Camp Wilds Thursday Recap

Well, as I type this, I just walked the hill up from the bottom where we enjoyed a night game of Tic Tac Challenge. I noticed that some of you joined and watched some of the action live on the Periscope App. Isn't that cool !!! I love it when we can use technology for the good in which God intended it. Scotty and I would definitely like to have your feedback on that live feed. It took a little fanagaling (its a word!) to figure it out and get it going. So, tell us what you think. After the night game teens sprinted across the field to either get in line for Pizza, Donuts & drinks or to get in line for the Giant Swing, Small Zip Line, Putt Putt. Lauren and Caitlyn got in line in time to ride the Giant Swing. This was Lauren's first time and it was at night!. Sarah & Emily sprinted for a night ride of the Land Trolley (Zip Line). Others just "hung out" and ate.

We were able to enjoy family reunion time with the Juniors at JBC today and then also got to do the same thing with our teens.  Again, if you did not join in live on Periscope at that time, you can still download the free app, follow TOTALMRBC and watch them. The videos stay on there for some amount of time....we are not sure. Family Reunion is always a special time to pull all of them together and see what the Lord is doing for each of them.

I hit the wall today....very tired and hurting. I could tell the teens were tired also. Most of them were down there with me a few minutes ago hanging out and we were all comparing our ills. We sounded like a nursing home day room. I was complaining about my back and feet hurting, Courtney side and neck, Travis all over, Kenzie was just peeling paint off her face, all the others had something that was aching....anyway...All of us were ready to head to our cabins for some rest.

Again, I am not going to detail each service but I will give you a little in case you want to have your teens tell you about it.

Chapel was on "Relationships Matter"  Matthew 5:21-26

Evening Service: To Live a life for Christ, you must....

We were not able to make it my favorite lessons, the Christian Life Seminar today because we had a sponsor session. Ask your teen what Thursday was about. They are always good practical, biblical lessons.

I am going to mention a little about our Sponsor Session with Will Galkin. After I came out of that session I asked Scotty if I had a bull's eye on my back. I don't think the other 50 sponsors who were there needed to come because Will was preaching to me. It is very beneficial for us as sponsors coming to the Wilds. We get fed spiritually just like the teens. Many times we can exclaim "amen" many more times we have to say "oh me!".  Today I was saying, "oh me" a bunch. 

God's Word Liberates

God's Word Illuminates

God's Word Stabilizes

But he spoke on God's Word Revives

Quicken (or Revive) Me Lord.....

 - Because I have forgotten your Word

 - Because I have forgotten that it is to be obeyed

 - Because I am so distracted

 - Because I am so frustrated

 - Because I am so hurt

 - Because I want to enjoy God today

WHAT DO I SET MY AFFECTIONS ON???  YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU WANT MOST.

That quote above is an "oh me" for each of us I am sure.

I  can't believe tomorrow is the last day. This week has truly flown by. I am looking forward to what tomorrow holds.

Oh yeah....I had a first for me. I played a game of paintball with Matthew. Great time!. Those paint balls do hurt. I went to take my shower a little later in the afternoon and found a red skid mark across my thigh where one of those paintballs got me. I'm sure it is a bruise by now.

Also a thanks for Amanda's mom, dad, sis & nephew along with Salem came up for a visit today. It was good to see them.

We continue to pray everyday for our teens. We hope you are doing the same!

Camp Wilds Wednesday Recap

We welcomed in July in big fashion today. I can witness to the fact that the teens are having a great time. They are being fed the Word via several different avenues throughout the day. We are praying for those "lasting" decision to be made, those real life changers. It is very easy for us as adults to make a decision of some kind whether it be big or small only to see it fizzle out. Think back over the years (for some of us that takes more thinking than for others) over those New Year's resolutions you made to yourself. How many of those good, even great intentions are you still doing? Tough huh??? It is the same for the teens. They can make a decision here at camp with great intentions only to see it vapor away after they get back into their routine. But, those "life changers" will stick with them.

Keep praying for our teens as well as all of the teens here this week. Most of all for salvation !!!! But, also for the home lives and things that some of the teens that are here this week have to go through every day. Scotty, Christy and I had prayer time together this morning. We were able to pray over the cards that are filled out on every camper by their leaders. Some of the things that are checked on the cards and written in explanation would break your heart. You would not think a person at such a young age would ever be facing such severe situations.

