over to God. On the second day, we had been talking about repenting of our sins, and she asked how can we do that. We went and talked one-on-one and she accepted Christ. She was brave enough to tell the lead counselor and the rest of our cabin, “I am a child of God!” My other girl who accepted Christ, Ali, had grown up in a Christian home but never knew how to actually have a relationship with God. After she prayed, she was beaming for the rest of the day. I am so blessed to have been a part of my girls’ journeys and to have gotten the opportunity to disciple them.

Forrest faced his share of challenges too. Some of his campers seemed entirely disinterested and apathetic. They wouldn’t sit with the rest of their cabin during meals or chapel and would disrupt cabin devotions. The hardest part was on the third day at 12:15 they told Forrest, “Our mom is picking us up at 12:30.” It was disheartening that they left before having a chance to hear the Gospel. We're trusting that God will use this experience to soften their hearts and plant seeds for the future.

One of the most inspiring moments for Forrest was an open Q&A session with the campers. They asked him anything and everything, and he answered with complete honesty. Many of them opened up about deep struggles that they were going through. It was incredible to see how engaged and hungry for understanding they were. Two of Forrest's boys, John and James, who had been quite reserved, opened up during one-on-one sessions. After hearing the Gospel, they both invited Christ into their hearts and became genuinely enthusiastic about their faith. Before, they never contributed during cabin devotions, but after, they asked questions, read their bibles, and sang during worship.

Overall, we both felt that we grew in our own walks with God and were blessed to be used by the Holy Spirit in discipling our campers. Forrest felt a revitalizing of his spirit, and I threw myself headfirst into praying every second to God and depending on Him as hard as I could. There was a lot of drama between campers and even some boy-girl issues we had to deal with. We left the camp after falling more in love with God, learning more about Him, and being a part of these kids’ journeys.

Thank you all so much for being a part of our journey and supporting and praying for us. The summer is far from over and we are both devoted to spending daily time with God and His word. We pray that each one of you experiences a fresh awakening in your relationship with the Lord, that you have the boldness to share His love with others, and that you find solace in spending quiet moments with Him. We can't thank you enough for being a part of our lives and journeying with us.

In His name,

Forrest and Caytee