Bottles - Monday, July 25th

01010000 01101000 01101001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01010010 01100001 01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110110 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110100 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100111 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100001 ! Today started out in the funniest way. Rachel and Phil asked all the counselors to stand on the Dining Hall tables and try and drop a pencil into a water bottle on the ground that was weighted down with sand. We had a tournament at breakfast to determine which counselor was the best at it, and Kate Zabrowski, the counselor of cabin 9, was the victor! As a result, during campfire, her cabin was allowed to make a list of wishes they wanted granted that the Bottle Genies had to grant! At the end of campfire they received crowns, a car, a celebrity (Pastor Tom!), a stuffed puppy, and 12 Dilly Bars from Dairy Queen! It was pretty fun.

Today's passage comes from I Timothy 4:12:

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

The children that we are fortunate enough to have here this week are pretty young; Pee Wee camp consists of K-2nd graders and Sonshine 4 is for 3-5th graders. The oldest children here are 11 or 12 - but just because they are fairly young doesn't mean their faith is immature. By no means! As humans we certainly are not given authority to judge people's hearts, but we can see fruits of faith that people carry out in their lives. These children are living their faith this week, and it is evident as well as encouraging. Even though I'm just a mere robot (and not all that old myself,) I sometimes wonder why we all don't try to be more like the "young" children here this week. Too often the older we get, the more we realize the earth is sinful, we fall prey to "logical" worldly rationalizations for certain matters that children understand to be black-and-white, and the purity of our beliefs become clouded. Children are capable of many things, and they are definitely able to be an example for older people, showing them how to love purely, believe sincerely, and trust totally. Jesus appreciates childlike faith and He surely loves "ignorant" children as much as He loves confused adults, ("Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."' - Matthew 19:4). Don't discount children - learn from their faith!

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