There Shined A Shiny Shine Camp

I have never attended a traditional summer camp. Kanakuk is the popular escape for middle to high school aged children, but I just never went. Little did I know that instead of attending a Christian camp like that, I would help with one. Even less did I know that it would be in Taiwan.

During Shine, the summer camp I will be discussing, Mark Hendrickson put the focus on worship in worshiping in different ways. First we had music, singing songs to the King, then we had flags, banners calling God’s army to action daily, and then there was art. During worship time there were set up six canvases for students to paint a picture, for Jesus. Those are the pictures you will see throughout my post. I didn’t draw any of them, just in case you were wondering. There is one picture where it looks like Jesus is doing something most people frown upon, but I was assured that this was done in ignorance and that God gives the artist grace and the rest of us the enjoyment of the hilarity that everyone at the camp viewed it with.

The Hendrickson family was very influential this year, as they were last year, so I will take a moment to introduce them. They live in Kansas City, Missouri and are involved in a ministry closely affiliated with the International House of Prayer there. The father, Mark, spoke during all of the sessions, morning, afternoon, and evening, and the rest of the family led worship. Debby, the mother, sang on the worship team and spoke to the girls one afternoon when the genders were separated for some very specific talks.

The children are four. The eldest, Marcus Hendrickson, didn’t attend the camp this year, but was very influential last year leading worship and speaking at at least one of the evening sessions. Luke Hendrickson, next in line, plays keyboard and was mostly in charge of Shine’s music this year. John Hendrickson plays drums and plays them well, probably the most laid-back guy I’ve ever met. Lydia is the youngest. She sings and plays cello, will be going to school in California this year, and just released her first album. Quite the family.

Shine started out very quietly. On Monday, July 7, all of the leaders, the small group leaders, ventured to the campus for some orientation. The day was for everyone to come to understand the chain of command, to learn of the activities in which they and their group would be participating, and to become acquainted with one another as they delved into this massive undertaking of an event.

I didn’t have much to do. My position was to be on the worship team, playing my saxophone while we prophesied with the harp and liar, but since my pneumothorax I haven’t participated in any such endeavors. The hardest thing was to hear the song “You Are Good” by Israel Houghton played and listening to the part in which I soloed in last year become just another chord progression. I’m not sure exactly how I was supposed to consider these occasions all joy, but I did my best.

On Tuesday the kids arrived, lots of them. Churches came, a few vans here, a car there, maybe they got a bus if they were lucky, and then Living Water’s caravan came along consisting of four buses, two vans, and one little VW Polo with Uncle Matt at the wheel leading the procession. It was quite the sight. Never before had I seen so many people coming from one place for one event.

Tuesday was fun. The first afternoon worship was filled with ice breakers and jokes. I was charged with camera duty, I followed the action, and in turn didn’t create much myself. Later, however, I did take the stage. Mark Hendrickson was speaking (as he did for every session, morning, afternoon, and evening) and asked me to be in a little skit. He was going to narrate the story of the “Prodigal Son” where I was the son, and a big fella named Scott was the father. The focus of the story was on the father’s love for the son, but I did have a good time playing my role enjoying the high life and eating with pigs. All in a day’s work.

Also that night we introduced S4. Everyone was divided into four kingdoms and each kingdom had a mascot whom was chosen out of the heroes from the Old Testament. The green kingdom had David, the purple was led by Joshua, the orange kingdom featured Esther, and the blue kingdom was rallied by Daniel. On Wednesday and Thursday we would have one of their stories be the focus for every session. One in the morning and one at night.

The next day was well. One could tell that ice had been broken and groups were becoming more interpersonally friendly. The morning session was good, an inspiring story of Daniel from S4. Daniel was played by Jimmy, from Living Water. Definitely a highlight for the youth. The games were fun to watch. That afternoon kids were let loose to enjoy all sorts of activities. Just fun things to boost the energy in the atmosphere and to keep everybody active.

