[0:00] We welcome you to the media ministry of Bethel Community Church. Knowing Jesus, making Jesus known. My name is Noah. I grew up here coming to Bethel and everything.
[0:14] That's my wife Lacey back there. Yeah. I think it's on and everything. Cool. Got it. That's my wife Lacey back there.
[0:25] And we have been for the past three, four years now working at Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp. Kind of seems crazy to say that it's been three to four years that we've been there.
[0:37] The whole process took about five years to actually get there. So, it's kind of crazy. Anyway, I'm just going to open up in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just come before you and we just pray for this day, this time of learning.
[0:51] And just to update, Lord, just may it be an encouragement and just a blessing to everybody here. And Lord, just as I'm speaking, may it all come from you, not from me, Lord. May it just all come from you.
[1:03] And we lift up these things in your name. Amen. So, I was asked to give a little message and an update later. So, the running theme for camp this year is faithfulness of God.
[1:22] And so, I'm going to be speaking on faithfulness. So that if you come to camp and you hear another message about faithfulness, you won't be tired of me. You'll be tired of that guy. And he's like, oh, I'm hearing of faithfulness again.
[1:33] But in reality, I hope that you don't ever get tired of hearing about the Lord's faithfulness. We had our 50th reunion not too long ago. And it was really cool. I'm part of what they would call the new generation of camp.
[1:45] It was really cool to see the older generations, the OGs, the ones that were there from the beginning. I finally met Ross Raglan. I'd never met him before. And as he was speaking, he was also speaking about God's faithfulness.
[1:59] But in that, he said that God will see it through. And so, I thought that would be what I base my message off of today. And so, God will see it through.
[2:10] First of all, God has a plan. And I want to look at Joseph's life. So if you want to turn to Genesis chapter 39, I'm going to kind of pick out a middle part of Joseph's life.
[2:21] He's already been sold by his brothers. And he is now in Potiphar's house. Potiphar's house has been made successful. And now we're getting to the point that we know that Potiphar's wife tempts Joseph.
[2:34] And so, starting in Genesis 39, verse 11, and said, But it happened about this time when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house were inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me.
[2:50] And he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside. And so it was that when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, See, he has brought into us a Hebrew to mock us.
[3:08] And he came in to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it happened that when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me and fled and went outside.
[3:22] And then if you jump down, it's verse 20. It says, Then Joseph's master took him and put him into prison and placed him where the king's prisoners were confined.
[3:33] And there he was imprisoned. So what does this have to do with God's plan? Well, we obviously know the story and how it kind of plays out. We see that Joseph was in this good situation.
[3:46] There was a sin or somebody that came along, and it arose, and it seemed that it was going to be bleak. And the reason why I chose this middle section of Joseph's life is because he's already been through a lot.
[3:57] He's already been through a hard time. Yet he continued to choose to stay in God's plan. He continued to follow God through it. But, you know, after you get worn down a lot, after trial, after trial, after hardship, after hardship comes, it's a little bit more tempting and a little bit easier to say, I'm going to do my own thing and I'm going to figure this out on my own.
[4:17] But that's not what we see in Joseph's life. And as we continue to read in the story, we see that it's even better than what Joseph could have imagined. You know, if we think about Joseph, if he would have just, you know, maybe lied with Potiphar's wife, and that was the one-time deal and nothing ever happened, all he would have been in charge of was Potiphar's household.
[4:36] He wouldn't have been the Pharaoh's right-hand man. He wouldn't have been able to bring his family in and help them in the famine. But no, Joseph continued to look to God and to seek him out.
[4:49] So that was God's plan for Joseph. Though it wasn't what we would have maybe chose for Joseph, maybe it's not the way that we would have put Joseph in charge, it was God's plan and it worked out perfectly.
[5:02] And that's my next point, is God will execute his plan flawlessly. It may not be what we would see as flawless in our eyes, but in his eyes it is flawless. And if you want to turn to Matthew chapter 27, verses 45 through 53, common passage, it says, starting in Matthew 27, verse 45, it says, Now the sixth hour came until the ninth hour, and there was darkness over the land.
[5:32] And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabakanai. And that's the only Hebrew that I can speak. That is to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[5:46] Some of those who stood there heard that and said that he is calling to Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it in the sour wine and put it in our reed and offered it to him to drink.
