Rachel's Reflections

RA training at Word of Life Bible Institute has been amazing so far! We've had classes on things like philosophy of student life, discipleship, leadership, Biblical confrontation, question and answer time, and hearing the staff's testimonies of what the Lord has done in their lives. All of it has been good, instructive, uplifting, and focused on the Lord and even if one was not to get picked for an RA position it's still practical to many different areas of life. Some of it were lessons I learned over the summer as a counselor, but it never hurts to hear it again. Here are some of the quotes that stuck out to me.  "People will be transparent to the point that you are transparent with them." Especially true for a leadership position. Transparency doesn't come naturally to any of us, but it's important when you want to be a spiritual mentor for someone! "Live what you say you believe." We all know what we believe, and often say it to other pe...

Finally, sitting comfortably at my home in Michigan, I can reflect on how the last week of camp went. It was a good week with a great group of girls grades 3-5. The only difference this time was the amount of girls we had each day. Sunday afternoon-Tuesday morning was consistent, then we gained a new day camper, and later in the evening we gained a 7 year old girl from a different cabin (our youngest) and our third counselor, who had been home for a funeral. The following morning we gained another day camper, but later a different camper got picked up because of home sickness. On Thursday morning two of our day campers didn't show up and at night one of our girls threw up and spent the rest of the night in the health center and didn't join us on Friday until after all of our day campers had come back and joined us. It was somewhat confusing having a different number of campers every day, especially whenever we would leave a location. I would do the usual head count to make sure...

I started the week with 20 lively girls and 3 awesome co-counselors. I started connecting immediately with most of the girls and Monday afternoon had a great conversation with two of the girls about God, living life for Him, things we are looking forward to about heaven, how to share our faith with others, and other things. One of them thanked me repeatedly and said God must have set that conversation up because she really needed it. The other one mostly just listened and I could tell she was processing everything the other girl and I said. Later that night after the gospel presentation she went forward to say she had just trusted in Christ as her Savior along with 7 of our other girls!!! Our God is awesome! :)  Tuesday morning we started going about our regular activities, but then I was told by my Unit Leader, Emily, that I was being switched to a different cabin because one of the counselors was in the hospital. My heart sank a little bit because I had connected so well with m...

The two that didn't get along well last week were both going to be here again this week and I knew that they had not resolved the conflict between themselves and I wanted them to, so last Saturday night while I was praying I asked God to give me two girls from last week to me again this week, even though that basically never happens and I knew it would be very challenging for me. Sunday afternoon I was called up to get my first camper and guess who it was? Yes, one of the two from last week! I was super excited and told one of my counselors that I had asked God for her again. The other girl was a day camper, so we didn't find out until later that night during roll call that she was also going to be in our group. I grinned and looked at the other girl, who looked back at me with horror on her face and shook her head no. Monday they were actually good with each other, but by Wednesday they were having issues again. I kept talking to them individually throughout the week, but Frid...

This last week my two co-counselors and myself ended up with 16 girls ranging from 8-10 years old, but Sunday afternoon started with only one camper. The two of us just sat on the porch of our cabin for and hour and forty-five minutes and spent most of the time talking about God and her family. She loves the Lord and wants to live a life pleasing to Him. She has an amazing relationship with her entire family, and it was really touching to see how she interacted with her older brother during the week. We talked about how she prays for everything, big or little, and sees God answering her prayers (which was a needed reminder for me). Monday night five of our girls responded to the invitation to ask Jesus to save them from their sins. One of them was already saved, but wanted to know how to stop gossiping because she knew God hates it, and the other four became a part of God's family that night. One of them didn't have any previous knowledge of God, what Jesus had done for her, ...

Fourteen girls, nine white and five African-American, neither group sure what to do with the other group. The nine acting very cliquish because most of them had grown up together to the point where they were excluding the others while the five trying to make friends with them. The nine speed walking everywhere we went, the five strolling slowly along enjoying themselves. The Five were energetic, noisy, and full of life at night but slow as turtles in the morning, and the other half was the exact opposite. This is one of the first things my two co-counselors and I noticed Sunday and Monday about our group of preteen girls. As counselors we wanted to teach the girls to include others so we had them do several different group activities and other things so that by the end of the week they were doing better at talking to each other and making everyone feel more included. Wednesday night, after a dedication service, I got to talk to some of them about what that night meant to them. One o...

This week was definitely different from the other two weeks... I didn't know my co-counselor ahead of time, but we seemed to work well together for this week, especially since she was more used to older kids. Having older girls meant we were able to get into deeper conversations  with them, but then we also had to deal with more drama, like having crushes on boys and attitude issues. We had 10 girls, but they were a much more diverse group this week. We had three quiet Asian girls that hung out together, two MK's :) one from Romania and one from South Africa, after Monday night 9 out of the 10 were trusting in Christ alone to save them from their sins, we had two EXTREMELY hyper girls, one in particular was overly crazy at times, one had major attitude issues which one of the other girls didn't know how to handle and that exploded two or three times, and a few of them were wonderful, helpful, and kind. I noticed by Tuesday that they were very impressionable. They would come...