Wednesday night was an experience for me. During the “Prodigal Son” skit the spotlight guy hadn’t been so spot on with the spot light, so I was asked to man the thing. I did, but that meant giving my camera to somebody else during the evening session. I’ve heard it said that if you want something done right do it yourself, and that’s pretty true. The spotlight was right, but the footage was less than ideal. I now know why director’s attend every shoot. Nobody else can put together your plan the way you can.

The focus that evening was Esther from S4. The parallel here was that the Holy Spirit prepares us for our tasks, teaches us, just as Esther’s friend Alexander, played by my cousin Kristopher, taught Esther how to be a queen in a skit. Alexander wasn’t his name in the actual Esther story, but it’s much easier to translate than Hegai. There was a special spirit in the air that night. The altar call brought forward more than twice the number that came forward last year. My Aunt Elizabeth keeps saying, “The harvest is here, guys!” She certainly was right that night.

Thursday, the final day of the camp. Coming from last year I was had very high expectations for this day. The morning session was fun. The message had a focus on David, a mascot from S4. Next the day brought lunch, followed by game time again. The activities this time were more competitive and much more exciting than the previous day’s. The highlight was a four part relay where at every leg the contestant had to do some random thing (chug a can of pop, pick up seeds with chop sticks, eat candy, and get dizzy spinning on a baseball bat) before hopping on a little bike to give the next person the team sash. It was very entertaining.

In the sessions that day the focus was on testimonies. Mark Hendrickson brought up lots of people, he filled the stage with individuals ready to share how God had changed their lives that week. One girl said that Wednesday night she had a dream where Jesus came to her and said that if she would give her testimony He would be sitting in the front row. Quite miraculous stuff in my opinion.

One special person in this week was a blind boy named David. He had lost his sight because of some sort of illness, and desperately wanted it back, and we all desperately wanted him to have it back. Three times he was brought forward and prayed over to receive his full sight back, which, I’m sorry to say, didn’t happen, but he did report seeing which is some improvement. He was so honest and full of joy. His testimony was constantly interrupted with shouts and cheers of joy boiling over from within him. His demeanor is a testament in and of itself.

That night was another very special time. The focus was on Joshua, the final mascot from S4, and about hearing the voice of God. Worship was exceedingly ecstatic. I was on spotlight again, and the guy I replaced was my assistant: Ted. During one of the talks that evening he put his spotlight up on the ceiling out of the audience’s sight line as we had been told to do by the sound guys, but I looked at it and noticed that where he had positioned it formed a perfect cross out of the support structure in this open air gym.

I knew this was by accident. During worship he had been more into the music than focusing the audiences attention anywhere, so I told Ted to come to my angle and look at it and asked one of the photographers wandering the upper deck to get a picture of it, and did my best to recreate it the rest of the night when nothing on the stage needed lighting.

After a good message and the most enthusiastic worship experience I had ever seen it came time for the tunnel of light. All of the leaders line up in two parallel lines and all of the kids attending the camp go through to be prayed over as they go through. There were actually two tunnels, both coming from the outskirts of the gym and ending in the middle where Mark Hendrickson gave them their final blessing. I put my spotlight on the exits and took a break from this light business. I looked around to see if somebody was running around with my video camera, but I didn’t see it anywhere.

After worship I found out that the girl to whom it had originally been given had a bloody nose and gave the camera to somebody else who didn’t film the tunnel of light part. I was rather disappointed and a bit angry with her. Later, after talking with Debby Hendrickson, I heard that she didn’t randomly have a nosebleed,but had been hit in the face by some random person waiving a flag. She said that everyone agreed that it was warfare, that this girl was in charge of all of the artwork part of worship and the devil was taking her down for it.