[5:59] The rest said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah comes to save him. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and yield up his spirit. So that's it. That's God's plan coming to completion right there.
[6:14] And later on we see the resurrection taking place. Again, this is not the way that I would have necessarily considered to save the world, to sacrifice my one and only son, my one and only perfect son.
[6:26] Yet this is how God saw to do it. It's the only way that it could have been done. Most of the things in my life I wouldn't do the same way twice. I look back on them and I say, I probably would have done that differently.
[6:40] God doesn't have to say that. God doesn't have to say, I wish I would have done things differently. He says, you know, I've got a plan. I'm going to stick to it and I promise you that I will stick to it.
[6:51] If we are following the Lord, the results of our life will be absolutely perfect. Most of you know the story of my life and the hardships that we've gone through. I wouldn't change anything for the world because it definitely has made me the man that I am today.
[7:06] Though it hurt, though it stunk at times, the Lord definitely used it. In James 1, verses 2 through 4, it says, Count it all joy, my brothers, that when you meet various trials of any kind, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and the steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
[7:31] And I definitely think that the Lord is continuing to work on all of us, that we may not lack anything. And how glorious will it be that we can get to heaven and see the Lord, and we won't be lacking anything.
[7:43] He will be like, you're perfect the way that I made you and the way that you are, and I love you. So my next point about God seeing his plans through is that we can have confidence that the Lord will complete his plan.
[7:57] Whether it's in our own life, whether it's in his plan, or whatever it is, we can have confidence in that. Christ is coming back, and I can say that with absolute 100% certainty, without a doubt in my mind.
[8:11] In Revelation 22, 12 through 13, it says, Behold, I am coming soon, bringing recompense with me to repay everyone what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, and the Beginning and the End.
[8:25] So, the Lord says right here, he is coming back. And we can see throughout all of Scripture that there's nothing to believe him of the contrary. He's going to do what he says he's going to do.
[8:36] His plan will be made complete. We're just part of the plan. His plan is not quite complete yet. There's definitely been different stages of God's plan, creation, bringing his son, resurrection, and then redemption when we are up with him in heaven.
[8:50] But he says that he is coming back, and we can take confidence in that. So, like I said, we can take confidence in anything. So, whether it's pains in life, whether it's the joy that is to be made complete in us, or camp projects, or home projects, the Lord will see it through if you are actively seeking him and following him.
[9:14] And that's not to say that we can't ourselves get in the way of what God has for us. The Lord is going to use us no matter what, and he's going to use us for our plan. We determine how much joy and what the outcome is of our own lives in that.
[9:31] It says that your joy will be made complete in the Lord and everything. We obviously can get in the way. We can fall away in sin and everything like that. However, we know of many instances where God used people that weren't following him to complete his plan.
[9:45] So, I take confidence in that, knowing that I can mess it up, but the Lord's plan is still going to be executed flawlessly. So, what, and then I go on to the next being about talking about faithfulness.
[9:58] What are some specific things that Christ has told us that he is faithful in? We know that he is going to be faithful in his plan. And I just explained that, and I can definitely see that he's been faithful in my life.
[10:10] But when we first started talking about this at camp, that the theme was going to be faithfulness, my first question is like, well, I've heard a lot of people say that the Lord is faithful. But what does it say specifically in the scripture that God is faithful?
[10:24] Is he faithful about everything? Is he faithful about a few things? Is he faithful about nothing? I know that sounds weird, but that's the question that ran through my mind and what started my study about faithfulness. I don't want to start with the greatest of all.
[10:36] I guess what most people would put at the end of their message. But in 2 Timothy 2.13, it says, If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot disown himself.
[10:48] It's glad to know that in everything he will remain faithful. If we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts, if we have accepted the Lord as our Savior, if we believe that he is the only way that we can get to heaven, that we are sinners, that we need a Savior, we have the Holy Spirit in us.
[11:05] And that means that we have a part of God in us because of the three in one. And he cannot disown himself. So no matter what we do, the Lord will always remain faithful to us in any aspect of our lives.
[11:20] He will remain faithful in his promises and his love and all of that. So that's the greatest news that I found. Obviously, the first thing I looked at, this is what popped up, is that he is faithful in all things.
[11:32] But I kept diving a little deeper into what specifically does it say that the Lord is faithful in. And I'm going to try to correlate this with, you know, what has gone on at camp and what I see in Scripture and everything.
