as for god, his way is perfect.

i was blessed today with another very good day. we had to send another girl home at one point, which of course is never fun, but the way i am choosing to look at it is that at least it is the last week and they got to enjoy it thus far. and there are so many other girls here - we can't allow someone to miss out because of someone else. and my prayer is that the discipline won't be in vain, but that she will come back next year with a different attitude, you know? and i think that is certainly a good possibility.

but i was very encouraged by my small group time today.

i decided a long time ago, and told the lord, i wanted to leave camp knowing that the girls understand the truth of the gospel - the real salvation story...

not the gospel mixed with superstition and voodoo, which permeates much of their learning.

our summer verse has been the first part of luke 10:27 - "love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."

so this week courtney is doing devotions and breaking it up, talking about what it means to love with your heart, then your soul, and so on and so forth.

so today i presented this question to the girls: "why should we love god?"

i mean, in my mind, that is a fundamental question, especially for girls from the inner city, born into poverty and crime ridden homes.

so we answered this question with 1 john 4:19 - "we love because he first loved us."

then the question, "how do we know god loves us?"

then the answer, romans 5:8 - "but god demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, christ died for us."

so through that we talked about the gospel, i presented the salvation story to them, using the bridge diagram and there were lots of good questions. we really took it apart and talked about things from the fall, to how you get saved, to how you know the bible is true and jesus really came and died, to what baptism is and the purpose of baptism.

it was just so nice. i don't know a better way to put it - to be able to hear their questions and explain these things to them using tons of scripture.

i felt purpose in it all. like the spirit was really working. you know that feeling?

i just want to be faithful to the word of god, to the gospel, to christ.

and the gospel feels so good coming out of your mouth.

sweet sweet girls