Camp

Breakthru runs these events called Encounter Camps, when people stay in the building next to us, for the weekend, and have praise and worship, and teaching sessions etc. This past weekend was Kids Kamp (yes that is the correct spelling), with what was supposed to be 30 kids, but ballooned to a total of 65 kids running around the church property.

I personally enjoyed the camp and found it a spiritually uplifting experience as a whole for both the campers and myself.

Interesting points of the weekend:

-Worship times-one of the coolest things I've ever experienced- 70 kids jumping around, praising God, defintiely a powerful experience.

-The Session about the Importance of the Cross- They showed 70 kids aged 10-14 years the crucifixion scene from The Passion of The Christ, which while it definitely helped the kids understand what Jesus Went through, probably traumatized at least a few of them. As well, there was a lot of focus on the Death of Jesus, without much focus on Jesus' Resurrection. If Jesus hadn't been resurrected, then his death would have been meaningless.

-One night, we had an alter call, then asked everyone who wanted to be closer to God could come up to the front, and we would pray for them, while I was praying that the one boy would be guided by the Holy Spirit, he fell over slain, It was amazing to be a part of what God was doing in his life.

-Kyle put the container of juice on one of the food tables (the one with all of the dishes, but none of the food), we didn't have any dishes after that

-I decided to bring out my harmonicas and the kids just couldn't get enough of them. I collected all of them after one of the breaks, but thought I was missing one. When kyle went to the pool after camp was over, he met one of the Kids, and the kid gave him back my harmonica.

And now for a new Feature: Gabby Grammer Where I'll share something that gabby has said-

today Gabby was talking about going to go to the Game Park tomorrow, and the animals that she'd see there, the animal she is most excited to see- Rhinosaurs

Holy Spirit Weekend

October 12, 2009.


This past weekend has been really important for my spiritual walk. For the last while I haven't really been able to connect with worship. I've been trying to figure out what I've been doing that's wrong, but I couldn't, then during Friday night Youth Celebration (once a month all of the youth cells come together for a joint worship service). They played the song Heart of Worship,

“I'm coming back to the heart of worship, It's all about you Jesus”

and that's when it clicked. It doesn't matter what I do, or how silly I look, it's not about me. The only thing that really matters is God. If I just focus on God then everything else just falls into place.
Later that evening, we split into areas, and we prated for the cell leaders, then Hein and his wife, prayed for all of the youth in our areas, and prophesied into our lives. When Hein prayed for me, he told me that God is saying “no excuses,” which really hit me, because I like to make excuses about why something goes wrong, I don't like to be accountable for my actions.
Hein also spoke into my life about my being here, and assured me that I am where God wants me to be, which was really reassuring because that is something that I have struggled with, I mean, I only have a highschool diploma, what good does that mean?
The Final thing Hein told me was that God is going to release into me a passion for the lost, which is good because I used to have a passion for that, but after six years in a school where everyone is either saved (the small minority), or are sick of religion (the vast majority) passion can die out.
The next night we went to prayer, and during it, they played a song which lyrics say

“The more I seek you, the more I find you,
The more I find you, the more I love you”

And that is so true, the more we seek God, the more we love him, and the more he works in our lives.
Then Sunday during Youth Service (there are three service at Breakthru: English, Zulu/English, and Youth), Pastor Russel (the head pastor) spoke about being on fire for christ, and afterwards asked people that haven't spoken in tongues before to come up to the front if they want to. I went up, and he prayed over us, and a lot of us started speaking in tongues which was really amazing. It's amazing because it's our spirits communicating directly with God, without our minds censuring what the spirit says. Then someone laid hands on me (I don't know who, my eyes were closed), and I instantly hit the ground, now I come from a charismatic church and I've felt the holy spirit before, but usually when I end up on the ground, I feel it coming, and I crumple to the ground , after trying to stay standing, this time I didn't have any warning, I was down on my back without warning!
During prayer that night, Pastor Russel again had people come up to the frond to be filled with the holy spirit, before going out this week to do evangelism, and again I went straight back again. But that wasn't the best part of of the prayer meeting, during the worship part, I felt a freedom to move like I've never felt before, and I just jumped, it was one of the most exhilirating feelings I've ever felt. I guess it's true what scripture says “Those who are free, are free indeed”.

Note to any current or former members of River of Life's Youth Ministry: Yes the title of this post was intentional

update

Sorry, that I haven't updated in a while, we only get 2 gigs of internet usage a month, and we ran out by the 8th. So I'm using the church's internet to write this.

After being at convention, we got home, and we bummed around the house for 2 weeks, waiting to find out what we would be doing. then last week, tuesday we had a meeting with Pastor Russel, Hein (The person in charge of the Youth Department), Thandi (runs Breakthru Community Action, Breakthru's NGO, I'll eventually tell you more about this in another post), and Christine (The Mennonite Mission Network worker here in Pietermaritzburg). Where we were given different areas of focus. We will work in the other areas, but these are our main areas)

Kyle and Gabbey are working in BCA
Anna and Connie are working with Missions, and Children's Church/ Catering


and I will be working in the Youth Department. I will be helping to lead a cell in Eastwood (one of the suburbs of Pietermaritzburg), as well as working in the youth office.


As a prayer request- I'm going out evangelising tonight for the first time, please pray that the people we share with have receptive hearts, and that Hein and I are able to communicate the gospel fairly.