Something beautiful about Royal Family Kids Camp is people’s quick reaction to want to help in some way. The stories of our campers draw you in. The idea of a week long ‘celebration’ to care for kids who have experienced broken families, pain and disappointment inspires us. We get a chance to bring hope to a child’s life in the middle of such chaos and disruption. It is the beauty–from–ashes kind of stuff the bible talks about. We all connect to those types of stories because they are similar to our own lost but now found, old but now made new, chained but now free. FREE.

I want to challenge you to truly be FREE. Free to see what God might be calling you to. When I speak about camp so often I hear, “I’d love to come for the week but I work full–time or I have young children or old children or too many children or not–born–yet children or I’m too old or it would be too sad and I am not sure I could do it or I have summer trips or responsibilities that can’t be rearranged.” I hear you and understand that tension. I said many of the same things when I first heard about camp. My involvement in camp happened behind my own back. That is the way God usually works in my life. I had no idea how it was all going to work out. I had a job, a husband and a 6 month old that I had to leave for a whole week. And I was not alone. Most of our volunteers have jobs, multiple children young, old and not–born yet, summer trips, prior responsibilities, have felt insecure about what they have to offer camp and their ages range from 16–75 years old.

If you feel like God is nudging you to go to camp. I can tell you He is also able to take care of all that you care about during that week. You can say, ‘YES?!’ and trust Him with the rest. Never in my life have I felt like I needed God more than during the week of camp. Never in my life have I seen God tangibly work right in front of me than through this camp. In my, ‘no, no, no – I can’t right now, God’ He has made impossible things happen. I have found that what seems like a huge sacrifice in time and effort has turned out to be the way in which God has filled me up. My silly sacrifices became His beautiful gifts. Because of this, I would say to please consider camp or any other thing that you feel God is pushing towards despite what is already going on in life.