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eReceipts Now Available
Electronic receipts will come to those who request them as
soon as that system is in place. You may receive another paper receipt or two,
but hopefully no more than that. The receipt will contain the same information
as the paper receipt, but will represent a significant cost savings to the
Rescue Mission. Currently the cost of producing and mailing a paper receipt is
82 cents each. The cost of each e-Receipt is 10 cents. Our desire is to be the
best possible stewards of the resources God provides to us through you.
If you wish to begin receiving e-Receipts for your donations,
simply email the following information to
alan@prm.info.
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any of your PRM paper receipts)
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If you wish to continue receiving paper receipts then you do
not need to do anything.
Please call 380.6909 if there are any questions.
Anniversary Appreciation Banquet
Liberty Baptist Church
Friday, November 5
Time & Theme to be Announced
Call now to reserve your table...380-6909.
Cover Article
“Camp Open Arms 2010 - Basic Training - Debrief"
This year’s Camp Open Arms theme was Basic
Training. Thanks to the help of a lot of folks, we were able to give the
Eastover Retreat Center a military look with some camouflage netting, banners,
and posters. Our goal was to help our campers understand the “Basics” about God,
Man, Jesus, and the Christian Life. It was truly a remarkable 2 weeks, and I saw
God’s mighty hand at work perhaps as clearly as I have ever seen in my life. It
is my goal to now share with you the events of COA 2010 – Basic Training…
Approx. 2 weeks before COA:
Tim
Coats, board member and long-time COA head counselor of the Blue Boys’ Cabin
called me to talk about camp and his dad’s failing health. He just wanted us to
know that he was planning on coming to COA, but his dad’s health was very
unstable.
Teen Week (12-16 jul)
Sunday, 11 jul 2010/1700 hrs
(5:00 pm) –
The counselors have gathered at Eastover for
our usual time of meeting, decorating, and final prep before the campers arrive
on Monday. Tim is there, but shares with us that his dad needs him (and we
agree). He steps down from Head Counselor with the following plan – he will come
back over each morning to lead the Karate class and then head back home. This is
a tough plan, but workable. However, we are without a head counselor for the
Blue Boys. We ask Stephen Schindler (one of the counselors already assigned to
the Blue Boys) to step up and serve as head counselor. He agrees, but we are
still short a counselor in the Blue Cabin (we need 4 total… we only have 3).
 For
the next 30-40 minutes we brainstorm with each other and all the other
counselors to come up with a counselor to replace Tim – keep in mind campers
arrive in 18 hours, and we need someone who can drop everything and come live at
Eastover with us for a week. God, of course, was not surprised by this turn of
events, and within an hour after receiving our call, Bobby Newman is packed and
on-site to take Tim’s place!!! Praise God!!! Now we can move ahead with our
normal Teen Week camp.
Monday, 12 jul 2010/1818 hrs (6:18 PM) – I receive an email from Tim Coats sharing
with us that his dad passed away about an hour prior. A text message comes in a
few minutes later from
 Tim asking me to call him ASAP. When we talked he shared
that he obviously would not be able to make it over in the mornings to lead the
Karate class. Here is where our God showed Himself to us once again… between the
time of receiving the email and receiving the text message, Casey West, (a young
lady who was at Eastover that week to help out with our 2 youngest sons) shares
with us that she is only 1 belt away from receiving her black belt in karate,
and she would be happy to teach in Tim’s place!! Wow!! Before Tim even had a
chance to tell me he couldn’t teach Karate for us, God had a replacement
on-site!!!
Friday, 16 jul 2010/1430 hrs (2:30 PM) --
We said goodbye to a great group of teenagers. Because so many had been to camp
before and already knew Jesus as their Savior we were able to use this week as a
time of discipleship and recommitment. Several campers cried during our Thursday
night campfire describing COA as the highlight of their summer… as the only spot
where they can truly escape their difficult home lives. Several were so sad
because they would be too old to come back next year. During that great week, 3
young men met their Lord and Savior, and one young lady rededicated her life to
the Lord.
Preteen week (19-23 jul)
Sunday, 18 jul 2010/ 2000 hrs (8:00 PM) -- The PreTeen counselors & staff arrived once
again to meet and prepare for the campers’ arrival the next day.
 Since many of
the counselors were returning from the first week, and since the decorations
were already in place, we found ourselves with a little more free time than the
week before. This free time, combined with the youthful ages of our counselors
resulted in some pranks. They started out small, but quickly grew!
My only request to our counselors concerning these pranks was that as the
campers arrive the next day a cease-fire be called in order to devote full
attention to the campers. My counselors honored this request beautifully, and
when the campers arrived, they were ready to go to work!!
