Our week at Falls Creek

This year's youth camp at Falls Creek in Davis, Oklahoma was another amazing year.  God was ever present!  In our cabin alone, there were 44 decisions made!!  One of them was my daughter rededicating her life.  Thank you Lord!


This is from the Falls Creek website:   Nestled in the heart of the Arbuckle Mountains of southern Oklahoma, Falls Creek has become the largest religious youth encampment in the world. More than 45,000 young people will attend its eight weeks of encampment every summer.


This year's theme was "Consumed" and a vintage theme at that so it was fun for me.

The theme was based on Psalm 103

The main lesson I learned from this week is that all my life, I thought I needed to be consumed of God but they put it another way that is so very true... "Not that I have more of Him, but He has more of me!"

A slightly blurry picture of our group before tabernacle time.  This gives you somewhat of an idea of how huge this place is.

Now just some fun pics of rec time.  My son Ryan playing the Human Foosball game with some friends.  He's the one in black on the right. I didn't stick around to see if they won, it was 100+ all week long.  A little rain came along and the kids had a great time playing outside.  A blurry picture of Ryan catching a football.

Every year we set Thursday evening aside as a time when the kids can dress up nice.  The boys escort the girls to the tables, they see what they want to eat and drink, they wait on them throughout their meal, and clean up after the girls are done.  Then the boys get to eat.  It is a fun time for all, even the boys and it helps to teach them respect and how to treat a lady.  I had to snap this pic of Ryan taking care of his friend... this doesn't happen much at home, lol.

A lot of team building happens at camp.  This is from one of Amariah's rec times.  They all had their eyes closed except the leader in front who guided them all to the challenge course.  Amariah's the last girl in the pic, right before the little boy (youth pastor's son). 

The rain was a sweet surprise to our extremely hot week!  The girls enjoyed the rain also... Amariah on the left.

This was Falls Creek's first year for human-sized games and they were received quite well by the campers and sponsors alike.

The girls enjoying a game of Connect 4.

My baby girl wasn't too fond of her Momma going the first year of her youth camp.  I had to let it be known to her that I am a sponsor and go every year, it wasn't just for her (but yes, I was gonna keep an eye on her or try anyway on the 300+ acre campground!).  By the middle of the week, I became her best friend.  While it was sweet and I was loving it, I had to push her to do things with her friends.  We enjoyed our time together swimming, hiking, swinging, relaxing.  By swinging, this is what I meant...

See the little red and blue dot up in the trees?  That's Amariah as we pulled her up high to let her go... swinging

Kickboxing as she's swinging...

Me on the other hand, yelling No, No, that's too high!  Lol

But God saw fit for me to survive the ordeal.  When my shaky body was on the ground, I would have knelt down to kiss it but there were too many people standing around.  Instead I thanked God for allowing me to still be alive and for not letting me vomit on the nice worker that brought me down as quick as he could.

Amariah enjoyed our time together so to me that's all I needed to make it worth it.  The things we do for our kids... geez!

We had a wonderful week and a very blessed week.  I go to mentor to our young girls but somehow they always manage to teach me also.  I was thrilled to have 2 of my kids there this week.  God is so very good!

I am grateful that we set aside a week out of our summer to go to a secluded place where yes, we have fun but more importantly we surround ourselves with sisters and brothers in Christ, dwell in His Word consistently through the week and just allow His anointing to pour all over us.  Thank you Lord for such a special time~