What do we focus on...

It is Monday and I have been getting things ready for our Transitional Ministry Training in which Cliff Brubaker and Gary Martin are the ones doing the work. I am just trying to put the little things together. Anyway, I sat down to make sure I had checked things off my list and looked at my devotion for the day (it might have been from last week, but I do what I can).

It caused me to think a little and gave me pause for the moment. Phillipians 4:6-9 (The Message) talks about where we put our focus. Paul commands us to focus on the best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not to curse. Wow! How does my focus affect my attitude? It amazes me how easy it is to focus on all the things that we don't do at Amigo, that other camps have and do, or that we could do but we have limitations on time, money and space. It is so easy to take away my energy for those that come and for those things that we do have going on.

Anyway, it is just a little thought for the day. Hope that your day is full of the best, the beautiful and things to praise and that we take the time to be aware of those things.

grace & peace

Jason

Meet the Junior High Winter Youth Speakers

Jan 15-17

Tina Schlabach

is on the pastoral team at Waterford Mennonite Church, Goshen, IN. She loves being with children and youth as well as adults in the faith community - worshipping, asking questions about God and faith, sharing meals, and having a good time all ages together. She is married to Jay, and has one young adult daughter away at college, and two teens and a middle-schooler at home. She loves taking walks in God’s creation, spending time with friends, traveling, reading good books, and playing games.

Theme for the weekend: “Good guys, Bad guys, and God”

Feb 19-21

Marc Schlegel

Currently a seminary student at AMBS with a focus on urban development, I have spent the past few years in service and youth-work. Spending two years in West Virginia as a Service Adventure Leader before moving to Fresno, California to do community development and youth work at Mennonite Community Church. In Fresno, I discovered a passion for community work and building relationships with people on the margins. Finally, before coming to seminary, I spent a year developing an after school and summer program at a low-income housing complex in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I spent three summers leading worship at Camp Friedenswald as well as planning and leading Junior High worship at both the youth conventions in San Jose and Charlotte. I enjoy biking, watching the Huskers play football, playing Rook and Settlers, and coaching wrestling.


Theme for the weekend: Finding our place in the story

Words from service...Jess Andrews

Being on year round VS here at Amigo, I have found that one of the best things is the opportunity to be present for the changing seasons.

When I came in January, there was a foot of snow on the ground. We stayed busy with Winter Youth Retreats, and I found that my favorite activity in the snow was cross-country skiing, something I had never done before.

As we moved into spring, the pace quickened. Spring O/EE was busy, yet rewarding: late nights and early mornings teaching students about God's creation. The flowers started blooming, plants turned green, and animals came out of hiding
Summer – what can I say. Vibrant. People everywhere. It was a great chance to broaden my usual perception of summer camp as I delved into roles with which I was not familiar.

Fall has been an exciting season for me, as it is one during which I have never even seen Amigo. From the changing leaves and flowers in the marsh, to the autumn olive berries and grapes – there are so beautiful elements of God's creation at Amigo that I have never gotten to experience before now.

With the changing seasons come changes in the ministry of camp as well. Just as weather changes, God leads us to different “seasons” in our own lives and vocations, and sometimes it takes being in a place where that change is constantly manifested to see how God is shaping each season of our own lives.

Jess Andrews

(Jess has been doing volunteer service since January)

And the leaves are down..

Jesus with us in transition

This past weekend, October 30-November 1, we hosted pastors, elders, and leaders from churches throughout our Indiana-Michigan conference. We had more than 15 churches represented. Dan Miller, along with Nadine Zook Miller, provide plenty for everyone to think about. The past year has had a lot of transition it for how our conference looks and acts. This weekend we came together to look at how we deal with change.

I got to plan and lead several activities focused around change. It was a lot of fun to work with Cheryl and Jess as we tried to figure out how to use different challenges as examples of how we look at change. In this post, I have some pictures from our mosaic challenge. This was a challenge to best replicate the bigger mosaic while having limited resources and many different groups trying to use them.

Everyone worked had to come up with something. It was fun to watch as they put pieces together. Some worked very had to be exact, some went with artistic expression. Some competed, some cooperated, but all strived to do their best. It seems to me that is what God desires of us as churches, conferences and camps. We are blessed to have a diverse conference of believers striving to follow Jesus.

On sunday, we celebrated communion together. Brent Eash, wrote and read the following:

We are and have been in a time of transition, change, even upheavel. We know it. We may be tired of saying it, and hearing about it. We're tired of living with in it. We don't know all that will happen. Some of what we do know will happen, we wish wouldn't. Transition can be exciting and energizing, but it also can be draining and distressing.

Jesus' first disciples also struggled with their transitions. In their greatest transition, when Jesus was preparing to die and leave them, they were distressed. As Jesus gathered them for a meal, one last meal, they were distressed at his words about how what had been would end. One of them left. Some jockeyed for position and power.

In the midst of all this, Jesus asked his disciples to remember him. Luke tells us, 'then he tooka loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "this is my body, which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me." And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."

Was he just wanting not to be forgotten? Did he know that they would need to remember him to make it through the upheaval, the change, the transition?

It certainly turned out that way. Luke tells of another story of disciples struggling to make sense of past, present and future. Though Jesus is with them, walking right alongside them, in their anxiety and disrupted experience, they're unable to 'see him'. Even though they invited him to stay with them, and he came in with them, they didn't know him. Then they sat down to eat, and Luke says "When he was at the table with them he took the bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him"

They were transformed! In the breaking of the bread, their memory of Jesus returned, and their blindness was healed. They now could see past, present and future with new eyes.

Jesus still comes to the table with his disciples. He comes here now to be remembered and revealed in this time of transition. Come and let us remember him together, and be transformed.

What a great reminder. Thanks to those that participated in the weekend. It was good.

Jason Lichti