[11:45] So one of the first things that I saw was that the Lord is faithful in times of temptation. It says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, No temptation has overtaken you what is common to mankind.
[11:57] And God is faithful that he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can endure it. So we saw that in Joseph's life.
[12:08] There was a temptation, a very easy thing that he could have just done. And the Lord provided him a way out. Now that way out was him running away and then getting thrown in prison. But as we saw with God's plan, it came better than what he could have ever expected.
[12:24] And I think the thing that we do with temptation is that we put a value on sin. And so we see different severities of temptation. But in reality, all sin is equal to the Lord.
[12:38] And so therefore, committing murder is just as bad as lying. Well, that means that the Lord is going to give you the same amount of dedication to give you a way out of a temptation of lying as he would to murdering somebody.
[12:50] And I think that's very nice to know that he's not just putting off the little, what we call little sins on the back burner. No, he's putting just as much time and dedication to helping you overcome those as he is what we would consider the big sins.
[13:03] And like that. Another thing that the Lord is faithful in, that it says specifically in Scripture, is faithful in forgiveness. It says in 1 John 1, 9, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us of all unrighteousness.
[13:21] And, I mean, that's what we come here for. We come here to serve him and we come here to glorify him that he has saved us from our sins. And he is faithful to forgive us of all sins.
[13:32] Again, not just those little sins or big sins. Any sin that we have, he is faithful to forgive. And, again, that value that we put on sin, he doesn't just forgive a little bit the lying sin and forgive a lot the murder sin.
[13:48] It's the same amount of forgiveness. And that's really hard to grasp and to put into words in your mind and everything. Because in our mind, it's like, well, that doesn't seem fair.
[14:00] That doesn't seem right. Well, it is. That's because the Lord views it as all equal. The Lord is faithful in giving us strength. As we read, the Lord gave strength to the Lord to endure the cross.
[14:15] I don't think Christ was necessarily worried so much about the physical pain. He knew that was temporary. But the wrath of his God, of his Father, being poured out upon him, I think that's what he was nervous about.
[14:27] But we see in the Scripture that the Lord gave him strength. He went away to pray. And after he was done praying, he came back and he was ready to go to the cross. So the Lord is faithful in giving us strength as well.
[14:39] In 2 Thessalonians 3, it says, But the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. When I got to this point of what the Lord said, you know, he will give us strength.
[14:53] He is faithful in giving us strength. I started thinking of what things on this earth are more powerful than the devil. Well, the answer is nothing, but I came up with a list of, you know, things that we would view as powerful.
[15:04] You know, earthquakes, tornadoes, the magnetic force, you know, science, like, you know, all those chemical reactions. Those things can be powerful. Explosions. Yet, it's not as powerful as the devil, as the evil one.
[15:18] And the Lord gives us strength to overcome him. So what obstacle stands in our way on this earth that the Lord can't give us strength to overcome? And something that I have kind of learned is that we have that strength right now.
[15:32] It's not when we pray for extra strength or anything like that. We have the Holy Spirit. We have that strength. It's us realizing that we do have that strength and that power. And he is faithful to give it all the time.
[15:43] The Lord's not going to take a day off and say, oh, I'm really tired today. You guys can do what you want. He's always going to be there to help us out, to listen to our prayers, to have that strength available to us.
[15:56] And again, what I said earlier, he is faithful in his promises. And if I were to read all the scripture where it says that the Lord is faithful in his promises, I would take up the rest of our time.
[16:10] And you can read the scripture. I encourage you to read all of the scripture and just see how faithful he is in the promises he has to us. So what does this all have to do with camp?
[16:21] How can I relate this to camp and everything? Well, the Lord has a plan for camp. The Lord has been seeing that plan through and he has been faithful through all these things. The camp started about 50 years ago.
[16:34] That's crazy to think about. If you look at the business statistics of like what a business, of how it would survive in the first year, five years, 10 years, it goes up every year.
[16:45] However, in the first year, like 90% of businesses fail. And then in the next five years, about, I think it was about 20, 25% of businesses fail.
[16:57] And then obviously that percentage just goes down the longer that they are in business. But that doesn't mean that they're not susceptible to being shut down. We've seen that with COVID and everything. A lot of businesses that had been running for years shut down because they just couldn't meet that.
