From the Pastor's Desk

Mid-summer greetings! For us at Our Savior, especially this year, an important part of summer is church camp. This year Our Savior is helping make church camp experiences available to our kids from 1st grade through college age.

In June, we hosted our annual Lutheran Outdoor Ministries of Florida Day Camp here at Our Savior. This involved kids from 1st grade through middle school, as college age camp counselors came to lead over 70 children from our congregation and the community on a wonderful week of songs, activities and learning in a Christian context.

In addition to this, kind of the next step up, older elementary youngsters and also members of this year's confirmation class will spend a week at Luther Springs, our Lutheran camp in the woods of north Florida, about 1/2 hour east of Gainesville.

Then, yet another step beyond that, some of our high schoolers will spend a week at Lutherock, near Boone, N.C. In all of these settings our young people have the opportunity to "unplug" from cell phones, ipods, TV, video games, computers, etc. and experience Christian community in a special and unique way, with well trained college age counselors who are there to share their faith and give our young people an opportunity for their faith to grow and unfold in a special setting.

The June issue of "The Lutheran" magazine had a number of wonderful articles about church camping experiences and how meaningful and formative they are. If you still have that issue around, be sure to look at it and see what many of our children are experiencing.

As a major step beyond those camp experiences, two of our college students, Libby Anderson and Zach Jedzinak, who have been campers in the past, will be going on a mission trip to Guyana along with Jimmy Smith our youth director and a group from Tampa. This is the first foreign mission trip for our college age students, and we are very proud of Libby and Zach for stepping up to such an adventure.

I share this information about camping ministry to say thank you to all who have helped support our kids going to camp. The challenges of the world today need young people who are rooted and grounded in a faith that will not just sustain them, but which will guide and direct them through their life's journey. The world needs people who can see beyond what the billboards and advertisements say is important in life. The world needs people who have been given hearts that know how to love and trust God. Without that, how can one ever really know how to love and trust another? The world needs people who have been given ears to hear God speaking, in the middle of the cacophony of sounds and demands of the culture, and to hear the hopes and hurts of their brothers and sisters. Church camp experiences help our young people become the kind of people the world needs.

May God bless all campers and counselors this summer, so that they may in turn be a blessing to others. If your child or grandchild hasn't had a church camp experience, start thinking about how to help that happen next summer.

Peace and Joy + Pastor Jack