Growing Our Friends In Their Faith: Serving at Camp

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As our Capernaum friends meet Jesus and begin to grow in their faith, our desire is that they would learn about their gifts and begin to experience how they can use those to be a blessing. For many of our friends whose whole lives have been spent receiving services, support, instruction, and help, precius little has been asked of them.  

An invitation to service is thrilling and challenging. This year, Tuscon leaders invited two of their Capernaum friends who have met Jesus already to be buddies at an outreach week for high school Capernaum friends. These friends spent weeks before to camp praying for their friends and completing buddy training. 

In one of our training times, we asked our buddies to write down what they hoped God would do for their friends at camp. Dominic shared "I pray that God will be able to provide a safe and exciting week as these campers go up to Lost Canyon to learn more about Jesus and how he's changed our lives." It was powerful to see Dominic be an amazing buddy to his friends Sammy and Michael and
share with them the love of Jesus in the way he treated them.  

Training emphasized serving of others first, stepping back so Capernaum camper friends could experience horses, rides, the front row seat at club, the first slice of cake… what a powerful thing to see a friend with an intellectual disability intentionally living out Philipians 2:3-4: 

Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

Our friends learned about setting an example rather than trying to boss their friends around, serving and being present, asking questions and caring deeply in prayer. According to Philipans 2, this is the mindset of Christ Jesus.  Watching these friends become more like Jesus was discipleship at its finest. During the first discipleship meeting, camp speaker, John, shared that as buddies our prayer should be ‘God, please use us and change us.’ On the way home from camp, Dominic  shared his favorite part of camp was watching Sammy and Michael make new friends and share in cabin time. He said "I really feel like God used and changed me this week!"


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