Blessed are those whose strength is in You,

In whose heart are the highways to Zion.

They go from strength to strength;

Each one appears before God in Zion.

Psalm 84:5-7

The last twenty-four hours have passed like a whirlwind.  About this time yesterday, leaders began meeting students at the airport in Atlanta.  Since then, we've said farewell to our families, met our teammates, made the long journey back to camp on a colorful school bus, crammed our luggage into tents and been surprised by a sudden rainstorm.  We have also begun to worship the Lord and study His Word together, and we successfully completed our first team challenge: make a team flag!

Today, we'll take in several teaching sessions, work on team unity through a series of outdoor activities and then enjoy worship and teaching tonight.  As our camp director leads the evening session, he will speak about how God has specifically chosen each one of us for a relationship with Him and what that means for our personal lives as well as our ministries on the field.  Pray that each of us will receive this message and apply it to our lives!

In addition, please praise the Lord with us for several ways we have already seen Him work:

     -- All of our luggage stayed dry through a major rainstorm

     -- Some luggage that was lost by the airline has already been returned to us

     -- A student whose flight was cancelled made it in on another flight last night

     -- The airline for our Guatemala flights was experiencing a pilot strike, but the issue has been

         resolved so we should have no trouble on our travel day

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog.  Please check back soon for more updates and pictures!