Rock 'N Roll

"But our bet is that you've never seen or heard a group quite like this, since Flame is the only touring band in the world made up entirely of disabled musicians."

- Bill Weir from Good Morning America

Check out this GREAT news story on the band Flame... our main stage guests at this year's Buddy Walk here in Binghamton. They were amazing and we already have them booked for the 2010 Buddy Walk!

Flame the band on Good Morning America

Shepherds Fall Retreat 09

The Shepherds Fall Retreat was a blast! It was a great opportunity to reunite as staff to serve many of our local campers who are big time regular attenders. We had a full house with about 50 campers, 25 staff and a handful of volunteers.

Despite some warm daytime temperatures the wind was blowing and we stayed inside. On the bright side we had great Halloween and fall time crafts. Classic camps games were a must and the campers really enjoyed Alex on guitar during Bible & Music. Saturday afternoon our campers got to make stuffed-paper bag pumpkins, hang out at the activity tables and try on a silly hat for the fall photo shoot (with Jerry the Scary Scarecrow). One of the most exciting parts of the retreat was our special guests, Talking Hands (from Achieve). They put on a great show on Saturday night, signing to all sorts of songs from Johnny Cash to the Ghostbuster's theme song. Talking Hands did a great job. Overall it was a great week seeing so many familiar faces from the summer.

JP Weekends!

Fall is certainly here at Arrowhead. The leaves that are still on the trees are changing colors and the temperature is dropping. We have already served several guest groups and we have a few more to go before the fall retreat season is over. We are really excited for the Shepherds Fall Retreat at the end of October. The retreat is nearly full already and we almost have all the staff lined up. It should be a great weekend to reunite and reconnect.

Another exciting part of this fall has been the James Project which has spilled over to the retreat season. With such great success this summer we are now making the James Project available for weekend retreats. The fall is booked up and we are starting to accept James Project Weekend groups for our winter/spring retreat season. James Project Weekends are open to pastors, leaders, families, student ministries, college ministries and community groups. It's a great opportunity to steal away for a weekend to serve others as a small group. Weekends at Arrowhead provide James Project groups with the ability to focus on team dynamics, more intense discipleship, building & equipping and personal growth... besides just simply serving together.

We're excited about this new opportunity because of the huge impact it has on the our guests who are loved and served well by our James Project groups. Sign up now to get a James Project Weekend this winter/spring.

Ben Myers
Arrowhead Bible Camp
570.663.2419
abc@arrowheadministry.org

A Perfect Day for Bocce

Our friends from the Special Olympics were here today. Over 50 athletes, their coaches, parents and care providers enjoyed a great afternoon of bocce ball. The weather was perfect and the hot dogs always taste fantastic after some intense games of bocce.

For us, it was an exciting opportunity to see some of our campers, meet some new friends and host the tournament for the Special Olympics.

Buddy Walk 2009

The Buddy Walk is this Saturday! I hope you will join us to help raise awareness for Down Syndrome. We are looking forward to a great day (with NO RAIN!) including the band FLAME! Check them out tomorrow Wednesday, September 16th on Good Morning America.

The End of Many Things

Our summer of ministry is officially over. Our last campers headed out yesterday and things are quiet again. As always, the silence is a bitter sweetness. Our passion is to IMPACT lives with the TRUTH of God's Word and to make DISCIPLES like JESUS. Our passion is Jesus' passion; to see people: families, children, staff, mission teams, developmentally disabled adults, neighbors, friends, our community... redeemed by the love & mercy of the Sovereign, Almighty, Creator God. It is sad to see the summer come to a close.

With the silence comes a simultaneous deep breath - entering a time of rest after two and a half months of ministry AND anticipating our next guest group, Shepherds Retreat, work group or staff get together.

I praise God for a great summer. It was a summer of transition, growth, pain, healthiness, worship, discipleship and hard work. It was my privilege to engage with several students who took on the challenge of discipleship. Through them, God challenged and convicted me of my love for His Word, my humility in serving others and my trust in Jesus to follow Him wholeheartedly. What a blessing to see one of our biggest summers yet. This was the first summer we offered eight weeks of our own programs. Our day camp for kids doubled to offer two weeks for free... reaching out to serve over 60 families (more than 100 children) from our local community. We saw another summer of growth for our Shepherds Camp... with more campers than last summer. Another great blessing was the full introduction of the James Project. The James Project has led to dozens of families and students serving our staff and campers each week, the creation of a counselor/program staff training program and the completion of many projects around the camp AND the purchase of our new dock section, scholarships for Shepherds campers, financial investments to help make Day Camp free and care-packages for all the staff.

One of my favorite events of the summer was our Bocce Bash with the Special Olympics. A few camper teams and over 50 athletes from the community made for a great evening of bocce ball. It also doubled as our evening activity... providing all of our campers with an exciting sporting event right in our own backyard. For me it was a summer of learning.

