2nd Day at Camp

Welp, so far camp Eagle Bay has been pretty easy. Today we took a tour of camp. After that was over (it only took about 20 minutes) most of us guys played around on the zip line that they have here at camp and tried to see how far we could throw a football if we tossed it at the apex of the swing when the zipline stopped at the end of the cable. And then after supper we spent two hours playing games with kids in a gym at a local school. But even though there hasn't been a whole lot to do physically there has been a never ending stream of thoughts and ideas passing through my brain today. Some of these thoughts are extremely random, most of them are focused primarily around the the fact that the people that live here are extremely poor and that things to buy here are expensive (cereal for $6-8 a box) and yet they still live here in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold. And what astounds me even more is that the men and their families at this camp stay and work here anyway.

Today Chad told us about how the kids here may or may not know who their parents are and most likely don't live with them even if they do. Many of them are living in relatives houses where they are ignored or even sometimes abused. Sometimes 11 or 12 year-old girls will be sexually active, and you might see 10 year-olds taking smoking breaks every so often. It becomes almost an unreality in my mind and an unresolvable disconnect between us that these men could work a job that pays them a pittance to serve and care for people who are some of the most poor, guarded, withdrawn people who have a firm grasp on what depravity means. Why?! And even more, that they can do it without becoming bitter, angry, and cynical.

Luke 6:25 - "Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep."

I, personally, often feel that I could not give so selflessly of my time and money and even more importantly, my heart, without getting something more out of it. I think in their situations I would be too concerned about either making enough money to buy nice things (a nice car, a nice house), or a two month, all-expenses paid vacation to Hawaii. But these men aren't getting paid enough to have any more than enough, and there is no vacation in sight for them.

I care about these children, I cry for them, and I'm scared for them. I questions why I grew up where I did and why they grew up where they did. It doesn't seem fair that some people are born into privileges without ever having done anything to deserve it while others are born to poverty or next to it. I complain about my standard of living, the fact that I don't own window curtains, while other people have learned to live with no house at all, or in a small cramped house with other people's families. But I'm struggling with the question of how God can use me? I who am filled with envy and pride, and swollen with bitterness and every evil desire despite even being given an incredible opportunity of living in a wealthy country. Why choose me to do His work, any of it? Why would He even bother trying to bring the wicked to justice and save the lost with such a wicked and lost person? Just because I want Him to? What a paradox.

1 Corinthians- "For God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong."

"life is a long lesson in humility."- James Matthew Barrie

Justin