This year on our third week of camp we opened it up to our 15 to 20 youth (another first this year). As these youth walked through the door for registration I looked at Rodolfo my assistant and said “this isn’t kid’s camp anymore”. They were the cool youth, the “mom made me come to camp” , the “I am here for the sports”, and the rough and tough youth. The first night went a little slow and very little emotion was shown on the mostly serious faces. The following day brought forth difficult sports competitions and challenging straight talk in the teaching time as well as small group.
The staff and I felt the resistance in the atmosphere, therefore the leaders and I joined for prayer as we knew something had to break with these youth, we needed soft hearts and healing to take place. The problems and lives that some of these youth live make anything we adults have dealt with seem minor. We needed to see sexual confusion broken, addictions of every kind broken, healings of the hearts and God’s presence to be made manifest. The last two nights we brought forth strong messages and the youth responded with joy, upraised hands, and eager desire for more. It seems like everybody wanted more of Jesus among these youth, earlier in the week considered so unreachable. Most wanted the Holy Spirit! Most wanted prayer! Most wanted clean hearts, more love and joy, more of His Presence. We are not ashamed of enthusiasm; evening meetings like this are to us a time for emotional release, a gift from heaven, Peruvian-style! And the Holy Spirit backs us up...
