Family Camp and Philippians

It has been a while since I blogged. I remember earlier in the week I was excited to see that our pastor had blogged again and I was reminded again that I haven’t in a while though I have so much to blog about so here is another one.

We went to Family Camp at LeTourneau Christian Conference Center August 14-17. Glenn had asked for those days off because of our anniversary but we hadn’t made any plans so when Mrs. Emerson had told us about it we said, “Why not?”

There were not many families there but since we all had at least 4 kids there were quite a few people. J We stayed in one of the new bungalows which was pretty nice though we did have a hike a little bit to use the facilities. There was an Olympic theme with lots of fun events. Each family was their own country and we made flags to represent ourselves. We were the “Maas-Eye” (named after the African tribe). Glenn came up with the name and I came up with the flag idea. There is one eye for each of us and our motto was ”Fixing our eyes on Jesus.” Besides the Olympic events we also got to go swimming in Canandaigua Lake every day which the kids loved. The kids all made friends and were sad to say good-bye.

The speaker for the weekend was Ray Torrey which was a surprise to me. He had taught with my mom for several years and was friends with both of my parents. I knew that I was going to see Carol Emerson (who had been my mom’s principal for many years) but was not expecting to see Ray. God did a work in my heart, another step in the grieving process of losing my parents with being around the 2 of them. It was fitting that in my quiet time for that week I was in 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff. What a comfort for the reminder that we do “not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.” God is so good.

We were challenged through Philippians to have an eternal perspective and to keep our focus on the prize which is Jesus Christ. Philippians was re-enforced this past Sunday in church when we were challenged by the life of Bob Kohler who recently died and our youth pastor had the privilege of being a part of his funeral. He had been a missionary sent out from our church in 1939 to the Philippines for about 70 years and his life verse was Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I want to record the 4 life lessons here just so I don’t forget them:

1. Living for Christ doesn’t spare us from pain.

2. Living for Christ multiplies our impact on the lives of people.

3. Living for Christ gives eternal perspective to this temporal life.

4. Living for Christ reminds us that life is not about me.

I am currently reading Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper and The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias and through all of these things I am reminded and challenged again and again. I want to live for Jesus. I want my life to have an eternal impact. It starts here, with the 7 people I am currently living with, but also outside of here. I want to turn people to Him everywhere I go. As I typed this I had to get out the hymn book and look up Living for Jesus. It truly is “the pathway of blessing for me.” Oh Lord, please help me to live for You today.