Kadesh - Day Five

As we near the end of the Kadesh experience all I can say is "wow, this has been quite an experience." This is not a camp to come to if you are looking to have fun in the sense of "let's hang out and do stuff" type of fun. The program kicks off every day at 8:15 and goes non-stop until 11:00 that night. I have been very surprised and impressed at the ability of my "campers" to participate in and soak up what's been thrown at them in a very intense program. This stuff is in your face, what are you going to do about Jesus? stuff. We challenge them continually to consider their relationship with God and to consider making whatever changes need to be made to get as close to Him as possible. I've seen changes in all ten of my kids. Some have definitely altered their attitudes, others seem to have just awakened to the fact that they may be missing out of something by keeping Him at arms length.

Yesterday was focused on revolutionizing the Church to make it what it really needs to be - people focused and Christ-centered. Today we're concentrating on what keeps each of us from really turning over - really turning over - our lives to Christ. It's a little uncomforable at times realizing that it's not just teenagers who need to examine where they stand with Jesus.

Service project today was to go to a United Way daycare center and "interact with the kids and do some light cleaning." The light cleaning part was disinfecting the kids furniture, washing windows and cleaning up the playground, which was ravaged by the heavy duty storms of the last three days. I highly recommend spending 45 minutes on concrete when the temperature is 99 degrees. It does wonders for your sinuses and also provides some significant short-term weight loss. I did my first bad thing as a group leader. We quit fifteen minutes early and went to Sonic. Route 44 cherry limeade. Mmmm.

We're in the home stretch. Tonight and then tomorrow's final assault. Friday's schedule will be a little different than normal, so I suspect that our leaders' meeting may break a record tonight. I'm thinking the 1:00 am barrier is a definite possibility. I can always sleep while I'm driving the van home on Saturday morning.