I am thankful for the what the teens learn here during the week. One of the teens told me today as we were walking all the way from the basketball courts, around the Giant Swing, by the putt putt course, across the big field, behind the Activity Center to get in the water to go tubing that she can still remember the verses that she learned from several years ago. Isn't that great! One day God will put her into a situation or open a door that she we be able to recall that verse or verses that will be used to help her or someone to God's glory. Each of our teens are getting that this week. Thankfully they come from a great church that instills that same Word into them through Sunday School, Kings Kinds and TOTAL.  I described the path we took above for those that have been to this special place in the past. When I was describing it, I'll bet you were picturing yourself right here. You new exactly how and where we were walking. Am I right???

Our Juniors are having a great time.I caught them while they were on the Giant Slide. They both braved it (as I guess you saw on the Twitter pics). Both were nervous but after the first ride, they climbed the stairs to do it again. Nothing but smiles. 

We had surprise guests today. We would like to thank Tammy Stone along with Melissa and Kyle for making the trek up to the Wilds today. We had sat down on the field near the volleyball courts in the grass for our picnic lunch. The teens had joined us and up walked Tammy & crew. They were able to tour the camp and enjoy time with the teens. 

We experienced a new group game today. Though staff said they have played this game before, none of us nor the teens have ever heard of it. It was called Water Wars. All of the games, and there were several, were played at the lake simultaneously. It was amazing to watch and was big fun. Scotty and I decided that we're are going to have to install a big pond behind the church so we can do some of these games with our group. Rachel....add that to the agenda for the next business meeting please.

Several of our teens had the opportunity today to experience the new Zip Line that I described yesterday. The remaining teens will have that opportunity tomorrow. No one who rode it came away disappointed.

We had a great meal for supper today and then had a blast at Funtime after the evening service.

I am not going to synopsis the services. I you would like to talk with your teen about them...

Chapel was again in Matthew 5 where Jesus was affirming his connection to the contents and commands of the Old Testament.

Christian Life Seminar was on Entertainment

Evening Service was on the assurance of Salvation. How you can truly know you are saved.

Our appologies for the Periscope Live broadcast not working this afternoon. We tested it yesterday "up top" and it worked fine. We were going to broadcast "down below" near the Activity Center where they have wifi and the signal is strong. However, the phone app was saying "Signal Too Weak". Go figure. Our intent was to broadcast then and there because the teens usually congrat with us there before entering the evening service. We would have all or most right there for you to see live. We are going to try again using the cellular service and see if that works better.

I slept great last night and I am getting ready to go duplicate that action right now.

Until tomorrow Marler Roaders....................................

Day 2 & 3 Wilds Pics

Here is just a sampling of a few pictures from days 2 & 3 remember to follow us on twitter, the link can be found on the right side of the page.

Wilds Day 2 Update

I am going to call this the Tylenol Tuesday update. This is the day that my muscles boldly ask the question, "Why have you not used me for a year?" I am a little sore today but it has been such a good one. Again, great weather all day. We had a couple of little short showers. They were not anything  that hindered any activities.

Tuesday is an action packed day. There is very little "down-time".  We have moved from one location to another trying to catch all of our teens in their activities. We enjoyed a quality chapel today with the teens then immediately hoofed it up to our sponsor session where Ken spoke. I will highlight those two messages in a few.

Scotty and I did take time out today to enjoy a new attraction here at The Wilds. Today was the only day that sponsors were allowed to ride the new Zip Line over Third Falls. For those who don't know. The Wilds have four spectacular waterfalls on their property. Pictures and words can not do them justice. For many many years, only First Falls, Second Falls and Fourth Falls were accessible to campers. The Third Falls have never been seen by any campers. The reason is Third Falls is inaccessible due to the rugged steep terrain. The Wilds built a new observation deck that overlooks the Third Falls and have installed a sophisticated zip line. You can now zip line above the Third Falls literally traveling directly 200ft above it. Views and vistas are amazing!!! We had a great time doing this activity. Thank God for good engineers! I was expecting to see a lot of steel and re-enforcements but much like the "Big Swing", it is made from what looks like light poles. I guess they knew what they were doing because here I sit explaining it.

We caught just about all teens as they were enjoying free time this afternoon. This is a great time for each teen to group up and simply do the things they enjoy or become really adventurous and tackle one of the big scary attractions.

We used new technology this year. We trialed it for just a short time this afternoon. It seemed to go well. We are going to organize a time where we can get more of the teens together. This afternoon, we simply wanted to make sure it would work. If you would like to see us at camp "live" you must download the free "Periscope" app. It is owned by Twitter and works alongside with twitter. Check it out if you would like to. We had some great pictures of today's activities and we hope you all enjoyed them. We are trying to get pics of everyone. It is hard to catch everyone sometimes because of the different schedules and it is simply hard to find everyone in the large crowds. 

