Camp Barnabas...... and BAPTISM : Travel Blog #15

Inspiration Point, Camp Barnabas

Hey hey hey! I am finally back from three weeks serving at Camp Barnabas in Missouri. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! I've been back and settling in for this past week and now can't wait to share my experience with you! But first......

......this post officially marks the end of our three week prayer challenge! For those of you who participated: well done! I'm so happy that you used these weeks to focus on intentional praying. Just because the official challenge ends today, continue to set new personal goals to keep connecting with God through prayer. After all, He never ceases to amaze! For those who did not participate in the prayer challenge, maybe give it a try now or sometime later! Click the link below to go back and read the challenge and prayer tips. I encourage everyone to go back to the prayer post frequently and implement the three week challenge throughout the year. Prayer is quite literally the BEST habit you can get into!

Prayer challenge and tips blog post: https://www.travelandfaith.com/post/challenge-prayer-tips-and-an-important-update

My time at Camp Barnabas.

It was amazing. I was researching on the Camp Barnabas website before I went to try to learn a bit about camp before I dove right in blindly. I saw this promo video captioned "the Barnabas difference: LOVE." Little did I know just how true that was. The whole time I was at camp, I was just absolutely blown away by the genuine love that floated through the air and touched everyone! Love radiated in every moment at camp.

The Apostles

Camp Barnabas is a camp for people with special needs to come and spend the week having an absolute blast. They are paired one on one with a missionary who guides them and helps them with anything they need throughout the week. These missionaries are volunteers (usually teens or young adults) who stay at camp for one week to pour into their camper and help them with activities of daily life such as eating, showering, and changing. Camp is also equipped with a full medical team, a ton of summer staff who do all sorts of jobs, and directors who work year round to make camp happen. I served as an apostle meaning that I was there for three weeks as a hybrid between summer staff and missionary. There were three other apostles who served for the same three week term that I was there for.

At camper arrival with one of the sibs!

Missionaries arrive the day before campers to receive training and meet with their cabins. I arrived with the missionaries my first day and was pretty excited. You could tell right off the bat that you were in a place full of the Holy Spirit. The excitement in the air for the campers was palpable. Then finally the next day the campers came. I will NEVER forget my first experience with camper arrival. It brought me almost to tears! The insane excitement that all of these teens and young adults had to shower on these campers was mind-blowing. The campers would line up as they arrived and their missionary would run over to greet them. Then together they would run or walk or wheel in front of this huge crowd of other missionaries and staff who were just going crazy and cheering for this camper as if he were the celebrity they'd been dying to meet their whole lives. It was SO COOL. Many campers have noise sensitivity or other issues with over-stimulating environments. The director would ask each camper if they wanted no noise, medium noise, or loud noise. Some campers said no noise. If they said that, the director would signal to us in the crowd and we would proceed to jump and shout and go crazy but without making any noise at all. It was surreal. The feeling of campers arriving at Camp Barnabas is impossible to describe but I think is best displayed in the parents faces. The expressions on their faces as they watched their kids pass in front of a crowd absolutely beaming while being surrounded by so much celebration and love was just a perfect display of the type of love that camp is full of. Everyone at camp just loved on these campers with everything they had. It was beyond words.

Below is a link to the YouTube summary video of the second week I was at Barnabas. The first part is full of footage from the amazing camper arrival!

Video of Camp Week Two

Me with one of the sibs at the Hawaii themed pool party.

With the other apostles, I got to spend my first week working with the siblings of campers staying at Barnabas! The sibs get to stay in a whole separate area of camp and have a unique camp experience. We lived in treehouse cabins and had epic sibs competitions! We went swimming or got wet in some form literally every day and had a blast running around from activities, to games, to parties, to even spending one memorable night camping in tents in the middle of the woods!!! It was so much fun! Every week, we would have a morning devoted to sharing the gospel. I shared it to one of the sibs, and she told me she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart. My heart just about exploded with joy as I watched her pray in her heart. It was so cool!

Me and my role model hanging out and making a fun snack one afternoon in between shadowing!

Week Two was spent shadowing summer staff and working with a role model. A role model is a camper who is more independent and does not require the one-on-one missionary pairing. They get assigned projects to work on and goals to complete. The other apostles and I all got paired with a role model to help them complete their goals. My role model and I worked with other missionaries to clean up after meals and set up for future meals! The rest of the day us apostles spent doing staff projects like delivering mail, making dinner, directing the slides at the pool, or working in the office. It was so great getting to know my role model, and I really loved the experience of working on staff!

At the carnival party with my camper after he dunked me in the dunk tank!

