shine brighter

This past week was a long, tiring week of work. We had a group here Wed-Friday. That means (in camp words) that we were doing meals for them 3 times a day. 3 meals a day for 104 people. It's kinda exhausting after a couple days.

Anyway, at the end of our last meal, I was standing behind one of our food serving lines with 2 of the other girls/friends, who were working with me. Up walked one of the girls from the group.

FYI: This group was a bunch of 17-24 year olds volunteering for a year in a school setting in the urban poor sections of city schools. They were there preparing for the year ahead of them and training for their new "jobs." It is NOT a Christian based program. In fact, last year, they asked if we could NOT pray before meals because they didn't want to offend any of their kids. (We said "no," of course because we are a Christian camp and that's that. We love when non-Christian groups use us, but we will still stand by our beliefs.)

Back to the story....a girl comes up to us and says,

"Thanks so much for all you did for us. I really appreciate it."

We replied with smiles and "thank you's." This group was so greatful to us and kind. We really love having them here.

Then she kinda stood there for a second longer and I could tell she wanted to say something else. She leaned forward a little bit and said,

"You guys love Jesus, don't you?"

To which we all beamed HUGE smiles and one of my friends said,

"Well, YES, we do!"

That girl's face instantly brightened and she replied with an emphatic,

"Me, too!!"

She went on to tell us that she was so encouraged by our staff and how we prayed and didn't back down from our faith in front of all those people. She was really excited about the year she was emarking on, yet sad too because the program was so close to the gospel, but Jesus was never mentioned. She had been having a tough time with being bold with her faith in these new circumstances and this trip to our camp had been so uplifting to her hungry soul.

I instantly forgot how tired I was, how dirty I was, how we had still more work ahead of us. That's why I'm here. To proclaim the name of Jesus. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that when I'm up to elbows in dirty cups and syrup covered plates.
But to know that one girl was encouraged to shine brighter for Jesus in the midst of the darkness around her? That, my dear readers, is eternity at work. It's nothing we can take credit for. And it's everything we hope for.