What love is this, that you gave your life for me?

God did something amazing this weekend. He showed us all that He has more in store for us than we think.

Things were not going as we originally planned. A huge thunderstorm slowed down the arrival of the girls, but that gave us more time to prepare for them. When the girls finally got there 2 hours later, we
checked them in and introduced ourselves to our group. We got them settled and had dinner soon after. The first service of the night was on the foundations we create and what we believe ourselves. There was a girl there, Tiffany, who spoke fluent English and translated for Lisa. We all wrote down the good and bad things we believed about ourselves. I noticed that the two girls next to me had a lot to say for both good and bad. I had an even amount for both, but what broke my heart was seeing how many more things they both had for their column of bad beliefs. Lisa taught us that all those bad beliefs were lies from the depths of hell, and we have to tell ourselves that every time we think something bad about ourselves. This first night was a learning experience, diving straight into the girls' hearts to find the pain they had kept closed up inside abandoned rooms of their "house."

The next day we had breakfast, service, stations, lunch, free time, dinner, and another service.

• Stations: we had 4 stations that we had the girls go to on a rotation in their groups. There was dance, physical fitness, baking, and crafts. Valerie taught each group a dance for different parts of the song "Healer" by Kari Jobe. Kristen and Rebekah led physical fitness, which was fun to watch all the girls doing jumping jacks and squats. Then at baking, Jess and Sarah helped the girls decorate cupcakes that we had made Thursday night. Anna and Rebekah provided materials for the girls at the crafts station to decorate a picture frame along the theme of "YO SOY," or "I am." There were words the girls could cut out to paste to the frame, and later that night we would have the girls dress up for dinner and pictures to print for the frames.
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• Service : Forgiveness. Kari Jobe has a song called "What Love is This," which is where the title of this blog comes from. Lisa used the song to tell the girls that God's love is enough for us, especially when we feel like it isn't. She had them write down on a card about someone they needed to forgive or something they needed to let go. Then we took them outside and they tied their cards to balloons that had lights in them. When they let the balloons go, it was to represent forgiveness, because you're set free from the bondage unforgiveness brings. 
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The last morning we had with the girls, a woman shared her testimony in the last service. Coming from a Guatemalan woman, it was comforting to hear how God completely turned her life around after having a miserable childhood. After praying for and thanking the team, we had our last meal with the girls. Bonding with them was a little hard that weekend because of the language barrier, but somehow we managed by the last day to make friends and connections.

All the work we put into this girls camp paid off, and all the glory goes to God for making it all possible.

Written by Michaela Bate