This was one of the first summers I intentionally strived for healthiness as a response to worshipping God.. I am grateful for times of spiritual formation through solitude & silence, journaling, prayer, scripture and repentance. I was also blessed to have Natalie by my side from time to time AND to see her in Bible Class or Chapel, serving campers and helping out around camp. God used Natalie to teach me so many things about our Shepherds campers alongside being dad. God taught me a lot about WORSHIP which was the focus of our discipleship, James Project partnerships and personal formation. In the face of worship, God showed me this summer that my default idol is camp. For me, it is easy to elevate myself or my role at camp from created thing to Creator. God convicted me of my interior motivations for building relationships and running programs. He taught me how my exterior actions can and should flow from my religious affections for Him... which is a big lesson that He continues to teach me. As a summer of transition, God also taught me wisdom in leadership and grace in love through some unexpected ways.

One of those unexpected ways was through a Shepherds camper. Day Camp was in coming to a close and we were getting geared up for another session of Shepherds Camp when I received a phone call from one of our campers' care providers informing me that Scott (one our campers) had died in his sleep at home. Scott lived with five other guys in the same house in town for the past 12 years. He and two of those guys have attended Shepherds Camp since before I arrived. I am thankful that Kelly, myself and a few other staff members were able to attend the viewing and the funeral. We also had opportunity to spend some time with Scott's housemates and staff. Through that time it was a blessing to see the impact that camp has had on Scott, his friends, family and his staff. It was an even greater blessing to be able to suffer with them and to express our love for them. It is difficult to put words around all the things God has done and is doing through Scott's life, his time here at camp and the relationship that we have with his housemates and staff. I pray that we will be able to serve them through camp and outside of camp as well.

I suppose I say this at the end of every summer; God is amazing and He did great things this summer at Arrowhead.

Here is a poem that was written and then put to music to be sung as Scott's funeral.

Camp Life (#3) - The Gift

Much of the ministry here at Arrowhead surrounds the body. Most of our worship is physically caring for others – our campers and even each other.

God is the one who puts the value on all people… and He says that ALL people are worth dying for. As we value the campers as God does… we begin to see Jesus in them. First, as they are image bearers of God. Second, as their lives reflect Jesus in the ways that God has created them. Their vulnerability, peace, kindness, and joy are all a reflection of Jesus. They do not “try” to exemplify these characteristics. It is simply who they are. In their weakness they are a unique instrument of God’s grace, a revelation of God among us. Because of who they are we can clearly see God and see who we are to become.

Can our campers pray? Do they know who God is? Do they understand what the name of Jesus means? Can they believe in the scriptures and hold them as truth?

These are human questions. These are questions that may never be answered. These are also questions that come from below not from above. We, the so-called “normal” people, look at our campers and wonder how much they are like us. But they make no comparison. They simply live life and by their lives invite us to receive a unique gift – wrapped in weakness for our transformation. While we worry about how much we produce or how we have performed… our campers tell us – it is more important to be rather than to do. While we are consumed with what others think of us… our campers tell us – God’s love is more important than the praises of other people.

It is a great mystery in scripture that – the least shall be first, losing our lives is how we find them and gentleness inherits God’s kingdom. Do NOT miss the unique gift that proclaims this truth right in front you! Remember, the gift not received is the gift not given.

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“The gift not received is the gift not given.”

<![endif]-->As you serve the campers do not lose sight of God’s love for them AND the love He gives you for them. If you do – you will simply be someone who cuts up food, washes dishes, change diapers, clean toilets, shuttles people from one activity to the next, cleans up messes, plays games and just baby sits adults. You will become frustrated, exhausted, bored, impatient and lonely AND the campers will not be able to give their gifts, fulfill their mission and reach their potential.

The campers will see through fake smiles, and resentful hearts. They notice empty words and empty hearts sometimes even before we ourselves do. They uncover our irritable nature, impatience, cold demeanor, vane niceties, jealousy and lack of interest. What really matters to them is true friendship, pure love and faithful presence. “Their heart registers with extreme sensitivity what is real care and what is false, what is true affection and what is just empty words. Thus, they often reveal to us our own hypocrisies and invite us always to greater sincerity and purer love” (Adam 19).

Through these whom the world has made marginal and useless, God speaks mightily. Through our campers – the poor and weak, the broken, He makes His presence known. In our production-oriented, success-driven world this makes no sense. But to God it makes perfect sense.

The Gift - in the context of Shepherds Camp is a powerful experience of God's presence as He is both with us and for us. However, the gift of others extends to all people... who are image bearers of God. We are designed for relationships... not solely relationships with a goal in mind for the other person (simply connections that have more to do with ideologies and less to do with standing with and for others in Jesus), but relationships that stand with and for others in the presence of Jesus (the incarnate, crucified, resurrected One who makes possible relationships that are transformational).