It’s 6:00 am on the morning we say goodbye to BigStuf, and the first word that comes to mind tonight is, “Wow.” The last few days have been absolutely fantastic: compelling speakers, incredible worship, eye-opening media pieces, and the beautiful gift of the ocean.

I mentioned in a previous post that the BigStuf theme this year is “Think,” which means we’ve been studying the same thing you have this weekend! But that wasn’t the only cool synergy between MSC and camp:

• Friday’s entire message revolved around the truth that Jesus meets us wherever we are on our journey and wants us to take steps toward him. Sound familiar? That night, one of our youth took a huge step, committing his life to Christ for the very first time.
• BigStuf is highly involved with a ministry serving children in Kenya, and Jessie (one of our teens who raised $11,000 in four months so she could spend six months in Kenya) was able to connect with like-minded people. Plus she got to go up on stage and tell her story, which gave our teens due cause to scream their fool heads off.
• The normal rough spots at camp—relationship struggles related to little sleep and tight quarters—have been nearly immediately addressed in the teaching! (Coincidence? No way.) It was great to watch some of our youth really absorbing, and already acting on, some truly challenging messages.
• We sang several songs that are favorites at MSC. That might seem like a little thing, but it was huge for the kids because they could immediately jump in and participate in worship.

If you'd like to engage your kids in some conversations about their experience, try these questions:

• How can we keep the curtain up and our light shining?
• What's the deal with first base, third base, home base . . . that has nothing to do with "the talk"?
• One the speakers talked about being a "good kid." What did he have to say about that?
• Another speaker commented that every bad decision is surrounded by bad assumptions and bad thoughts. What do you think about that?
• What's the natural result of changing our thoughts?
• One speaker said that we should stop trying to control our circumstances--because that's God's job--and control our thoughts instead. How can we do that?
• What does Philippians 4:8 have to do with our spiritual journey?
• What's the providential, moral, and personal will of God, and how does that apply to our everyday life?
• Describe the last night of worship--the digital experience.
• How are you different now than before you left?

Okay, we have 30 minutes until check-out and I'm not entirely packed . . . so I'm going to wrap it up. I apologize for not updating the blog more often; it’s been a jam-packed week, and it’s been great hanging out with your kids. Thank you so much for sharing them with us!

Oh, and a word of warning: We spent some time yesterday shopping, and in many, many cases there are cheesy souvenirs comin’ atcha.

See you at 3:00 am!