Well, training camp wrapped up last night. The Kenya team just left for the airport and the Swaziland team is getting ready to leave to hang out at our apartment before they leave for the airport later tonight. Throughout the last 5 days God has done some wonderful things in the lives of the students, leaders, and even the AIM staff.
Our theme for the training camp was based on the Henri Nouwen book “The Life of the Beloved.” On Friday we focused on our identity in Christ, that we are His beloved, and that we are adopted or chosen. Identity is such huge topic for this generation of students. God really spoke to the hearts of the students and I believe some have begun the process of discovering who they truly are in Christ.
The theme on Saturday morning and afternoon built on identity and being the beloved of Christ and moved towards surrender and brokenness. This tends to be messiest day of training camp as students surrender their hurts, habits, and hang ups of both their past and present. In the midst of the tears and pain it was beautiful to see God work his redeeming love in the lives of the students. Saturday night focused on just being loved by God the Father.
On Sunday we continued to building on previous days and looked at how God takes our brokenness and turns it into a blessing. Again, through God’s redeeming love he takes our brokenness and pain and turns it into a blessing in both our lives and the lives of those we encounter and minister to. As a bit of a side note, this was my favorite session and served as a wonderful reminder to both Heather and I how God uses our individual stories and our story together to help and bless others.
As we wrapped up things on Monday worked through the idea of being given and sent to love a dark and hurting world. Monday night also included our commissioingn service of the 29 students and leaders that are going to Kenya and Swaziland. Again, it was a wonderful picture of a redeeming God and his love for the nations.
I was the worship leader throughout camp and we experienced some sweet times with the Lord. My current favorite worship song is “My Brightness” by Charlie Hall. The central line of the song is “Your love is like a rock when I’m spinning.” On Saturday the youth band Heather and I work helped lead in worship and Heather sang with me as well. We also helped facilitated team builders, did all the shopping for the cooking team, prayed with and helped students process what God is doing in their lives, and were generally just around to help in any way that we could.
So now that training camp has passed, the major task on the horizon for us is recruiting new leaders for all of our summer trips. We also have a new leader training in April that we are gearing up for. We invite you to join with us in prayer that God will lead the right leaders and students to AIM for out next season of ministry. We also invite you to pray for the Real Life College teams that left today who will be ministering in Kenya and Swaziland or the next 3 months.
Blessings,
Chad, Heather, and Maeby