The apostles spent the final week serving as regular missionaries. My camper week three was the happiest guy in the whole world and so so funny! We had such a blast together, especially at the parties. He just LOVED to dance and particularly enjoyed dunking me in the dunk tank. We had the best time swimming, playing in the game room, celebrating Christmas in July, and just being goofy during all the in between moments. Being a missionary was seriously so much fun and definitely an experience I would love to repeat in the future! It's amazing how close you get to your camper and your cabin!

God is good.

Camp was such an amazing experience on so many levels. It was so FUN! God was so present in every single moment. It was completely crazy how He was moving.

It was not easy and there were some pretty low moments. Working with campers is so rewarding and fulfilling, but there are times when it is so so hard. I remember one particularly low day in week two when I was in tears because it was really so much tougher than I felt like I could handle on my own. God showed up in all of the support everyone showed me. My friends who had all been there before kept telling me that once you reach your lowest point, you will have no choice but to rely on God and then all of the sudden your burden will be lightened. I wasn't so sure about it until after that day in Week Two. I hit the limit of my own abilities and all of the sudden had no choice but to just rely on God. I turned on autopilot and let God take over. The results were amazing!! It was after that moment that camp went from being fun to being amazing. God really did equip me! When I let go and trusted in Him, He showed up and answered my prayers constantly! It was absolutely incredible how much I learned to trust Him and rely on Him during my time at camp. He was present in me and in everyone around me. He is so so good.

For over a year now, it has been on my heart that I wanted to get baptized again as an adult in my faith (my first baptism was when I was in infant.) Getting baptized again just kept pressing on my heart. However, I wanted to do it on God's timing and the opportunity never seemed right. Then when I was at camp, it struck me that the time was now right! I had been seeing God work so much and was drawing so near to Him. I really wanted to get baptized. It was over the weekend break that I got really excited about this idea. I called my mom to see what she thought about it. I didn't want to force anything but wanted it to be totally of God. I decided to wait and not seek anyone out about the baptism but trust that if God wanted the baptism to happen, He would send the right person into my path. I talked to my mom about this plan, and she agreed that it was a good one. Literally before I had even hung up on the phone, the one director who I would most have wanted to talk to about planning a baptism came out of the office towards me walking his dog. I was absolutely so excited! This was the first time I had ever even seen a director during the weekend breaks. God just about knocked me off my feet with that direct answer to my prayer!

We planned a baptism. Every piece fell perfectly into place with God. It was breath-taking. Anytime I got stressed about anything, He worked it out in His will. Honestly, it was the most perfect baptism I could have imagined. It was very small and so spiritual and touching. I met so many friends who were there for me during my time at camp and who taught me so much! They came to support me and celebrate with me. It was so so so cool! The support that everyone showed me touched my heart so deeply! I was baptized on July 27, 2023 surrounded by such amazing people who showed Jesus' love with every action and who greatly impacted my time at camp. The moment of silence when I was underwater and then got pulled up to whooping cheers and clapping was one I will NEVER forget! That moment is one that changed me forever and marked me as His own. Thank You God.

I loved every single second of camp. The people I met and relationships I made were so incredible. Most of all though, I am just reeling from seeing God work so much! After I turned my trust to rely on Him, I have seen Him everywhere. Like seriously He has answered every prayer and shown up for me in EVERYTHING. It's like my eyes have been opened in a way. I just cannot get over how good He is and want to spend forever living in His presence. I am filled to the brim with joy over my experience! I seriously can't wait to go back to Barnabas! In the meantime, I am drawing ever nearer to our awesome God and living life with a different perspective. Serving at Camp Barnabas gave me a new view of things. I learned so much about patience and selflessness. I learned what it looks like to be so close to God. I learned how absolutely beyond words it is worshipping with a community of full heart believers. I learned that everyone and everything can teach you and that every situation will turn out for good and God's glory! I learned that having Godly friends to depend on is so fruitful. I've learned to see God in everything. God is so so good.

While I was at Camp, I didn't have much alone time. One day my cabin staff and I were in the cabin with a camper who was having a rough time and needed a break from all the craziness of camp. We sat there together and my cabin staff recommended that we read scripture out loud. She opened up to Matthew and together we read through several chapters. It changed the whole room and my heart posture in the moment. From then on, I couldn't get enough of Matthew throughout the whole next weeks! It spoke to me so deeply! I highly encourage you to open up to Matthew and read through a portion. It is so amazing! What is some scripture that has been speaking to you lately?

"Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden'........"

The Beginning of the Sermon on the Mount- Matthew 5:1-14