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It was our 6th annual HOH Summer day camp and it was amazing! In the end, we had 301 campers attend, and about 20 helpers including kitchen staff and leaders. It was a general consensus that it was the best camp so far. We are so thankful for each one of you who partnered with us to make it possible. While we hope to get together a short video of the events, that might take me a while to put together so we wanted to share some highlights with some pictures...
Firstly, I (Jenny) would like to thank you for your prayers for a safe trip down to the HOH. Everything went as smoothly as travel can go. And I didn't even lose any bags until my final leg returning home!
I had a wonderful time reconnecting with my HOH family, spending time catching up and loving on the kids. Both "my" girls are very proud to be taller than me now (I try to tell them it's not that huge of an accomplishment).
One of the most exciting things for me was to watch our leaders work and basically run things throughout the week. Here are some of the leaders with Linda, but we never did manage to get a picture of them all as there was so much going on.
What was neat was to watch them and realize there are 3 generations of leaders here. Some of the oldest ones who have moved on in their lives, came back to the HOH just to help out this week. Then there were the next group of older ones who are in university who had a break and came home to help out as well. And then there is the group who are in High School right now and are our "young leaders" still living at home.
It was so touching to watch them all interacting with each other, working together and the younger ones still learning from the older ones. They each have their own set of skills and abilities and to watch them serve and using them all together as a team was really amazing.
Because of their work I find I was able to concentrate mostly on the teaching, Bible study book homework and listening to Bible verse memorization (with a baby in my arms like old times!). Our theme this year was, "Dress with Jesus, He's always in style" (that is what is on the red camp shirts) and we looked at different attitudes, actions, and words we are to "put on" as sons and daughters of the King.
Linda on the other hand is the most amazing woman and was able to concentrate on the food (and generally making sure everyone is doing what the are supposed to!).
With her team of kitchen helpers, they produced a meal for about 330 people each day. It is always amazing to watch the incredible meals that come from her kitchen.
As news spread throughout the week, the meals ended up spreading even further as patients and family members who were in our local hospital (located right beside our yard) would end up bringing their bowls and containers to get in on the action as well. Somehow she always ended up having enough to share with them as well!
All in all it was an incredible time and the kids are already asking about next year. Whew! Now the planning starts all over again. It really is a highlight of the year for them and we feel so blessed to be able to share the love and hope of Jesus to our own kids in this way, and also to the kids in our community.
We hope to maintain some of these relationships throughout the year with weekly devotions continuing on with what we learned this year. I also hope to keep up with some of them on social media as they grow in their walk with Christ. It is incredible to watch the changes taking places in some of their lives as they grasp the reality of who they are in Christ and what it means to have Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Thank you for your part in making this happen and be on the lookout for some links to some videos as I am able to get them finished.