Scotty & Amanda attended the JBC (Junior Boot Camp) evening service tonight along with Neil & Christy. Scotty mentioned it was focused from Proverbs 4:23. Mark emphasized the importance of protecting their hearts. Both of our junior ladies are doing wonderfully. I went and visited them for a short time this afternoon during their free time and they were ALL smiles.

Teen Chapel service was teaching the teens that Christians are to have an  influence on the world. We are the salt and the light. If we have lost our savor then we are just bland we don't taste good. As Christians, if we have lost out savor, we are simply worldly. We are also the light of the world. As you all know, our world is really dark right now. We as Christians need to let our light shine because light "exposes". 

The sponsor message with Ken was simply rich. I could mention several things about how he biblically expounded on The Wild's mission statement. But, instead I am going to mention one thing that stood out to me. He listed God's Mission.....God is on a mission to redeem and restore fallen people to the likeness of His Son to the praise of His glory.

Tonight's focused on having us make Christ our All-in-All. We all need to cultivate a passionate pursuit of Jesus Christ. We need to work and study to find out who Jesus really is. Our commitment to Jesus is to be intentional. We must always be killing sin, or the sin will kill you.

There is so much more I could mention about each service. But remember God speaks to each of us differently through the preached word. If one of the others were typing this update, I am sure they would mention other things, other points, other declarations that hit home with them. 

Use the updates to ask your teens what the messages said to them. Use the updates to help them remember which service it was and let them expound on what God told them.

Nighty - Night

Wilds Day 1 & 2 Pictures

Here are just a few pictures from the first 2 days of Camp, there will be plenty more for the slide show on Sunday night as well as here on the blog through out the week:  Click on the pics for larger view!

 

Camp Wilds Day 1 Recap

"Thank You Lord, for who You are and what You do for us each day. Thank You for loving us and saving us. Thank You for safety in travel and beautiful weather today. Thank You for allowing us another week at The Wilds."

God certainly has blessed us with a great day. The weather up here has been perfect. It was slightly over cast, cool with a cool breeze. We just got out of this evening's service as I write this. It is 10:56. When we walked out of the activity center is just started to rain a little. Staff has told us that it was extremely hot last week so we are looking good for this week.

We have seen everyone and all are doing well. Everyone seemed very tired after tonight's service. It has been a long day. My eyes are crossing as I type now. It's going to be a short update.

Will Galkin is the speaker this week. I'm not sure if I am spelling his last name correctly though. He laid a baseline message tonight speaking on how God's glory is revealed in His creation. The love of the Lord is perfect, it is flawless and God always gets it right.

He left us with three prayers that we all need to pray tonight.

1. Pray our secrets sins will be revealed. These are the sins that we don't even realize we are committing ourselves.

2. Pray we are protected from our presumptuous sins. Don't let them have dominion over you.

3. Pray the words of our mouths and hearts be pleasing to you.

Looking forward to a great day in the Lord tomorrow!

Good night all.

CAMP WILDS REGISTRATION

For adults, time flies!  For teens, time seems to drag by.  No matter how old you are, summer is closer than you think!  It is time to start preparing for summer and hopefully your summer plans are to join us at Camp Wilds this year.  Here is some information about camp, who can go, how to register, and other important information.  As always, if you have any questions, please contact Scotty Sparks.

• When we are going:  the week of June 29-July 4th (Week 5  of camp)
• Speaker:  Evangelist Will Galkin is the speaker for the week (http://www.galkins.org/)
• Who can go:  must be at least 12 years old by Sept. 1, 2015.  Must be entering grades 7-12 in the fall of 2015, or be a 2015 high school graduate.
• Registration:  If you went last couple of years, the registration process is the same.  You will need to go to the wilds website and click on the online registration picture on the right side of the page, or you can just click this link:  https://www.wildsregistration.org/users/login
• If you have registered online before, just enter your username & password you used last time and update the information.
• If you have not registered before, you will need to create an account and enter the camper’s information as prompted.
• You must pay the $50 non-refundable deposit to complete your registration.  This deposit is applied to the total cost of camp.
• Cost:  The total cost is $345.  However if you register before January 31st, you will get a $30 discount, making the total cost $315.  Marler Road Baptist Church will pay $125 of the cost of any church member.  There are other financial aid/scholarships available, so please don’t let costs be the only reason a teen does not go to camp.  See Scotty Sparks if there are any questions.   

More information:  www.wilds.org