I’m still wondering if it was because of the artwork or the camera. Nobody has any cinematographic evidence of this event. Mine was the only video camera present, and it got taken out. I was consoled with the fact that heaven has a record of it, even if we don’t. Yet, it still foiled all of my plans to make a day by day video when the most exciting part of the last evening was forsaken. In twenty years I’m sure I’ll look back and have a bit more understanding of why certain things went wrong, but right now I’m left to wonder in a horrifying mix of surprise and disappointment as to why these things happened.

Friday made up for it though. Everybody packed, had a good morning session, enjoyed the last small group time, took a bunch of pictures with the foreigners, I signed Luke Hendrickson’s CD, and we took a big picture. It’s hard to be angry when people are constantly walking up to you and asking to take a picture with you or requesting your autograph. I rode home that afternoon on one of the four big buses. Much sleeping occurred.

During the camp Kevin, a fellow in the army who attends Living Water, was sorely disappointed that he couldn’t go to the camp to help out. In his prayers, however, during the camp the Holy Spirit gave him a number: 300. This is exactly how many first time conversions we had at the camp. Along with this came 350 re dedications. That’s 650 people having a fresh and new encounter with Jesus Christ. God only knows the kind of influence schools around the city are going to have now.

Since Shine, it’s been back to the 222 Project. I have to make a correction. When I first introduced 222 I said it came out of 2 Tim. 2:22, but it actually comes out of 2 Tim. 2:2 which says:

2The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

222 has really picked up though. Before, everything seemed a bit unorganized and a little unenthused, but now people are really taking care of business. People are following up with the new believers from their small groups from Shine, we’ve got people who are going to be baptized, conversions are still happening, and we’ve begun planning some evangelism.

We’ve also been studying books more thoroughly. Currently, one of the main texts from which the people in 222 are inspiring themselves by is Blue Print by Jaeson Ma. After reading the book myself I have to say it sounds a lot like what my Uncle Phillip has been trying to do since college, and pretty nearly agrees with the vision my cousin Daniel is pursuing in creating disciples facilitated by house churches.

A few of the things that people don’t agree with from this book is where Jaeson says that we ought to baptize a new believer immediately, anywhere there is water, after they have made the decision. We had a little conversation about that in the Chen living room a few nights ago. Living Water takes all new believers through a course called “pre-A” before they’re baptized so that they know what they’re getting themselves into.

I’m leaning toward Jaeson’s side when we look at a few examples from the Bible. John the Baptist didn’t give those he baptized any formal training, Phillip baptized the eunuch immediately, and Paul baptized the jailer and his household fairly quickly. If the Bible is the unadulterated word of God, then baptism looks like a pretty spontaneous and innocent thing to me.

I’ve been given some disciples, by the way. There are four middle school boys who’ve been deemed in need of some direction, one of whom is my cousin. Nathanael, Benjamin, Peter, and Andy are my disciples for the next ten days. I only have so long to teach them one thing before I leave, so I’ve decided that the one thing I want them to know is how to hear from God by the Word for themselves. You can listen to a pastor tell you what he’s heard from the Lord your whole life and still not know His specific will for you.

Another topic of discussion lately is college. People hear that I’m finishing high school soon and they ask me where I’m going to go to school. I answer them how it is, “I’m not sure yet.” At Trinity Academy one ought to have all of this decided and set in stone going into their senior year. ACT and SAT scores recorded, submitted, and scholarships lined up, but I don’t have any of that. I’m thinking about Friends University, everyone here wants me to go to Tainan University on their international program, the Hendricksons suggested IHOP school of ministry, I’ve been told that the Insight Program my cousin Jacky went through is all stuff I’ve already heard before, my Mom wants me to go somewhere in Wisconsin (I think it’s Wisconsin), and the National Guard wants me to answer “the call”.

That’s what I’ll be up to for the next week. Deciding what I believe, what I want people to know, and what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, all before leaving for Thailand for an international missions conference held in one of the largest hotels in the world. I hear it has five pools, and one of them has a bar which you can swim up to. Sounds awesome!

~ by demo318 on July 19, 2008.