Pray for Camp Gracepoint

This FTS retreat (2007) was quite memorable as it was the first time that the most of the Impact children came with us to Gracepoint Berkeley’s FTS retreat. It was amazing to think that a little over a year ago they stepped foot into Alcatraz for SpringFest, and have been with a whole year, and have now finally come to FTS retreat now. God has indeed been faithful. The Impact kids had a blast and I had a good time bonding with a couple of them, finally matching their names to their faces. Throughout the retreat, they were generally well-behaved and were unusually attentive during the messages that Teacher Andrew gave, and that was an answer to prayer. Another notable answer to prayer was the bonding that happened between the Impact kids and other Joyland kids. There were several stories of how “our” Joyland kids made an effort to reach out to the Impact kids, actively incorporating them in memorizing verses together, talking with them during the hiking, and saving spots for them during pictures. God also watched over the retreat in terms of physical protection, as there were a few mishaps during the retreat, but no one was hurt and they didn’t negatively affect the atmosphere of the retreat.

This retreat also was special for me, as many of these kids in my class powerfully experienced God and responded in very sincere ways. From the beginning, it seemed like God’s presence was there with us, speaking to the kids. After the first message, Teacher Andrew asked us to get into small groups and gave the kids a chance to ask any questions about God or life that they had. My group was the fifth and sixth grade boys, and I was a little unsure about this. But it turned out to be an unusually serious time, and even though the group was a bit large, the kids were very attentive as well. The kids asked many questions, some of which were, “Did God know the future?” or “Why is life so complicated?” I can’t say that I gave really good questions, but it was a chance to see what was on the kids’ minds. But there were particularly two questions asked by one student that I wanted to note here because they were specifically answered in the next day’s message. The first question was “How do you know that God is real?” Without knowing that the student had asked this question, Teacher Andrew said in the message the next day that the beauty in God’s creation was one way God wants to let us know that he was real and that he loves us. The second question the student asked was “If God knew we were going to sin, why did he make us?” Amazingly, during the following message, Teacher Andrew told us stories of how even though Daniel his son was like a “trouble magnet”, he loved Daniel much more than all of the troubles. When my group met together in discussion after the message, there was a moment of solemn silence among the boys as we realized that God had answered these two questions very specifically within a 24 hour period. God was indeed getting our attention, letting us know that he was right there with us, listening to our words and wanting us to listen for him. And at the end it was obvious that God was really working through the stories and illustrations that Teacher Andrew shared to touch each of the boys who was sitting there.