Wednesday, 21 jul 2010/1700 hrs (5:00 PM) –
It had
been a fairly normal week up to this point. These PreTeen campers (ages 8-11)
are in sharp contrast to the teenagers of the week before. The PreTeens have
very short attention spans, explosive levels of energy, and little success in
controlling this energy. Some of them are shockingly defiant at their young
ages. This is sad, but not surprising.
Wednesday, 21 jul 2010/2030 hrs (8:30 PM) – Rick Jones, the head counselor of the Red
Boys informs me that his stomach is really upset. The day’s activities had come
to a close, and everyone was dismissed to their cabins. One counselor is
required to stay back with the campers after they are down for the night. The
others will drift back over to the dining hall and hang out or play games until
11 PM when we call “lights out.”
Wednesday, 21 jul 2010/2115 hrs (9:15 PM) – The Red Girls were really having a tough
time settling down, and the counselors had asked me to go speak to them. After I
finished, I walked out into the large center room to learn that one of the
little boys in the red cabin had just thrown up, along with Rick (Head
Counselor). We began to speculate what could be causing it… something they ate,
the extreme heat, dehydration, or… a stomach bug. At that point we simply did
not know.
Wednesday, 21 jul 2010/2145 hrs (9:45 pm) –
 By now point several boys from the Red Boys
cabin were now sick, along with Stephen (a counselor from the Blue Boys cabin).
When a boy on a top bunk threw up, he was moved to a bottom bunk. Two of the Red
counselors, Lee & Jake, were steadily emptying trash cans, sanitizing them, and
returning them. Lysol and Febreeze
had become valuable commodities. 5-gallon buckets lined the rows of bunks in the
cabin.
Wednesday, 21 jul 2010/2315 hrs (11:15 PM) – Approximately half of the boys in the red
cabin were now sick. One camper from the Blue Boys cabin got sick. He was moved
over to the Red Boys to avoid waking the rest of the Blue cabin. I had never
experienced anything like this and honestly did not know how to handle it. It
seemed only a matter of time before other counselors started getting sick as
well. I stayed in a constant state
of prayer for wisdom. As I walked back into the big center room of the cabin
area I was comforted by what I saw. The girl counselors who had been right there
ready to help had pulled back, formed a circle, and they were praying. We all
seemed to realize that within a couple of hours, this had gone from a child
getting sick to a widespread stomach bug with no end in sight. We knew we were
in way over our heads and needed health, strength, energy, and wisdom from our
Lord. The girls shared that they were going on to bed so they could help take
care of the guy counselors’ responsibilities the next morning. My guy counselors
were taking care of these campers in remarkable ways!! Few teenagers are ever
asked to care for a brother or sister who’s suffering from a stomach bug. But
here are young guys taking care of over a dozen kids (most of whom were
strangers to them at the beginning of the week).
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/0100 hrs (1:00 AM) – It seemed we were through the worst of it.
No one new had gotten sick for about 30-40 minutes. The cabins were mostly
quiet, and we were all exhausted. We talked a little about the next day’s
schedule and how to continue, since 2 counselors were sick and several others
would be operating on minimal sleep.
thursday, 22 jul 2010/0600 hrs (6:00 AM) – I received a text from Coach Fletcher
telling me that his daughter Kristin, who was serving as Red Girls Head
Counselor, had been sick since around 2:00 that morning.
2 other Red Girl counselors had come down
with it as well – Jana around 3:30 AM, and Amanda around 4:00 AM. By now Coach
Fletcher is not feeling well either!! Also during this time, Lee & Jake, who had
spent most of the night caring for their Red Boys, had both caught the bug.
Coach Fletcher and Rev. Poteat sit down
and quickly re-work the morning’s schedule, using the workers that we still have
that are well. We now have 7 of our 16 counselors that are sick. If any of our
other counselors get sick we don’t know how we can keep going!!
We cancel our 7 AM staff meeting, since less than half of our counselor
staff would be able to attend.
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/0730 hrs (7:30 AM) – We begin to rouse the campers. It’s
difficult to distinguish between those who are genuinely sick and those who just
feel sick because of what they have had to listen to and smell throughout the
night. We tell the sick ones to stay
in bed – those that are well quietly get dressed and slip on out to go to
breakfast and to start their day – of course, we’re not even sure what their day
is going to look like!
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/0800 hrs (8:00 AM) – Breakfast – this, of course, was a tenuous
time.
 No one really wanted to eat. The power of suggestion when you are around a
stomach bug is quite strong. Trash cans lined the aisles between the breakfast
tables… just in case. As it turns out, they were needed as more and more kids
got sick. Our camp was a skeleton of what it was just the night before. Not only
did we have almost half of our counselors sick, we also had to leave well
counselors behind in the cabins to be with the sick campers.
