Week Two: What We're Good For

As Teen Staff, we constantly meet new kids (the weeklies) and seeking to form real connections. Some of the kids who live at Maranatha all summer (the residents), also come to our daily meetings and activities. It's a good mix of new and familiar faces each week. I was overwhelmed with the challenge of befriending and then saying goodbye to the three girls in my small group last week. Amanda, Jill, and Mackenzie had good insight and real issues to talk about but I shot myself in the foot by feeling inadequate from the get go.

In spite of my awkwardness, God gave me an opportunity to pray for Amanda and her sister Allison when they were having a tough time during the prayer walk. I had to swallow my fear to ask them if I could pray for them in the first place. But when I laid hands on them I felt the Lord's heart towards them and was able to speak his words of encouragement. Praying for them turned out to be a blessing for me too because I had been struggling with finding a place and using my strengths at camp. Although praying for someone when you don't know a thing about what is upsetting them is uncomfortable, I really felt in my element. It didn't seem to matter that I wasn't connecting in conversation the way that I had hoped. What mattered was the gifts God I had equipped me with for this exact situation.

I went on to pray for four other emotional girls. Each experience was humbling and difficult, but I believe God gave me the words to say. I don't know for sure if I conveyed what the Lord wanted to say with each girl. However, I heard from another resident that Amanda and Allison felt a lot of peace after the prayer walk and were excited to share their experience with prayer. That's one for God :)