Positive Role Models are Hard to Find

Brandon (far upper right in purple) and Tristan (lower right in neon green) pictured with their counselor Adam (middle in navy) and the rest for their cabin.
Brandon (far upper right in purple) and Tristan (lower right in neon green) pictured with their counselor Adam (middle in navy) and the rest for their cabin.

Most kids have a role model, someone who they admire. Unfortunately, some role models impact kids in a negative way, but there are some who make a positive, lasting impact. The inner city can be particularly challenging to find a positive role model, someone worth admiring and emulating. It is filled with teenage boys, young adults and older men in their community abandoning their families, infringing on the law and altogether leading lives of sin.

Brandon* and his friend Tristan* live in the inner city. Their impressionable eyes seeing this example set for them day after day. As you read in an earlier blog post about Tristan, he and Brandon were both able to Miracle Camp for a week this past summer due to a donation to the Victor Rupp Camp Scholarship Fund. While there, they got to experience positive, Christian male role models every day for a week.

Their camp counselor, Adam*, was among the first to make an impression. Adam was able to spend one-on-one time with each of them, talking about their home lives, friends and family. Not only did Adam intentionally show Jesus’ love to both Brandon and Tristan, he also led the boys through games and other activities with the rest of their cabin. Whether it was playing capture the flag in the woods, building sand castles on the beach, the “story game” at bedtime or getting into a water fight while washing camp cars, Adam also showed them love just by being their friend. Adam is confident that him being put with the boys as their camp counselor was no coincidence and that God was certainly at work in all of their lives.

We need your help to impact more FEC kids like Brandon and Tristan. After several years of giving children the gift of camp, the Victor Rupp Camp Scholarship Fund is running low. It is our hope to replenish the fund so we can continue sending children like Brandon and Tristan to FEC camps to be positively impacted and shown Jesus’ love.

Please consider making a donation to CSF for the Victor Rupp Camp Scholarship Fund and make a lifetime impact in a child’s life. To do so, please give online (choose “CSF – Camp Fund” from the dropdown menu) or send a check by mail. Thank you for your prayer and support to help CSF and FEC spread Jesus’ love through summer camp.

“…Faith, Hope, Love; But the greatest of these is Love”, 1 Cor. 13:13

Brandon and his counselor Adam.
Adam and Brandon strike a pose in front of the Miracle Camp sign.
Tristan and Adam.
Tristan and Adam take a goofy photo, sure to be a good memory!

 

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Camp Scholarships, Children

Camp scholarships change lives

TristanKickball
Tristan* and his best friend live in the inner city with their single moms. One of the boys had never been outside of the county, which is essentially all city.

In the past, Tristan has been disengaged. Unresponsive to the love shown to him at FEC’s inner-city Mission Church. Living in the inner city, unaware of and unable to experience life outside of the inner city leads to despair and a challenge to envision something different.

CSF manages the Victor Rupp Camp Scholarship fund. The program was set up by the family of Victor and Be Rupp, to honor their parent’s belief in the value of exposing kids to Christ through a Christian camp experience. This program was set up to provide $25 coupons to FEC churches to be given by the churches to needy children in their church to help defray the cost of attending camp. The number of coupons provided is based on the church attendance.

Mission Church wasn’t using their two allocated coupons. When asked, CSF found out that with the poor, a $25 coupon left too much of a financial burden to send their child to camp that costs $350-$400 for the week. Knowing the importance of opening a child’s mind to experiences other than the despair of the inner city, exposure to Christ’s love and the fun that a child experiences at camp, CSF decided to provide two camp scholarships that covered 90-95% of the cost of camp. This would allow the parents to still have some ownership in sending their child to camp.

Tristan’s mother, who was unaware that an experience like camp existed, was highly suspicious and reluctant to send her child to camp. After considerable encouragement by the Mission Church staff she agreed.

After a week at Miracle Camp, Tristan was exuberant. Positively overwhelmed by the experience and camp counselor. The one who was typically disengaged walked up to Mission Church pastor, Michael Brown, looked him in the eye and told him “thank you”.
His subsequent thank-you note says it all (with original spelling).

Dear Church,

Thank you few giving me a coupon to go to church camp I had so much fun I went swimming I went to chapel played soccer played football cougt a frog and went to bed.

Love Tristan

We need your help to impact more FEC kids like Tristan. Some Inner-city and other FEC families can’t afford to give their child the gift of camp. Your donation will positively overwhelm other inner city kids and kids from other FEC churches with an experience at an FEC church camp.

Please generously support the Victor Rupp Camp Scholarship Fund though a donation to CSF. To do so, please call CSF at 260-423-3649 or send an email to info@ChristianServiceFoundation.org. Thank you for your prayer and support to help CSF spread Jesus’ love through summer camp.

 

*Name has been changed to protect privacy of the child.

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