August 2010

This year’s kids’ camp was the biggest and the best ever. With 50% more kids than last year and over 60 workers, the camp was a week of wonder and a tremendous success. The theme this year was: “How the West was won!” Living in the West of Ireland, it was the perfect name for the perfect week. The crew, complete with the Sheriff, the Mayor, the Banker, Cowboys and Indians, etc., brought home the Bible truth that the good guys always win in the end! Our team has gotten better every year and held the campers attention for the entire week while conveying God’s Word in living color. It was FANTASTIC! The girls had a special Line Dancing class to some cool Christian cowboy songs and an art class which featured portrait drawing. Dance was taught by the EuroStar Champ from ’08 (a member of our church) and Art was taught by Miss Christen, an art major and staff member. The boys had wood-working where they made an actual bow and arrow… very popular! They also had a survival class where they learned many amazing things. One, which was a particularly powerful teaching moment that I used on the parent day, Friday, to present the Gospel. They made a compass! Mark O’Mahony, a nature buff, filled a bowl with water. He then placed a leaf on top of the water. Then he produced a little box from his pocket with a magnet which had a straight pin on it, thereby magnetizing the pin. When he dropped the magnetized pin onto the leaf, it turned in the bowl on the water to point North. His purpose was to teach the kids to find their direction even if they were lost. Wow! So I used it to teach the truth that God, the Creator, has put an invisible draw on the heart of every man to provide direction for their lives. Even if you are lost, you can find True North! Scripture testifies to this inferring that Heaven lies to the side of the North (Isaiah 14:13)… the Amplified Bible says, the uttermost North! What a Great God we know and serve that has given every man a conscience (compass) and His own Spirit (His invisible Guide) so that one, though a wayfarer, could find his way Home!! This is such an important principle in the day we live in. So many people are trying teach that truth is relative, depending upon you perspective. But I know that there is One God, One Way to Heaven, just as there is ONLY ONE NORTH. Heaven is a place. Heaven has a location. And Heaven is calling every man homeward. We appreciate the opportunity to have had a week to minister this Word to the children and parents of Galway this week.