Saturday, August 1, 2015

try this


When they asked me to spend a week as the bible study leader at Camp Gilmont I said "Sure" mostly because I say that to anything Gilmont asks me.  But when they told me I was going to talk to the kids about the Holy Spirit I knew my moment had come.  The moment I was morn for.  The moment I had waited all my life for.  The moment I had dreamed of. If you calculate that I have said the Apostles Creed 50 times a year for the last 50 years using averages and giving me two weeks vacation here and there, I've declared I believe in the Holy Ghost about 2,500 times in my life.  Then when you calculate all the little children standing around me listening to me tell them I believe in ghosts I figure I had some 'splaining to do for these tikes.

It turned out I needn't have worried.  Either the kids had not been listening or they don't care about ghosts.  The Holy Ghost part didn't scare anybody.  When I showed up dressed as a Holy Ghost not only did they not buy into it, one little girl tried to pull my sheet off.

However, I did have one miraculous experience instead.

I have never done the bibles study leader gig at Gilmont before.  I didn't really know my role or how to prepare for it.  And I need to confess that I was woefully unprepared.  However, being a firm believer in the power of the Holy Spirit I figured I could wing it.  So I did.

And I don't mean this as a joke at all.  I'm very sincere. I am also in awe and grateful.  For a few of the sessions with the kids my predessors had plowed the ground before me and all I had to do was walk the path they had made for me (Thank you, Jennifer Rigoulout).  And for a couple of sessions I could let the kids guide a "conversation" with their questions.  But there were also moments when I sat in jfront of the kids and opened my mouth and prayed for the Spirit to speak and it did.  Somehow words came to me and I said stuff.  Ideas came to me, thoughts I had thought of before, maybe things I hadn't thought of in years would return to my mind and the perfect story would hop out of my mouth. It was a partnership.

But the best came last.  Because I had to leave early Friday afternoon and couldn't make it for the evening's vesper service James suggested we video my message for the kids. And I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.  What I didn't know it what a great sidekick the Holy Spirit makes.  See for yourself:

https://youtu.be/gAKWQ4YKfDg

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