Wednesday, April 30, 2008

We're MISSIONARIES!

Staff are always listening to me talk about the MISSION of Arrowhead. From the moment they start serving at camp...they start hearing me call them MISSIONARIES. Camp really is a mission field and our staff are the missionaries. I'm not just talking about a short term missions trip. I'm talking about REAL missionaries who are SENT OUT! Our staff pack up all their stuff, leave their family, friends, and local church - to come here to camp for the summer. They pick up and move here to live. They eat here, sleep here, work here, serve here, grow here, hangout here. They come to live with a new people group...a new culture. They come to experience life (camp life) with the local culture (our campers). They in turn, invite the campers to experience camp with them and thus invite the campers to experience Christ.

If that's not a missionary...then who are those people "oversees" that your church is supporting?

Check it out. I was speaking with one of our local staffers who just got back from a missions trip to Mexico. This is what she had to say:

"On the first night that we arrived in Cancun our missions team was gathered around listening to the plan for our ministry to the week. While I was listening I realized that this felt a lot like camp! At the beginning of every week/weekend at camp we do the same thing. We all meet together, talk about the plan for the week, and pray together. God showed me that when we serve at camp we really are missionaries. So often I thought of working at camp as doing ministry, but not necessarily being a missionary. At camp, we serve God by serving people; in the village in Mexico we did the same thing. All of us who give our time to serve at camp are really missionaries ministering to the campers and showing them God's love."

Do you know some of the staff who will be serving at camp this summer? I challenge you to support them as you support other missionaries from your church/family. Pray for them, send them letters of encouragement, come for visit, mail them a care package, invest in their future. They need your support while they are on the mission field this summer.

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