High School Summer Camp 2017

Greetings, friends and family!

We’re back home after a long but life-giving week at High School Summer Camp. This year we went to Cairn Brae, a Young Life property in Scotland, and it was amazing getting to share Young Life camping with our high school friends.

Here's a handful of our high school friends fresh off the 24+ hour bus ride to Scotland!

Amidst the fun and games, God moved in incredible ways throughout camp. We’d like to share a snapshot of this through the story of Hailey, one of the girls in Meagan’s cabin. 

Hailey was one of the first teens we met at Ramstein High School, way back in March. She had just come from soccer tryouts (which hadn’t gone well) and while waiting for her parents to pick her up, she decided to escape the rain and check out whatever was happening in the gym—which turned out to be our kickoff Dodgeball Tournament.

When we started showing up at school lunches, we always made a point to stop by and say hello to Hailey and her friends. At first it was pretty awkward (it always is) but after awhile, we got to know more of her friends and it became normal for us to show up at lunch once or twice a week. A few weeks later, we started weekly Clubs, and Hailey and her friends were always there. 

We were thrilled when Hailey signed up to come to Camp with us. Although we had worked to build relationships with Hailey and her friends over the past few months, it was still fairly surface level, and we didn’t know how deeply she was tracking with us or Jesus.

Over the first few days of camp, we learned that Hailey was familiar with Jesus, but not so much the Bible. She had a lot of questions that Meagan walked through with her one afternoon, like why humans sin, how Jesus came to exist, and the significance of the Holy Trinity. They talked through foundational passages from Scripture like Genesis 1-4 and the birth of Jesus—things that sometimes we take for granted that others know.

At camp, Hailey and her friends listened to the camp speaker during his talks and processed throughout the week as we discussed the person of Christ, our need for a Savior, the weight of sin, the significance of Jesus dying on the cross, the joy of His resurrection, and the idea of being “all in” with our relationship with God. By the end of the week, Hailey said she wanted to go “all in” and said YES to life with Jesus. 

Now that we’re back at home, we are so happy that we get to come back to the same community as Hailey so we can continue our friendship with her and walk through what it looks like to live life in relationship with Jesus together. As we were leaving camp, Hailey told us, “I think Club Beyond is changing my life.” 

Cairn Brae 

Not just the name of the Young Life property where camp was held. A "cairn" is a hiking term for a trail marker made of stacked stones, usually used in the mountains since it's easy to lose the trail above tree line. "Brae" is a Scottish term for a steep hillside. 

At the end of the week, all teens who chose to go "all in" with Jesus for the first time got to place a rock at a cairn on a steep hillside near camp, a symbolic marker on their life's path. Hailey was among those who added to the cairn on the brae.

Hailey is one of many teens whose lives were changed this week at camp by choosing to go all in with Jesus. We have countless more stories from camp, but we hope Hailey’s story provides a glimpse of God’s presence with these overseas military teens. Some of our high school friends are PCS-ing (moving) back to the US this week, just days after returning from camp, and some of Hailey’s friends might be moving next month but still don’t know if it’s for sure yet. With all of the unknowns that come with being a military kid, we’re celebrating that Young Life Military/Club Beyond has continued to fight to be present overseas to pursue military teens and share God’s love with them. 

To see more of our week at camp, check out the videos on the Club Beyond Vimeo page!

Please pray:

• For military teens and their families stationed around the world.
• For our base access cards to be processed by the Chapel promptly so we can continue to be present on base with teens (without having to ask anyone to sign us on. And, you know, to get to our mailbox and stuff).
• For our upcoming outreach events throughout the rest of the summer.
• For the Bible studies starting post-camp.
• For our spiritual, emotional, and physical health.