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/0845 hrs (8:45 AM) – By this point, we’ve seen enough to know
this bug is probably not over. With great pain and disappointment I decide that
COA must be called off early. It was so difficult for me to see how this was
God’s best, but we simply could not go on for another 36 hours. This decision
introduced so many tasks that towered before us. The four largest were:
1.
All the campers’ parents must be reached to
inform them of the bug and to let them know we are bringing them back to Newport
News early.
2.
We need to get in touch with our bus and van
drivers to see if they are available on short notice to get to Surry County to
drive our campers home.
3.
The invitation that would normally take place
at Thursday night’s campfire now needs to take place at the end of the boys’ and
girls’ morning chapel services.
4.
We need to get all the campers’ luggage packed
up in the midst of being so sick.
It was the size of these tasks which
makes the last 4 hours of COA the most remarkable!! Earlier in the week we had
taught the campers of God’s omnipotence – His all-powerful nature. We quoted
Jer. 32:17, which says, “Ah, Sovereign
Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and
outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” (NIV) We stressed to the
campers that this all-powerful God would be able to handle anything that came
before them…He was trustworthy!! This is an easy principle to teach… it is
difficult to put it into practice when you’re in the middle of a trial.
For many of us, this was the biggest trial we had faced in a long, long
time!!
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/1000 hrs (10:00 AM) – Just over an hour had passed since the
de cision was made to cancel camp. During that hour I taught the boys’ chapel
service (only about half of the boys were well enough to be there) while
Preacher, Barbara, Shirley, Coach Fletcher, and Faith were busy making phone
calls to parents. In one hour they had gotten in touch with each and every
parent!! The parents were aware of the stomach bug and were making plans to pick
up their children at 2:30 at the Rescue Mission. Absolutely amazing!!!
The bus and van drivers were also
contacted, and were ready and willing to drop everything and come transport our
sick ones back to Newport News and Gloucester!!! Two of the four huge tasks were
done!!
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/1100 hrs (11:00 AM) – Faith has now taught the chapel service to
the girls.
 At the end of each service we offered an invitation. We closed in
prayer asking for a show of hands of anyone who wished to talk more about their
relationship with the Lord. Little hands went up all around the room! As a
matter of fact there were more hands than healthy adults. At the same time,
almost from out of nowhere here came our counselors. They had been told that the
invitation was being given. As sick as they were they got up and made their way
to the chapel service. They were weak and exhausted, but here they were -- some
wrapped in blankets due to fevers – all of them with Bibles in hand ready to
finish the ministry they had begun! One by one, the counselors would finish
their work with these campers. Several of them brought their Decision Card s to
me to tell me what had just happened in their lives!! In the course of those few
hours 18 young souls became part of God’s family!!!
The third huge task was now completed and
our heads were still spinning at what we saw God accomplish!!!
Thursday, 22 jul 2010/1300 hrs (1:00 PM) – The dining hall lunch crowd was very, very
small. In the absence of so many counselors, it was remarkable to see every
available person stepping up to be with these campers at lunch – Shirley,
Barbara, Preacher, Faith, & Emily & others – all on hand and ready to fill in
wherever needed!! The trash cans were still close at hand, and as you can
imagine, none of us felt much like eating anything.
The campers were now back in their
cabins packing up. The drivers were on-site and the campers would be departing
in half-an-hour. I went to the cabins to begin calling the roll and getting the
right campers on the right bus. As I walked in, I was once again remarkably
impressed with my counselor staff. Here they were again – weak, pale, exhausted,
drenched in sweat, but doing their best to make sure their campers got packed up
and got their luggage to the truck. It was controlled chaos, but within 20
minutes, the cabins were empty of luggage, campers were on buses and vans, final
roll call was made, and the buses rolled out at 1:30 on the nose. Within a few
more minutes, the counselors packed themselves up, crawled into their cars, and
headed home. The 4th & final task had been completed!
Camp Open Arms 2010 – Basic Training
had come to an end -- two amazing weeks which resulted in 20 young people being
introduced to their Savior, and 4 more rededicating their lives to Him.
A word about the coa counselors:
I have always enjoyed Camp Open Arms because it
allows me the privilege of spending two weeks with some amazing folks!!! I
always leave impressed with the spiritual depth and maturity of the young
counselors who volunteer to work at this camp. This year was above and beyond
anything I have ever seen before.
These young counselors who love to pull
pranks were the same counselors who spent their night emptying the buckets of
the young campers in their cabins… the same counselors who, although exhausted,
gave whatever was needed to make sure each camper got to meet Jesus!!! My
respect for them has always been high!!! It’s even higher now!!! Seeing them
reach so deep, in the midst of fierce trials, in order to carry on God’s work
makes me proud to know them and to serve with them.
My deepest appreciation goes out to all
who served at, prayed for, paid for, and supported Camp Open Arms 2010 – Basic
Training!!! TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!!!!!!!
His,
Alan <><
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