Camp 2023 – Report #1

By Jaroy Carpenter • Executive Director, Lakeview Camp & Retreat Center • Waxahachie, Texas

Here at Lakeview Camp (Waxahachie, Texas), we are seeing amazing camps with large numbers of kids attending! By the end of this summer’s season, we will have had over 22,000 students at camp!

We are seeing the Lord do amazing things in kids’ lives. So many great life-changing moments happen at camp. We get to experience them every day. So many of those moments happen not only in the PRAY time but in the PLAY time as well.

At camp, God speaks to students in so many ways, cheering them on to let go of something they fear.

Last week I noticed a young man at the lake zipline trying to get enough courage to take the leap off the platform and experience the exhilaration his friends had experienced all week long. For probably an hour, he was up and down the zip tower in hopes that this last day was the day he could let go of his fears and release his faith to take the jump. All his friends were yelling at the top of their lungs, “Jump; you can do it.” Even though the crowd believed he could do it, he just couldn’t find the courage to do what he wanted to do so badly.

Finally, at the last minute of lake time, he took a deep breath, stepped off the platform, and experienced the thrill of his life. As he fell into the lake, he quickly raised up out of the water with a victory stance and screamed, “I did it!” He was raised to life in so many ways. That’s the power of camp. So many life-learned lessons happen at camp. Who knows what that young man will eventually accomplish in his life and for the kingdom of God because he finally let go and trusted.

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The Word says to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but to acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make your ways straight.” At camp, God speaks to students in so many ways, cheering them on to let go of something they fear. To give up on the way they think things may happen and just trust; to let go of fear and let their faith be released. In the thick of this summer’s incredibly slammed camp life, God speaks above the noise for all to hear his still quiet voice say, “I believe in you. You can do it.”

This summer, camps all across America are sowing seeds of faith, as souls are being won to the kingdom of God all summer long. Already in just a few weeks of our North Texas Assemblies of God camp season, we have seen right at 800 salvations, 1500 recommitments to Christ, 300 baptisms, over 500 encounters with the Holy Spirit, and almost 500 students called into ministry!

Read more from the Camp Roundtable Discussion.