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I believe only heaven will reveal the impact camp has had in the lives of so many young people. Escaping the distractions of daily life to concentrate entirely on your walk with God often produces great spiritual growth and development in the lives of believers. This year, our church was greatly blessed because of camp ministry.
In the beginning of August, we held our very first kids camp. This was the first time our people had ever participated in an outreach like this, so there were many concerns preceding the three day camp. After passing out 1,000 invitations in our surrounding neighborhoods and setting up decorations in the church, all we could do was pray and wait! On the first day of camp, there were 200 kids in attendance. That number grew to 250 the second day and climaxed at 350 children ages 5-12 on the last day. We were ecstatic to see such an unexpected turnout. However, what was most encouraging was to watch our people serve the Lord. One lady taught a Bible lesson for the first time ever. One young man helped in leading much of the program. One man brought 40 kids from his neighborhood each day and paid for their bus fare! All of the workers came faithfully and helped with games, snacks, songs, teaching and crowd control. While we have seen fruit from the kids camp, the most evident growth has been noted in the believers. God used kids camp to grow our people in a special way.
Two weeks after kids camp, our teenagers attended teen camp. As in the past, we worked together with four other churches and held our fifth teen camp. This year, we were privileged to host Camps Abroad, a ministry of the Wilds Christian Camps. They provided so much help, guidance, supplies, advice and so much more for our camp. We look forward to seeing what God will do in the years to come through our camp ministry.
This year, there were 17 campers and 4 counselors who attended camp from our church. God worked both in the lives of the campers and counselors. We praise the Lord that two of our counselors led someone to Christ for the first time ever! They are fruit that is now producing more fruit all for the cause of Christ! In total, seven of our teenagers accepted Christ as Savior and many others made great decisions for Christ. After returning from camp, the teenagers gave testimony of the work God did in their hearts in church. It was wonderful to hear them express in their own unique way what God did in their lives! Since camp has ended, three discipleships have already been started. We pray God will continue to give fruit that remains and produces more fruit.
We thank God for the work He is doing in and through our church here in Madagascar. We are overwhelmed by the work God continues to do in the hearts of these dear people. Madagascar is truly an open mission field with too few laborers. We would ask you to pray specifically for God to send more laborers to this mission field which is ripe unto harvest. Pray that these new laborers would come from both inside and outside of the country.
As always, we want to express our appreciation to you and for you! God is using you to help reach Madagascar with the Gospel. May He continue to bless you as much as you have been a blessing to us!
The Browns to Madagascar
“The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38