Jehovah Jireh, God Provides
I know it’s repeated often by our staff, but I can’t believe we’re already at the end of another summer. This year was my sixteenth summer at camp, and every summer seems to pass faster than the one before it. Each year it seems like as soon as we’re through with orientation it’s suddenly Sabbath week, and then we turn around and it’s the last week of summer camp. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun.
Now that we are well into September and the winter shutdown of camp’s facilities is fast approaching, it’s a good time to reflect back on the summer and all the activity that happened. As I thought and prayed about a topic or theme to write about, God’s name of Jehovah Jireh and God’s provision kept coming to mind. Here at a full-time ministry like Echo Ranch, we have the opportunity to witness God extraordinarily provide for us time after time.
One way that we see God provide for us year after year is through staffing – specifically, our summer staff, which each year comprises thirty or forty young adults who volunteer to come serve with us. Our model of asking college-age young men and women to not only give up a whole summer of work but to actually pay us to come work here is far from normal. Other Christian camps we talk to can’t believe we are able to staff our camp without paying our counselors. However, we consistently see God bring just the right people to be our counselors, wranglers, kitchen help and facilities workers. Not only do we have enough staff each summer, but they are high-quality staff. They are driven leaders with a high desire to share the Gospel and to serve however necessary. Jehovah Jireh, God provides.
Another way that we see God plainly providing for us as an organization is through finances. It goes without saying that as a non-profit ministry, our finances aren’t always overflowing. In the last six years, however, we have built a bigger chapel to accommodate our growing camper numbers; two new single-family, two-story cottages for our staff families with kids; four new guest cabins to house volunteers who come to serve with us throughout the summer; and a bunch of other smaller construction projects. All of it was built by volunteer labor and with donated funds from people who believe in the work that God is doing at ERBC. A more recent case of this happened just this summer. We have plans to build two more single-story staff cottages but had little funding for capital projects. We knew that we are growing as a team and felt like this was the right direction to go, but this winter, we agreed as a staff that it would be unwise to go into debt in order to start building. If we were meant to build them, we concluded, God would provide us the funds. Several months later, in late June, an individual contacted our camp director and said that he had sold some property and wanted to make a donation to camp. It was, in fact, the largest lump sum donation ERBC has ever received, and in the course of a day the project went from about ten percent funded to one hundred percent funded. Praise God! Jehovah Jireh, God provides.
One last example that comes to my mind is the way that people with a particular skillset show up exactly when we need them. Some would call it uncanny or coincidental; I know it’s a divine appointment. For example, a couple years ago, our septic systems at camp needed to be cleaned out – a difficult, dirty, and dreaded job. Who arrives on the work team the next week? Three guys who professionally clean out septic systems for a living! Another time, one of our staff kids was filleting a fish and cut his finger pretty badly. Who happens to be in camp who can help? An operating room doctor visiting on a work team. Time after time, God sends us the people with exactly the right skills or talents that we need at just the right moment. Time after time, Jehovah Jireh, God provides.
As another camp season ends and we reflect on all that it held, we know we have so much to be thankful for. Kids heard and accepted the good news of the Gospel this summer and entered into life with Christ. Our staff deepened their walk with God and grew as disciples. We ministered to our community members and were the hands and feet of Christ to them as they spent time at camp as part of a retreat. And all in all, Jehovah Jireh, God provides. Praise be to God!