The summer camp season finished up with 36 Rocky Mountain Conference camp staff members and 57 campers at Mills Spring Ranch in Casper, Wyoming. Campers ages 8-17 participated in activities like wilderness survival, team sports, arts and crafts, horsemanship and more, all with a spiritual focus.
The counseling staff members were very intentional about making cabin worship times safe spaces where kids could ask questions. The kids responded well and opened up about some of the struggles they were having both in their spiritual life and general issues in their personal lives. Staff members listened, prayed with them, and pointed them to Jesus. Several of the kids come from non-Christian homes and were introduced for the first time to a God who truly loves them.
Thursday night’s program had a special spiritual focus with an agape dinner. It was held in an open-air chapel with tables arranged in the shape of a cross. Michael Taylor, lead pastor at Casper t Church, described what a testimony is, shared part of his testimony, and then invited the campers and staff to share their testimony if they felt led to. Many chose to share their stories with the group, and the presence of God was felt deeply through some very significant testimonies.
Following the program that night, cabins split up to talk in small groups about God’s calling on each individual’s life. During those conversations, many campers made the decision to follow Jesus and signify that decision by being baptized. Eighteen campers were baptized the following morning, with several more making plans with their families to be baptized at a later date.
Brent Learned, RMC assistant youth director and camp manager at MSR, was integral in setting the tone that facilitated these decisions in Jesus. He said, “It was incredible to see the Spirit move through the intentionality of the staff mentoring campers through addiction recovery, panic attacks, depression and homesickness through cabin worship, morning and evening worship, and activity worship. Campers and staff members experiencing Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit was evident during MSR camp.”
Please join us in praying for all the campers who made a decision to follow Jesus for the first time this summer, or re-committed their lives to Him, and those in whom a seed has been planted that God will grow in His own time.