[17:11] The Lord protected us through all of those things. Throughout the 50 years, protected us from injury, from being sued, from COVID and all of that. So the Lord has a plan and he is faithful in it.
[17:24] He is faithful to keep his promises. The Lord asks us to keep him to his promises. He has been faithful to provide for us. He says that, bring your request to me and I will provide for you.
[17:35] He also says, aren't you more precious than the sparrows? I will provide for you. The Lord is faithful in that promise to us. He has provided for the people at camp and he's provided for the camp itself, whether that's materials or finances to do something, to pay a bill.
[17:51] The Lord has been faithful in forgiveness. Obviously, we see many kids come through camp and it is so exciting to see that kid turn from death into life.
[18:04] And he is faithful to forgive that kid's sin, no matter what they've done. You know, we hear of all these bad things that happen, but when you sit down with a kid and they start reciting all of the horrible things that they've seen or maybe even some of the things that they've done and you just can't imagine like what puts you in that situation, yet the Lord is faithful to forgive all of that.
[18:26] The Lord is faithful in temptations. Learning about the history, there are many times that the board or one of the individuals at camp could have been tempted to do something out, do something else, take a loan out, do something like that.
[18:40] Or, you know, even in our own lives, we've been tempted to do sin. But the Lord has been faithful to camp to provide a way out or to have us realize that that is not the way that we should be going.
[18:52] So the Lord has definitely been faithful in all these years. And if you want to pull up the slide, I'll kind of transition to kind of giving you guys an update about what we've been doing at camp.
[19:03] So like I said, this has been, this is the 50th year. The date, the year is kind of debatable. You know, we have a lot of records that say the first camp started many different times.
[19:14] So we're just going to call this the 50th year. But yeah, it's the 50th year and I'm very blessed to be a part of it. So we have a lot of resident staff if you want to go ahead and click to the next one.
[19:29] So as some of you know, we have had a couple of losses this year, one being Sonny Williams, who is home with the Lord. A little jealous of him, but I know he's up there singing praises and having a great time.
[19:42] That was Debbie's husband, who is still one of the full-time staff there. And she's still working there. Another family that left this year is the Rennis family. Some of you may know them.
[19:53] They have moved on. They are living in Iowa now. Matt is working in construction. Some people were kind of confused on why they left and let me rest assured that there was nothing, no sin involved or anything like that.
[20:05] They felt the Lord had had them move on to a different type of ministry. And they are doing great and we love them still and excited to see where the Lord takes them in their ministry that they're doing now.
[20:17] Other than that, some of you know Jim Fitzgerald. He's my boss and sometimes he's a lot to deal with, but he's a really fun guy and we love him as the director. We have Jimmy and Ashley with their four boys, Toby, Ivan, Milo, and Zeke.
[20:34] They're growing up. Toby's almost taller than me. I think he's right about there. He'll probably pass me this summer. We have Steve and Karen, the next couple over. They have been there since the beginning.
[20:45] They have been there for the 50 years that camp has been around. We have Debbie who I had mentioned earlier, Jeremy and Bree who were brought on the same time as myself, Lacey, and Fitz.
[20:57] We have Rodney and Pam who have been there for I think seven years now. And then of course Lacey and I. As far as all of us, we're doing pretty good.
[21:08] We're all really busy with the projects. So if you want to go to the next slide. So this year, the board felt it that the Lord was leading them to remodel Cedar Lodge.
[21:20] So Cedar Lodge is the cabin where we keep all of the boys for the summer. It has 11 cabins in it and we completely gutted it. The only thing that was left was the exterior walls and let me tell you there was a lot to tear down.
[21:35] We had a lot of people come throughout this year and it was such a blessing. Some of you guys came down and helped us and let me tell you we cannot thank you enough. Now I was okay at carpentry.
[21:47] I knew how to use a saw. I knew how to read a tape measure. But let me tell you it tested me a lot doing this project. There was a lot of different things that I had to do and since I'm the small guy they had me crawl into a lot of the small spaces at one point.
[22:01] So where the roof is or the ceiling is and then the roof comes down there's that angle there's a pitch and I had to crawl in between that pitch and I couldn't really move my head up and down because I had to fish wires for all of the cabins so to make sure that you guys have enough power for your hair dryers and blow dryers and fans and all of that stuff and yeah I took a nap there one time because I was waiting on somebody to hand me wire but yeah so there was a lot of different things.
