Evangéliumi Hírnök, 2003 (95. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
2003-08-01 / 8. szám
Rama Youth Camp 2003 Page 8. Experiencing the Power of Prayer First Hand at the Rama Youth Camp Experiencing the Power of Prayer First Hand at the Rama Youth Camp Monday evening, June 30th of 2003, was the official opening date for the Hungarian Baptist Youth Camp. The young people were divided into four groups according to age group. Pastor Dan László, Steve Bakai and I had the opportunity to challenge and help one of the groups to experience a closer relationship with God. upon his prayer. God blessed him and gave him wisdom on how to build up the wall of Jerusalem and overcome internal and external challenges. After our Bible time, we practiced having a more meaningful communication with God, each day using a different way of praying. Tuesday morning, we all wrote down our first name, and turned it into an acronym. After each letter we chose a word, none of us ever sang that one. We took the challenge and since then learned it, so at the end of the week we were able to sing it during the convention. Wednesday, after the Bible study, we wrote a letter to God. My personal experience has been that often our prayers have become shallow and routine, so writing our prayers down gives a special way to express our thoughts and feelings to God. Each day we had the opportunity to have some fun time. The highlight of the week was the “capture the flag” game. Almost everybody was involved and had a great time, learning how to work in a team, and using strategy against the “enemy”. My prayer is that we would do the same in our spiritual life. One night we sang some songs around the campfire. God has revealed Himself to us in many different ways. Please continue to pray for us. Korry Gerstner __________________________August, 2003 What a week! It all started with the Camp Opening Conference (Tábornyitó) at the Hungarian Baptist Camp in Rama from June 28th to the 30th. It was an event filled weekend with great weather, and great messages given to us by the Lord. On the 30th, all present were kindly asked to depart so that for the third year in a row, we could experience true comfort and fun physically. Biblical teachings were by: Rev. László Dan from Toronto, Kornél Gerstner from Hungary but studying in and living in Chicago, and Steven Bakai from Toronto, but currently studying in Budapest. Every day would include two opportunities for us to get together as a large group and study the word of God, sing and pray together. There were participants from Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles with a total of 16 youth (including 3 educators). Total attendance of the entire camp was about 55-60. Every day provided an opportunity to spend time together with old friends, but also to make new ones as some of us met for the first time. Since all of us spoke English, most of the get-togethers took place in English because some of the youth spoke little to no Hungarian. Our bible studies focused on one lesser-known book of the Bible: Nehemiah, and one very well known book: Matthew, more specifically the Sermon on the Mount. Nehemiah showed us how to pray and since the focus of the conference and convention was: “Lord, teach us to pray,” studying this book was very appropriate. From Matthew, we took a close look at the “Blessings” portion of the Sermon on the Mount. Steve talked about the importance of under-Pastor Dan László, Steve Bakai and I had the opportunity to challenge and help one of the groups to experience a closer relationship with God. The theme for the camp was “teach us to pray. ’’ There were many times when our group experienced the power of prayer. We also shared some personal experiences, so that we could leam from one another. I had the opportunity to challenge the group during the prayer-devotional time. Each morning, we looked up Nehemiah ’s prayers. It was amazing to see Nehemiah’s frequent communication with God. In the mean time, he also acted which would describe and lead us in our prayer. The next day, after the Bible study, we all looked up prayers from songbooks. Many of those songs are actual prayers, which talk about the writer’s emotions, daily struggles and personal walk with God. Each songwriter was free and very honest with God. It was very interesting as we shared our songs and three of the group members picked the same song. When we tried to sing it, we realized that
