Summer is the highlight of a high school student’s year. Their summers are full of special moments with friends and family at the beach, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. Or at the ballpark watching America’s favorite past time. But there is an event on Friday night at Lake Ann Camp that tops them all. Its where tears fall and hearts pound. Where hundreds of teenagers surrender their lives and hearts to Christ to do whatever He would ask of them. This decision stems from the hours spent by a counselor pouring out his heart. Hours of listening, screaming, cheering, asking, loving and encouraging, giving young teenagers the hope attained through Christ alone. And this decision comes at an event called Glory Bowl, which wraps up a week of Senior High Camp at Lake Ann.
The Friday night Glory Bowl fire!
Senior High campers will make countless memories
They will scream at the top of their lungs, cheer at Fight Night as if their very existence depends upon it. Campers will work with their cabin on the Challenge Course and learn to work on being a team member and a unit to accomplish their tasks and goals. Our Senior Highers will spend time in chapel, where the worship team will bring them before the throne of God, and they will sing with all their hearts with the very focus on making God’s name famous. Then, they will listen to messages that will challenge them in their walks with Christ. Undeniably, one of the most memorable times during Senior High is listening to Ken Rudolph preach. He is a man who preaches from his heart, exposes the truth, and inspires his listeners to change.
What makes it all worth the effort?
All this time collected together will involve much sacrifice and great reward. There will be sweat, tears, and hours of exhaustion. What makes it all worth the effort? That moment at Glory Bowl:. the moment where counselors stand waiting in prayer, begging for God to change a young soul’s heart. They close their eyes and might even shed a tear. They put their heads down and in one final plea to the living God they ask, “Touch this heart.” Then, in the one special moment when all hope seemed lost, the camper stands to his feet, and begins to walk to the front of the crowd; he speaks of how, just hours before in chapel, he bowed before the cross and offered his life before the altar and cried out to God, “Here I am, Lord send me.”
The sacrifice becomes a distant memory and everything changes. The sweat, tears, and hours of exhaustion become a minimal price for the reward at hand because in the moment a teen surrenders his heart, the counselor truly believes he will see his camper again in glory, in heaven with Jesus. The counselor knows when he sees his campers face again, smiling, the privilege of the sacrifice was worth it. Not only for the special moment during a week of Senior High camp at Lake Ann, but for the ultimate moment when Christ says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”