[22:28] So to outside people it may not seem as a big job people who work construction can see that's a big job so to put it in perspective if you're remodeling a bathroom and you have to redo one outlet it takes you ten minutes.
[22:42] Well in Cedar you have 150 outlets so that ten minutes turns into five hours of redoing outlets and not only that you have all of the sheeting that has to be done you have all of the wire that has to be run all of the plumbing and again God is faithful in keeping to his word we prayed and felt that the Lord led us to redo Cedar and the Lord provided for it.
[23:05] When we started this project we didn't have anywhere near the amount of money I think we had less than half of the money to do this project and we have not met our budget yet and we have not had to dip into any other emergency savings and or take money from camp kids who have registered already so when the camp's kids register they pay and we don't actually use that money until the camp actually starts because in case something happens where we have to refund or something like that which was a worry during COVID but we haven't had to dip into any of that the Lord has provided financially and materials when we did the plumbing I don't know if some of you know the Bradshaws they own a plumbing business it's called blue duck plumbing and they have a big blue duck on their van it was kind of funny to see it come down the camp road I had no idea what it was but they provided about 90% of all the plumbing materials for it which was a lot you know you have I don't know how many toilets in there how many showers in there it's a lot of plumbing and they provided for it so yeah the Lord has been very faithful in that there's obviously been other various little projects but if I'm being honest this is taking up 90% of our time
[24:18] I don't really know of any other projects I can't remember of any other projects that we've been doing besides Cedar Lodge here if you want to go ahead and go to the next slide so not necessarily camp huge related but the church that kind of is the commending church of camp they started up in Awana which was really fun I'm actually not a dedicated worker to it I will help it out every now and then because I have a lot of stuff to do at camp but Lacey is Lacey is a cubby or cubby leader no I can't remember what it is Sparks leader there but we were a little worried at the beginning when we started this there wasn't a lot of kids that came but the Lord again was faithful the chapel and everybody at camp had prayed about it and we felt that the Lord had us move through with it and I don't know if it was about a month in or so a lot more kids came in a lot of different families a lot of kids that we have never seen before either come to camp or come to the church it's been really fun seeing that
[25:19] Bree and Jeremy are actually in charge of that so it's also been cool to see them grow in their leadership capabilities in leading this so if you want to go ahead and go to the next slide so another thing which is my main purpose at camp besides what Cedar Lodge has been doing is to work with the horses the horses are doing good we currently have 52 head of horses we just had two new baby stud colts born this past week literally yesterday I think one was born or the day before that so fresh little baby but they're really cute and yeah so we have 52 head of horses and we're looking forward to what we have is ranch hand programs and we do trail rides for the campers there and we're looking forward to that we have many different directors coming something kind of new we're doing it used to be in the past that Lacey would direct every single week but this year we have felt that we want to bring in other people to kind of direct the weeks not only to give them a chance to lead but also to show them like this is a ministry that you can do and you can start you can be a leader in a ministry it also does help lessen the burden on Lacey a lot too which is great and again this summer we're looking at breaking a few horses
[26:34] I know in the next two years we have about seven horses that we have to break so you could be that's a big prayer request when we're working with these horses it obviously safety is a huge thing so just prayer for safety for Jimmy and I and whoever else is riding these animals and everything it is a huge attractant to the camp it's like one of the things that Turkey Hill is known for so we definitely want to keep it going and everything but yeah if you want to go to the next slide so yeah 50 years so camp started out with just train cars and I don't know how many times I've heard and how many stories I've heard about these train cars coming down it was a crazy big ordeal and everything if you've ever been to camp it's a gravel road I won't say it's the nicest gravel road but it's a good gravel road and it's about five miles long and it's got some twists and turns in there I've made it down in my little truck in under five minutes but don't tell anybody that don't worry I tried to be as safe as possible but the first time that they ever visited camp they had to cross like dirt paths and it was all overgrown basically from what
[27:46] I understand it was kind of like they were said here's where you start it's somewhere in the woods just start walking that way and you'll find it and so they had to bring train cars down those kind of roads and yeah so since then we've built a lot of buildings and we no longer have the train cars something interesting is that all of the buildings except for the gym that you see I believe were built in the first 16 years of camp I think that's about right and the gym was built in 2000 and that's crazy to think about so a lot of those buildings are 30, 40 years old and which is why we are remodeling cedar and everything but again just to think about the Lord's faithfulness in that 16 years to build you know 10, 12 different facilities and not just like little facilities like little shops we're talking two, three full cabin buildings one full dining hall and industrial kitchen a 52 stable barn with an arena inside a storage building and all of that stuff within those years is crazy to think about the Lord providing and just kind of another little faithful story
