Day two at PASSways 2007 started a little shaky……had a little illness (stomach problems that have since passed) and a little injury (a sprained ankle which unfortunately is causing our only visitor to the group to go home early…..we’ll miss you Ashley!!), but considering the size of our group, not too shabby!! We’ve stressed to the youth the importance of drinking plenty of water (not soft drinks and sports drinks) and to eat some real food occasionally to keep them nourished and strengthened.

The theme for the day was “Imagine Acceptance”. The youth (and adults) were asked to look beyond the place where we live and imagine acceptance of those outside of our circles. Appearances, we learned, may not tell a whole story. Consider the Ponderosa Pine tree. You may think that if you’ve seen one pine tree, you’ve seen them all. Right? Wrong. The Ponderosa Pine harbors a distinct difference. If you lean in and sniff between the crags of rugged bark, you sense the faint aroma of vanilla. Imagining acceptance requires us to get close enough to other people that we get a sense of their aroma in the world and more importantly, it gives them the opportunity to “sniff” our lives. Most days, is the fragrance of Christ emitted by your lifestyle to other people?

Some questions asked during our morning devotions were:

1) Do people create their own reputation or do other people assign a reputation to you?

2) What kind of reputation is hard to change around school or even church?

3) How does the content of somebody’s MySpace impact their reputation?

Several of our youth commented that for the first time in a while, they felt the camp pastor was really talking to them personally about real-life issues they deal with daily! How cool is that?!

The following portion of our blog today was written by Molly Carr and Katie Biggers:

Katie and Kyle Biggers, Lukas Drummond, and Molly Carr are participating in the track Common Threads. Common Threads is a track that exposes the large group to all the many cultures in our world. It’s teaching us to not be judgmental of people and religions before we really take the time to understand what they’re all about. Today we visited an Islamic Mosque. The bus ride there was very long and kept us wondering what we had in store. We weren’t quite sure what the point of learning about another religion was. Soon we found ourselves intrigued by the many similarities between our faiths and the few differences that separate us. We participated in their traditions like removing your shoes, sitting or kneeling on the carpet, and we even experienced the powerful chant that opened the room up for prayer. There we listened to their leader, Mr. Bigg, and learned about their religion and culture. The point of this visit was to open our eyes and to teach us to accept other religions. “Not all Muslims are like the ones that you may see in the everyday violent newscasts,” says Mr. Bigg.  All in all this experience has taught us to respect other religions and cultures.  

Imagine acceptance. This was the theme for tonight’s worship and Bible study.  The kids really enjoyed this sermon because it seemed to relate more to their everyday lives. They learned to accept other people and also ourselves; our true self. Some kids try to cover up their true self as if by a mask. This tied right into the MASQUERADE BALL this evening! “We got our boogies on!” said Molly Carr and Katie Biggers. There were variations of crazy costumes (like Mardi Gras, crazy outfits, etc.). There also was a costume contest to determine the craziest, wackiest, most creative costumes in the room.

After the masquerade party, we met for our group devotion time and the youth shared where they had seen God that day and also, ways they could be more accepting of others as individuals and as a youth group. They also shared how they sometimes feel they wear “masks” when wanting to be accepted by people for the wrong reasons and how they can shed those “masks” for good.

We would love for you to continue to read our blog and encourage others who haven’t seen it yet to “log on” and join us at camp this week through our blog. We will also continue to add new pictures to the website daily to allow you to join us here in that way, too! Thanks for reading and for all your prayers of support and love! Love to all!!

Thanks for visiting our weblog.  We’ll be sending you all kinds of information and photos during the week.  We’re excited about our time at Passport and look forward to sharing lots of great stories with you.

Please come back and visit soon.