Rothenberg odt

This weekend, August 15-17, Sandee and I will be taking seven students to Rothenberg, Germany for a discipleship camp called Beyond Club. We'll attend attend classes on evangelism, seminars on "Running the Race", a concert of prayer and some fun activities around Rothenberg. For those of you who have never been to Rothenberg, it's a beautiful walled city that has been fully restored to look as it did two hundred years ago. Please pray for our seven leadership students. Pray that God gives them wisdom this weekend to be a light in the dark of their friends lives.

Update: Rothenberg was great. It was a lot for some of our less "younger"Christian students, but I still think they gained a lot from it. One story that stands out is that of Anthony. The last night, after a "concert of prayer" event, we were all asked if anyone wanted to stand up and tell what God had done for them during the weekend.

A young volunteer leader stood up and shared for a bit, but what followed was silence. The long awkward type of silence that makes students scared to break. Suddenly, an unexpected thing happened. Anthony shot up out of his seat and started sharing that God had put it on his heart to share what Jesus had done with a good friend of his. This might not sound special to anyone reading this, but for those people who know Anthony, they know he doesn't do things like this.

Later on that night, I was in our room with Anthony and one of his friends talking about random stuff and he brought up the incident. "Yeah, what was that about" his friend said. "I know, that didn't seem very like you" I followed. "I don't know" Anthony said looking extremely confused and contemplative. "I was just sitting there telling myself there's no way I'm going to stand up and talk and then I suddenly felt like I needed to say what I said". "Really" I said intrigued. "Yeah, it was like if I had to say it or I would've thrown up and so I just stood up and started talking". He stopped for a second and then turned to me and said "was that the Holy Spirit"?

I told him it sure could have been and he seemed comforted and somewhat excited by that fact.

Sometimes, all we want to know is that God thinks we're special. For Anthony, I think felt that when God spoke through him that night.

Thank you all for praying for Anthony and all the rest of our teens. It was a really good experience for all of them, even if it made one of them feel like they might throw up.