[29:03] I actually mentioned this I think the last time I gave a report we built this building that we called a Joseph building because we used everything that we had and so like the sheet metal colors don't all match so it's got green red, white, black and all that other stuff but it's a storage building so we don't necessarily care but the Lord provided all of those things and we only had to spend I believe $200 to build a building that would normally cost you like $20,000 to build and like that's a cool faithful story of the Lord providing these materials and giving people the good stewardship that they have to keep materials around because Fitz is the kind of guy and I'm kind of this way too if like we're not going to use it again let's just throw it away or this little two foot two by four just throw it away we're not going to use it again but the Lord is faithful and has given Steve a very much a mindset to look at these materials and say hey we can use this down the road I can't tell you how much we have used up doing cedar doing random little things we have pretty much completely wiped out our wood storage and everything like that
[30:05] I'm using all these little scraps for everything and there's just things that we've had for years and years and years that have never been used and we're like we can't see a purpose for it and then we find a purpose for it at cedar a lot of those things you won't see but they are there just like all of my names that I've written all around cedar that was all hidden behind the wall so in you know the next 50 years when they remodel it again they'll see that Noah was here so if you want to go ahead and go to the next slide so that's kind of an update on on camp and how it's going we're excited for the summer we are at last time Fitz said we are at 93 percent capacity so we have been filling up more and more and earlier and earlier for the past four years it's been incredible so again the Lord has provided us all of these things cedar is going to be cutting it close to camp starting but the Lord has provided the Lord hasn't hindered us he's provided these kids to come so we can have faith and confidence that he will get cedar done whether that means I have to work till midnight or not well I know that the
[31:09] Lord will get it done so just some life updates for us and I'm going to go ahead and start with this one because it's a little bit hard but a while ago I asked for you guys to pray for my dad specifically my dad has stage four prostate cancer that spread to his liver and lymph nodes and for those of you who don't know the relationship with my dad is not good a lot of heartache a lot of struggle he's not living for the Lord and all of that with that I did get during this time the Lord had taught me a lot you know I had come to a point where it was I may not have a relationship with my dad until he's on his deathbed now in my human mind I said oh I've got years before that happens he'll be like 90 80 years old and the Lord said no I'm going to keep you to your promise and it's going to happen when you're 26 and so my Lord or my dad is most likely going to to die in the next couple of years there is obviously that small chance that this could be remissed and everything but it's unlikely with that you know the Lord kept me to my promise and everything that I said I would give effort if this happens if my dad wants to show effort so I contacted my dad first and I you know gave him that talk again I talked to him about it and we talked for a little bit and left on what a fairly good note and then a few weeks later my step brother calls me and asks if I can help him remodel my dad's house and obviously that's an uncomfortable situation I didn't necessarily want to be there I prayed about it and felt that I really needed to go and do this and when I went there obviously I was scared I was nervous but I saw my dad and it wasn't a good sign like he was really run down more so than any other time that I've seen him and it was a little difficult to see him like that and to think that this is the time that I have to you know work on a relationship you know when my dad is passing away so with that I've been talking with my dad a little bit I wouldn't say in my prayer requests
[33:26] I asked for him to if you guys could pray for his spiritual walk and his spiritual life more than his physical healing and the reason is is because I want him to get right with the Lord before this before this takes him but if I mean if he gets healed if he physically gets healed that would be wonderful that would be great but my priority is that I want my dad to get right with the Lord first so obviously yes pray for his health that this is would be as painless as possible but if you could just be praying for his spiritual walk and that he would you know turn to the Lord and turn to a lot of other things I think that he struggles a lot with forgiving himself and asking for forgiveness and so like that's the huge thing that kind of I I see a common theme in his life is he doesn't know how to ask for forgiveness because whenever this happens and this time is not really any different yet he's just said well we have a fresh slate let's just start new and he doesn't address anything else beyond that so yes that's the big big life update I did get a text message that says that some of the tumors seem like they're shrinking so that is good but yeah if you could be praying for that on lighter notes so Lacey and
