Miraculous Provision

For those of you that have not heard yet, this past week Pastor Steve was in a serious accident. He was thrown from his horse while on a camping trip high up in the mountains. From the time that he was injured to the point when medical help arrived he had been up on the mountain for almost 5 hours. They life flighted him in to town and discovered that he had 3 broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a shattered spleen, a lacerated pancreas and liver and bruised kidneys.
The amazing thing has been how the grace of God has preserved his life clear back from time of injury continuing even now. On the mountain his vitals remained strong despite internal bleeding for that length of time, he never lost consciousness, once he reached the hospital his shattered spleen miraculously began clotting and surgery was no longer necessary.
Even as I am writing this he is recovering in his own home when the doctors told him that he would be in the hospital for at least 10 days. When the doctors marveled at the healing taking place in Steve's body, he was able to tell them about the power of prayer and the faithful hand of God.
So, in short, this has been a testing week for us here at Family Life Church. It has been a tough test but a good one. Last week in youth church we called the young people to fast and pray on Thursday for Pastor Steve's healing. Over 75 of them responded and we are still hearing reports from them about what God did inside of them this last week as they stepped out in faith to believe for healing. Praise God that He is continually moving the church forward into the picture of what He has called us to be!

Camp

I realize that you have been waiting for the camp recap blog, but this has been a tough project to try and somehow explain camp in words. Being our first youth camp, this year's camp will obviously always hold a special place in Danny and I's hearts. I think that we can easily say that all of our greatest expectations for camp were blown out of the water and we found ourselves consistently overwhelmed by the grace of God. Pastor Jonathon Owens was our speaker this year and brought such a great impartation to our youth ministry in the area of evangelism. Our theme was "Shout It Out!" and we saw God release a boldness into our young people as fear and timidity were broke off of their lives. One of the words that Pastor Jonathon most impacted us with was the ABC's of our faith: C- Confess, B- Believe, A- Action. I am still hearing testimonies from young people telling me about how they are putting action to their faith and refusing to live in fear. Pastor Jonathon also introduced our youth ministry to a whole new level of praise that pushed us past all limitations to worship God completely unashamed. It was fun to watch!
We also played some crazy games and had an overall really fun time! The first day of games though nearly killed all of us and our nurse was ready to pack up and head home. Probably our biggest lesson that Danny and I learned is how big the role of the nurse is during your week at camp. Down below you can see the picture of the final round of the Sock Game, which turned out to be more brutal than we anticipated. We had ten teams competing during the week and the goal of the sock game is to be the last team with your socks still on at the end. So obviously the goal for everyone else is to get your socks off. All of your Bendonites will appreciate this following story that occurred during the sock games: Trina was cornered and tackled by an entire team in pursuit of her socks. During the wrestling match that followed, Trina located a random calf that happened to be close to her teeth and chomped on it! When the dust settled, one of our young men was standing there with a look of bewilderment on his face as he examined the intense bite mark on his leg. Imagine the surprise of the nurse when we called her in to treat a counselor inflicted wound! Don't worry though, we instructed this young man to keep his calves clear of Trina's teeth in the future and he eagerly agreed to our counsel.

On the other side of camp, we have testimonies of 10 new commitments to Christ, over 20 people baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time and countless young people walking past fear into faith and boldness to preach the Gospel to their generation. The impact that camp has made on our youth ministry is still untold as we are watching the seeds take deep root and bear awesome fruit.
Next week, we head up to McCall for our youth leadership retreat. It should be a great time of vision casting for the new school year that lies ahead of us. We will be keeping you posted on the NXT youth church as we continue to press in to the amazing things God has in store for Canyon County!