A Camp Counselor’s Story
When you work or volunteer with ICI, you have to be ready to discuss just about any topic—you never know what the kids are going to ask! But what’s always true is that kids are really curious about spiritual things and will impress you with some deep and insightful questions and observations.
As a counselor volunteering at a camp, one incident really sticks in my mind. I led a discussion during Outpost, the one night at Camp Friedenswald where we counselors and the kids camp out in tents in the woods, when the topic of spiritual warfare was raised. It was certainly an interesting subject to address in the middle of the woods! But it was important for the kids to understand that despite how movies portray them, demons and angels/heaven and hell are real, and because of that, our decisions can have far-reaching consequences.
Following the discussion, I found one of our 6th graders by himself at the edge of the camp with his head hung low. I asked him what was wrong. He told me he didn’t like to think about hell—he’d witnessed some of his family members being shot, and he knew they weren’t going to a good place. I agreed that it was very sad but assured him that if he trusted Jesus, his own story could be very different. I asked him right there, “Have you ever placed your faith in Christ?”
“Just now,” he answered.
“I asked him right there, ‘Have you ever placed your faith in Christ?’
‘Just now,’ he answered.”
