Never the Same Camp.

Since partnering with Poetice in 2010, I've seen so much change in how our own family lives and wrestles with God's heart for justice.  One thing we've become free to enjoy is knowing this: we do not have to do it all.

Let that sink in.  The weight of the world's brokenness is not ours to carry.

In joining with Poetice, we are able to invest in programs that promote real, lasting change.  Progress that moves Zambian communities forward right now, and sets the stage for generational shifts toward health and wholeness. 

And we aren't just working for physical healing.  We are laboring toward wholeness.  Complete healing for a nation, for communities, for families, for individual souls to be united with their Creator, free to worship the God who made them and sustains them.  This is good news.

As we work together toward these goals, we are organically bound up in that work of righteousness, justice, and worship and can't help but be made right ourselves, too.  Because we partner in this work together, bonds are formed across oceans, we're all set free, moving toward greater wholeness in our own hearts, families, communities.  It's beautiful.

One of the most powerful things our Zambian staff does is organize and implement student camps.  It's a time of community, joy, worship, education, and artistic opportunity.  We don't simply do a little good, have a little fun, and send these young people on their way.  We're not satisfied unless we see that these students have truly been impacted by their time at camp, never the same.

The local staff absolutely knocks it out of the park every time; passionate, equipped, bold,  eloquent, and dedicated to seeing real change in these students' lives.  I couldn't talk them up enough.  This ministry is driven straight from the heart of God.

Students come to camp from many different communities.  They receive truth, empowerment, prayer, essential HIV/AIDS education, good meals, an introduction to the arts, and time to just enjoy life. 

We labor for these students to leave camp never the same, transformed.  They then carry these things home with them, sharing them with their families, friends.  We labor for them to return empowered to create change in their own lives, their own communities. 

This is how Africa will be healed; one heart at a time, through the empowerment and building up of this next generation of leaders. 

We don't need to speak every native tongue, to engage with every person individually, to carry the burden of saving a nation on our own backs.  We partner with God in His work together, a community of like-minded passionate workers, bound together under one cause. 

We each have something to bring to the table, and together God takes these gifts, multiplies them, and makes a feast.