Koocking, Kids and Kamp

This past weekend Niki and I had the privilege of cooking for the Santa Cruz Christian learning Center high school youth retreat. Although there was not an overly large number of people to cook for (around 80) it was a challenge for us to know how to plan and prepare for that large of a group. The menu was simple enough, spaghetti, hamburgers, chicken, taco salad, cinnamon rolls and breakfast burritos, and we did as much ahead as possible to make preparations there as easy as we could. But it still involved a lot of work.

Thankfully we had good help (another missionary couple plus a couple of Bolivian ladies)

and the kids were quite willing to eat what we put out.

My big day was on Saturday when I had to grill hamburgers for lunch and chicken for supper (There was no available working oven except a clay wood burning oven designed to cook bread). I had trouble getting the firs going becasue of the altitude but one of the other cooks knew just what to do so she rescued me and dinner was done on time.

Although from our perspective food was the foremost item the goal of the retreat was to challenge the kids to go deeper in their spiritual lives. The speaker was Aaron Breakfield, ECM missionary from Brazil. He did a good job of speaking directly to the kids and challenging them to live faithfully for the Lord.

We arrived back home late Sunday afternoon. Then early Monday morning it was off to visit the Santa Cruz district youth camp where I was scheduled to speak on that morning. We left the house in plenty of time but did not realize that we were going to hit a roadblock on the main drag out of town. (I think it was a group of frustrated neighbors trying to get the city's attention.) That caused us to arrive late at the camp as we had to follow slowly in line with a million other people (more or less) who were trying to get around the roadblock as well.

The camp had as its theme being a good soldier for Christ. Almost everyone was dressed in some kind of camouflage wear. Activities during the weekend had included running to the river, calisthenics, obstacle course, propelling down a cliff and other fun military type activities and, of course, lots of good food as only the church women can fix. I would never have gone to a retreat like that as a kid but everyone there was having a great time.

Reviewing the troops. you can tell I'm a general by the bulge in the belly.

When it came time for the session where I was to speak the commandant of the camp told everyone, in no uncertain terms, that they were to listen carefully. Yes sir, they all replied at the top of their lungs. What a great idea, I thought. Maybe we need this guy to give a pep talk before every lesson I teach. Now because we had arrived late my time was cut into about half so I had to make some quick revisions and changes to my presentation. I was asked to share on holiness and my text was Exodus 19. I thought that my presentation suffered some from the last minute changes but at the same time I felt that God was helping me in what I shared.

I am thankful that I had the chance to be involved in both of these youth retreats and turst that I was able to have a small part if what God is doing to raise up godly young men and women to serve him here in Bolivia.