We are just a few weeks away from launching our 9th annual summer camp for at-risk youth, prisoners’ kids, and disadvantaged children.
It’s hard to believe that nearly a decade has gone by since that first camping experience in 2007. We’ve seen so many changed lives, including maturing youth leaders (disciples) who will be serving at camp this year! At one time they were just nine or ten year old campers themselves, hearing the Gospel for the first time at summer camp. This year, they will be serving as cabin leaders, recreation coordinators, team captains, and bearing other leadership responsibilities.
Making disciples and shaping future leaders is what summer camp is all about!!!
This year, we already have more campers registered than ever before, and we are trusting God for a harvest of changed lives, new mentoring relationships to take shape, and many next-step opportunities to serve the families of these children all year round. Camp always breeds movements that continue to reach under-served communities long after kids go back home.
Would you begin to pray with us that this year’s summer camp would usher in God’s Kingdom in places and lives where darkness has prevailed?
Our kids have experienced so many issues with abandonment, despair, and desertion… I remember when Amanda (pictured) came to our camp a few years back. She climbed the ropes course and got stuck at the top. Rather than allowing the assistants to get her down immediately, she persevered for 45 minutes as she refused to quit and continued to press through until she ‘conquered’ that ropes course. “If I can do this, I can face anything in life,” she later told a team leader. It’s an amazing thing to see kids develop resiliency skills and perseverance traits in their character, seemingly overnight, during summer camp.
I was in Baltimore when the riots broke out last week. Seeing such unrest, despair, and a sense of hopelessness with young people breaks my heart. We can all do more to bring healing and reconciliation to our communities. Where do we start? Over the years I’ve learned a valuable leadership lesson, and that is this…
… DO FOR ONE WHAT YOU WISH YOU COULD DO FOR ALL.
What can you do to help bring hope to hurting communities? Maybe you could help send ONE child to summer camp.
We still have several young people on a waiting list for a full or partial summer camp scholarship. A full scholarship is $175. Give here. For those of you who have already given, YOUR GIFTS ARE SHAPING ETERNITY IN THE HEART OF OUR NATION’S MOST DESPERATE KIDS. THANK YOU!!!
In addition to praying for our campers and their families, please pray for our staff, leadership team, counselors, and bus drivers. So many people give of their time and resources to make camp a place where Jesus is glorified and lives are transformed. Blood, sweat, and tears make it all happen, but nothing makes it as fruitful and spiritually effective as God’s people praying for breakthroughs, victories, and triumphs over the scars in these kids’ lives.
We are humbled by His grace, empowered by His Spirit, and so incredibly grateful for your partnership in this Kingdom movement.
Jimmy and Cindy Larche
Founders (Breakaway Outreach)