Happy Monday!

Early Friday morning I noticed a small crowd of pajama-clad junior high students gathering nearby The Blob. Too early for someone, especially a junior higher, to actually want to get into the cold pond water, my curiosity was peaked. I found a young man wading into the cold pond with his youth pastor. The young man wanted to be baptized in front of his peers to publicly proclaim his brand new faith in Christ.

One week earlier, the Hume Lake Board of Directors voted to expand our junior high camp to 500 students. (Why would anyone in their right mind want 500 junior high kids in one place?) We refer to them as "pre-people," but in reality, it is at this very stage that they are waking up to the whole concept that they are alive, that there is a greater sense of consequence to their actions, and that they have a soul. (See Time Magazine's article)

Age 13 is the statistical peak for making decisions for Christ. But all statistics aside, the combination of great recreation, fantastic speakers, and a clear presentation of the Gospel, all work together to reach young people. On Friday morning, one young man braved not just the cold water of the Meadow Ranch Pond, but also went before a crowd of his peers to proclaim the new direction of his life. He did this by allowing his youth pastor to dunk him under water, raising him back up to illustrate his own death, and new birth as a child of Jesus Christ.

Just another day at Hume,

Jeff Lilley
Executive Director
jlilley@humelake.org