
Spyro, a camper from years ago, was our speaker for Jr. B Camp! She focused on themes of trust and where our source of worthiness comes from.

On Monday, Spyro shared her testimony with the campers.

When Spyro was thirteen years old, she faced some incredibly difficult things at home. She had decided to take her own life. She had everything planned out, including the day, but a neighbor she didn’t really know paid for her to go to camp. Spyro decided that she could postpone her plan until after camp.

And so Spyro came to Camas Meadows Bible Camp. She bunked in Owl’s Perch with Rhyme as her counselor and Bald Eagle as the speaker the week.

Spyro went to camp without friends or any sense that she was accepted by others. But Rhyme welcomed her in such a way that she felt immediately at home. Bald Eagle was speaking about Joshua, but on Tuesday night he felt the Spirit urging him to change his session. So he told the story of how Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, was accepted into the family of God because she chose to trust him.

And so, instead of taking her own life, Spyro gave her life to Jesus that day.

She eventually became a camp counselor, then grew up and married and became a mom. Then the Lord called her back to Camas as a speaker so that she could share her story with kids just like Bald Eagle and Rhyme shared parts of themselves with her.

After sharing her testimony, Spyro told the campers that sometimes people can think they must be worthy in order to be loved. But that’s not what the Bible says. In the Bible we read that God first loved us.

So, what does it mean to follow God?

A lot of people think following God means going to church, reading the Bible, and praying. However, someone can be doing all of those things and still not be following God. The first step to following God is believing that you are loved.

On Tuesday, Spyro felt led to change her topic. Instead of what she had planned, she walked the campers through Psalm 23. She talked about how God’s heart is good for us, how he calls himself the good shepherd. She explained that God loves us like a good shepherd loves and cares for his sheep. Then Spyro urged campers to trust God with their cares and burdens.

When Spyro gave the campers the chance to talk to Jesus during chapel, one of our staff saw her young cousin mouthing words as she spoke to God. This girl was from a home that didn’t know about God, but this week, she was given the chance to talk with him for herself. During that same chapel, Scruff saw one of our young C.I.T.’s crying in the back of the room as chapel time came to a close. What is it about Jesus as the Good Shepherd that speaks so powerfully to our hearts? I would suggest that it is the love, care, and sacrifice that the shepherd expends on behalf of his wayward sheep. Jesus himself gives us this example, in his own words from the gospels. Dare we believe he feels something different for us, when he has been so careful to explain his love? Clearly, the Lord had important things he wanted Spyro to share about his role as the good shepherd who loves his sheep.

On Wednesday, Spyro read through the story of the woman who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair. Spyro asked the campers to consider those who looked down on this woman and what it means when the Bible says that everyone sins.

“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:47

Spyro wanted the campers to know that sin comes in many different forms. Like the woman whose sin was so public that everyone knew about it or the man in the story who observed her with unkindness in his heart, not considering her worthy of Jesus love and forgiveness. Spyro emphasized that before we can trust in God’s love, we must become like this woman and realize that we have a lot to be forgiven for. Then we can bring all those things to God!

On Thursday, Spyro shared the Gospel with the campers. She shared that trusting in God’s love begins by trusting in Jesus and what he did.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” I John 4:10

On Friday, Spyro talked about trusting in God when we go home. As someone who had incredibly hard things to face when she left camp for the first time, Spyro has such a heart for the hard journey that children face.

What does trusting God look like at home? She gave the campers some ideas, reading your Bible, being a good friend, being careful about who you let influence you, taking your concerns to the Lord in prayer.

But these simple suggestions fall on campers’ ears differently when they know that Spyro herself faced such a hard time going home and the Lord walked with her, even through some very dark times.

After each chapel session, the campers meet with their cabin for a discussion time with their camp counselors. One first-year counselor told us during staff meeting that her campers went above and beyond answering questions about the chapel session. They had their own discussion question, “What was a time when God impacted your life?” They asked each counselor and then every camper shared their answers too!

On Friday night, we had our campfire.
(This is with a Fire Marshal approved Solo Stove, for those of you envisioning a wall of flames sweeping across the land!)

This is the chance for campers to pick up a stick, share how camp has impacted them, and then throw this stick into the fire. As each one shares, the fire brightens, giving more and more light as more people are willing to share their stories with each other. Here are a few of the things that were shared.

“I’ve always tried to fit in and here, I feel like I can actually be myself”

“I have had a lot of loss in my life and getting to see Spyros message apply in my life was really cool”

“I like camp because I don’t often get outside.”

“A lot of my family has died in the last years, and every time I come here it takes my eyes off the chaos in my life”

“My sister has a medical condition and for me, being here helps me remember Gods plan.”

Camp is composed of many individuals training together for a summer of Kingdom Work! That work involves sweating in the dish pit and hiking through scratchy bushes carrying a camper on your back just as surely as it includes sharing from God’s word and listening to the Holy Spirit’s prompting about what to say.

As Spyro’s story attests, God used both Bald Eagle’s faithful teaching and Rhyme’s welcoming smile and willingness to truly see a girl who had felt alone for a very long time. For our gracious God can and will use each and every sacrifice for his mighty work of love in our lives!

It was a true delight to see the simple gifts of service given so many summers ago come back full circle as Spyro gave of herself to this next generation of campers. I am so excited to see what the Lord will do with these new precious souls, who are eager to serve in his name. Only time will reveal all that God is doing, but we know that it will be good. He is the Good Shepherd, after all.

And who knows, maybe in fifteen years it will be one of your children standing at the wooden podium that says “Camas Meadows Bible Camp” in rough pine letters, sharing Scripture with another group of wiggly kiddos trying to sit still on the patched lodge carpet while squirrels skitter past the windows outside?

John 15:12 “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