[34:44] I are doing good the Lord has been teaching us and showing us and growing us through our marriage and everything something that's been Teddy kind of mentioned it something that I've been struggling with is that is sitting still staying in one place so if you guys could be praying for me on that I have been praying and Lacey and I have been praying and we feel that the Lord has us stay at camp but my fleshly desire I guess is to seek the next best thing and as I said before my life has been a lot of turmoil and a lot of moving around in different places and as I told Teddy this is the longest I've lived in one place ever in my life and so it's really weird I want to be looking for the next thing you know I went from high school to Turkey Hill to college to you know internships back to college you know and all that stuff and so it's been a little bit difficult for me to to stay in one place but I definitely believe the Lord still has us at camp and we have definitely seen the benefit not only in our lives that the Lord has shown us but other people's lives being able to bless them through camp another update is my business some of you know that I own a little leather business I call it little I wouldn't describe it that way anymore and it's been crazy so I started this business back in 2019 and in 2019 I had 10 orders total throughout the whole year and that was like great cool it helps us pay a little bit of bills it's a fun little hobby that I can do it is great in 2020 I did 588 orders in 2021 I did 2559 orders this year to date I've done 998 orders all time I've done over 5000 sales in 4000 orders if you would have told me that making these little leather roses and selling them would be able to support me and my wife and be able to pay bills and all that stuff I would have called you crazy but the
[36:45] Lord has been faithful in this business and has allowed this business to thrive and I want him I want it to all be used for the gospel so when Paul talks about tent making he actually made tents and he sold them and his whole reason on doing that was to not hinder the gospel and that's what I want this business to be and I've definitely seen that the Lord has definitely taken it and allowed me to do a lot of different things with it whether that's paying for extra bills or something that comes up I have the business money to do that it's been great I've been able to actually offer some jobs to some staffers and kids that are you know just going through a transition period in their life and they are moving from one place to the next I have a young lady named Ashton working for me right now and she has a lot of stuff going on in her life and she's going to be helping this summer and so it was like a two-month period and she couldn't find a job and I was like well I'll I have stuff for you to do at my shop and I can help you in that way not only that it's been able to allow us to give more to a lot of different things be able to take people out to dinner and you know just have that good fellowship so again the
[37:56] Lord has definitely used this and just a side note I'm not this is not a plug but something that I prayed about and everything I recover Bibles I redo Bibles I love being able to you know give old Bibles new life and people being able to use them in my business now 25% of the proceeds of any Bible that I sell whether I make it or it's a custom order will go into a scholarship fund to camp to send kids to camp that maybe can't afford it and those are just some of the things that I've been able to do with this business now it seems like how know are you how are you able to balance your business and working at camp at full-time well let me tell you I'm still struggling on how to figure that out I didn't ever expect my business to get this big and the Lord has definitely shown me this year like hey you need to make sure that you're giving your time and effort to what I want you to and so there are some changes coming probably limiting what I actually can do in my shop because I feel that the Lord has me at camp and everything but definitely being able to still run my business and still be able to have some of that you know finances to pay extra bills or if a car breaks down or something like that so you guys can be praying for that and you know just pray that the Lord continues to use this business and for him and for his glory so yeah those so those are some of the prayer requests for my life and our family life obviously some of the other big prayer requests are for camp itself for health and safety you know COVID is still a thing and we still have to be careful about you know sanitizing and all of that and then health and safety is another huge thing and also that the campers would come with a willing heart with an open heart to receive to receive the gospel because that's what we're there for and we know that it's not always about the number it's just as much worth it if one kid gets saved as a hundred does and we love to see it so those are some of the prayer requests I'm gonna go ahead and just pray real quick and close and then if you guys have questions I'll take them for a little bit so dear Emily Father we just thank you for this day that you have given us Lord I just pray that this was an encouraging update and that Lord
[40:02] I just want to thank you for the things that you have done in our lives and the lives of the people here and their support and their prayer I just thank you for that we pray for camp and we just pray Lord for if it's in your will another 50 years at camp so Lord we just lift up all these things in your name Amen Away lower there too you you you you you you you you you you you