Letter from a mountaintop

SUNDRE, ALTA.

I just gotta tell you a little bit about "Rise-Up" (the Alberta MB senior high youth retreat). It's too bad you couldn't be there at Camp Evergreen Sept. 12-14 because it proved to be an incredibly moving weekend, a huge spiritual milestone for my senior highs!

The speaker, Brad Jersak--well, to be quite honest, at first I wasn't too convinced about his unorthodox style of presentation--but did God ever use him to speak to the students. He gave us three pictures of Jesus. The first night, though, he "hooked us up to the high voltage right away" when he talked about our misplaced passions and how we needed to get rid of all the barriers blocking us from living a passionate life for God. He then talked about Jesus' gentle, peace-giving nature that frees us from guilt and shame. Next he moved us through the idea of God being a mighty hurricane, bigger than all of our inadequacies. Then, on Sunday morning, he talked about coming down the mountain. He used the story of the transfiguration to teach us that God wants to work just as powerfully in our "valleys" as in our mountaintop experiences. The students responded to the work God was doing in their lives during prayer and ministry times.

The worship was powerful as Dan Bergen and a bunch of awesome musicians seemed to move us right into the presence of God. It was as if the students were dying of thirst for it all. (In fact, the worship times were so energetic and powerful that I had to keep reminding myself that this was an MB retreat.) Jon Buller showed up on Saturday night. He played some of his amazing stuff at the coffee house that night and then led us in worship on Sunday morning.

Another huge part of the weekend were the times spent together as individual youth groups, where we shared more about what God was doing in our lives. These were great opportunities for prayer, support and group-building.

Camp Evergreen was an ideal setting for what God was doing, and the rain barely seemed to dampen the spirit of the weekend at all. Paul Isaac (the director) and his crew played a major part in making this event a success.

I just can't seem to get away from the picture that was left in my mind--120 students thirsting for an encounter with God and meeting Him. I wonder where they are going to satisfy their thirst now that they are back in their high schools? And what are we going to do to help them? Man, you really missed out!

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