Camp 2019: Week 1~ God’s Providence
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." ~2 Corinthians 12:9
May God be glorified for being the One who is sufficient in any and all circumstances to sustain any trials we may face! After landing in China and walking around the airport lost for 30 minutes, I heard the news, "We can't stay in this province anymore. We're being relocated 3 hours away because of our affiliation". A part of my mind started to go down a road of worry thinking, "This was not what was supposed to happen! What will my parents think of God? My parents will be so upset and blame God... again. Was I wrong to come to China?" The Lord gave me an incredible amount of grace at the moment to see I could 1) choose to let my emotions run wild and be driven by fear or 2) by faith, trust that He was in control. By His grace, my heart started to have hope that God was in control and although I couldn't see it now, by faith, I could trust in the conviction that God had a good plan for all of this and that He would not leave us or forsake us. After an hour of the Spirit bringing to me remembrance of the Word that He had stored in my heart, the Lord left me with an in-explainable confidence in Him and an excitement to see how He would bring Himself glory during this trip. Knowing it would need to be covered in prayer, I reached out to brothers and sisters.
Hours later we made it to the new location and in a matter of minutes we found out no one was certain if we could even run camp. We had no resources besides what volunteers had brought, no orphanage to work with, and no location to hold an overnight camp due to few hotels accepting foreigners and citizens. Somehow, we had to trust the Lord would work through this and that He had sent us here for a reason so that night we all just prayed for His will to be done. The next day, the Lord provided quickly! We weren't able to start camp on a Monday like normal but after volunteer training, we found out God had provided an orphanage to work with. We'd have to run a day camp sadly due to lack of housing but at least the Lord provided a chance to share His love with these kids and translators. Out of all the kids, only one was a girl which was going to be challenging since the rule was two adults of the same gender to accompany a kid older than 5 to the bathroom at all times (due to assistance needed due to disabilities) and already we barely had any guy volunteers/ translators. Still, the Lord throughout the week gave the men in our group such servant hearts and willingness to serve the kids with issues that few adults would probably want to help older kids who should normally be capable with.
Amazingly, He also gave us a chance to go visit the orphanage itself which usually never happens for other camps. As 19 boys and 1 girl with various disabilities and personalities walked in the small, crowded, and sterile room, the Lord just softened my heart for them. Despite how they looked on the outside (to an extent, we all knew that they were most likely abandoned because of their disabilities), I knew that the Lord saw them and He cared for each one of their souls. What an amazing sight it was to experience a taste of unconditional love that our Savior might have felt with us- a love not based on what these kids had done for us but a love based on the fact that these little humans were created in the image of God and worthy to be loved as an image of God!
My family group was made of my translator Josy and our 10 year old boy named Victor (more about Victor here). Even though our camp was "weak" in a way where we had little resources, limited staff, and barely any time with the kids like a normal camp, it was such an encouragement to see God start to help us love on the kids in that tiny little orphanage room as we drew with the kids, played cards, and got to know them more. The rest of the week echoed the same theme. Each day, we had little resources and little time but the Lord gave us creativity and multiplied our meaningful times with the kids, who had so much fun with just simple games! Praise be to God, He even allowed me to share during crafts times with my translator (and my kid listening) about being a Christian and what God had done in my life with my family!
After we left the orphanage, the Lord also allowed me to meet a fellow sister in Christ named Faye who was very bold about her faith and extremely passionate about God. Her and her husband had studied at seminary in Singapore to the point of being blacklisted in China yet she still fearlessly shared her faith. It was an encouragement to see the joy and love the Lord had given her for the kids which was so different from the other translators who didn't know Christ. To hear of her bold faith in the face of persecution tries my own faith and encourages me to genuinely pray for the body in China because now it has become personal.
The last day of camp, we brought the kids to the bus and the volunteers and translators were heart broken, especially those who would only be here one week. We debriefed with our camp director immediately after and no one had words to say for there was a sense of despair, "Will we ever see them again?" (Wow did God answer that prayer three week later! If only I would have known!). A volunteer who had the most joyful little boy in a wheelchair named Hector wrote a poem and read it to us about how Hector taught him more in a week about hope than he could ever imagine and we were encouraged by our camp director to find a way to keep up with our kids and advocate for them. A translator even shared that she noticed that there was something different about this camp and wanted to know more about it, at which our director got to share about her hope in Christ! May these seeds be planted and may He grow them for His glory! Here is a video with some highlights from week 1, see my little boy at 0:22. Week 2 to be continued...
