Jesus is Out Home: Now and Evermore

This is my seventeenth year working with youth at Mount Hermon. As the Director of Ponderosa Lodge, I can’t tell you how many times I hear “Oh, I could never work with teens” or “You are so brave to work with middle schoolers!” Just an occupational hazard, I guess. Sometimes I will engage in this topic and sometimes I just smile and nod. The truth is, I love working with youth. This is the calling on my life and consider it a gift to be able to have sown into it for so long.

Where else will I find such energy? What other population of people are at such a pivotal decision point in their lives? Where else will I be so privileged to be part of a team who gets to introduce so many hungry hearts to Jesus?

This summer is no exception. After countless hours of prep and set building and staff interviews and a little bit of panic about whether we’d ever be ready in time, the stage was literally and figuratively set for the summer. We welcomed 883 middle schoolers and high schoolers this summer at Ponderosa Lodge and I am telling you, this job is never boring!

This summer our theme was Jesus is our Home Now and Evermore. The good news of the Gospel tells how the Son of God left His home in heaven, in order to come to earth to pay the price for our sins so that we can live eternally at home with Him. His life and death was the cost of our homecoming. This theme is based on John 13-17 and our prayer is that students this summer will know what it looks like to abide and to make their home with Jesus now
and evermore.

Something that stood out to me this summer is the level of being “all in” that many of our campers have brought into the week. Campers are excited to be at camp! They’re embracing all that camp has for them: developing friendships and learning the importance of Christian community, going big at all of the activities and team competitions, and they’re not shying away from asking big questions about their faith.

With the theologically rich text in John 13-17, many of them have had a lot of questions about the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and learning more about God. I’ve also seen this be a huge strength of the Ponderosa summer staff team, and their readiness to meet students wherever they’re at, and leaning into their questions, conversations and growth.

After all these years, I still love standing in the back of the Forum watching as hundreds of young people worship God and take steps closer to Him…that will always move me to tears and remind me of why we do everything we do. Whether playing spike ball with students on the Forum lawn, holding the ropes for pool games as campers cheer and play in the pool, or in my neon costume at Dance Night, it is a gift each day to meet students where they’re at, to embrace the fun, and to share with them about Jesus and His love for them.

A friend of mine once told me that the best part of camp is what God does in this place, and students get to take this home with them. I remind students of this every Saturday during Closing Forum: that they get to take the best part of camp home with them! I encourage them to stay connected to God’s Word and His people. My hope and prayer for students throughout the year is that God sends His people to find them on their school campuses, sports teams, and friend groups; and that they stay connected to God and see Him actively pursuing them in their daily lives.

As we read in Matthew 17, the mountaintop moments in our lives are vital in helping us see and understand more of who Jesus is and to grow closer to Him. He’s there on the mountaintop and also He travels back down the mountain with us. My hope and prayer is that students will see Jesus walking with them back down the mountain when they leave camp, and that they continue to take steps growing closer to Him.

I love watching lives being changed each week and reading notes my staff and I get that say things like, “This week I learned that Jesus is our home.” I know lots of people are scared of middle school and high school students, but I cannot stop seeing them as God’s beloved children who desperately need to hear the hope of the Gospel: that there is a good God who sees them, knows them, and loves them evermore.