Waves of Mercy, Waves of Grace

As Week 2 of our Lake Ann Summer is in full swing, it’s about time for me to talk about Week 1.

Last Monday, campers finally arrived at Lake Ann! We were all so excited for the chance to finally reach out to these awesome students of many different ages. I spent the morning greeting campers as they got out of buses and vans and cars and the afternoon moseying around to different camp activities, like the Handicraft barn (and the local post office to mail “official HeartSong stuff” to my boss). In the evening, we were all so excited for our first three chapels! And junior chapel went so well, just as I had remembered it. As you’ll see, leading campers of this age in music is one of my favorite things about my job.

Tuesday was our first day of six chapels. Junior chapel was amazing, once again, because I decided to change the motions for one of the junior songs back to the “Lake Ann Style” motions, and lots of the counselors got really excited to help teach them! The campers really loved the song, too, and we all had a blast hearing them sing. I also got to work in the Snack Shack again! Of course, I missed Anjela and Elisha, but I’m excited to work with Joe and Eric and also spend time with Amanda, my roommate for the summer, who works at the coffee shop in the Red Canoe.

Wednesday and Thursday I spent a lot of time outside, and somehow missed entire sections of my skin while applying sunscreen, so ended up with an awkward sunburn. But that’s okay, because Wednesday I got to help with the ZORBS again!! The program director runs it differently than last year’s; he jumps in with two feet and does a lot of the work to get the Zorb back up the hill so the counselors have less work to do. Ashtyn, Abby, and I helped with the pushing and filling up the Zorb with air and filling/dumping buckets of water. I was excited that Abby and Ashtyn both got to experience what I had essentially done every Wednesday last summer, and they both loved it as much as I did. Thursday, I went to the Lavinrac (Carnival spelled backwards) that the junior high puts on for the juniors. The unofficial rules says that you cannot be at the Lavinrac without getting wet… I should have worn my bathing suit. But it was still a ton of fun, and chapel that night was amazing as always (especially junior chapel).

So here comes the Story of the Week. Friday night we discovered there was a huge schedule conflict that put the Junior Chapel and huge combined chapel at the same time. The program director told me that they would work something else out for the juniors and that we shouldn’t worry about it. HECK NO!! I could NOT sit back and let this happen; all those juniors were so excited to sing all their favorite songs that night (which is how I had organized the song schedule) and I knew that they would be so sad if we weren’t there. I spent the next half-hour before combined chapel trying to work it out for someone to start early or late or rearrange the order of chapel… I talked to so many people about how we could work this out. Finally, the program director for the juniors found a way to rearrange their chapel service so the speaker would speak first and then we would come in late and play the music. By then, there was so much confusion that I decided it would be better if just I went, in case the timing wasn’t quite right and I couldn’t make it back in time for the final song of combined chapel. So I found Cole, Dexter’s brother who is on support staff at Lake Ann, and gave him the binder of songs for the juniors and told him to grab a guitar. Our full band played combined chapel, then during the message Cole and I ran over to play for junior chapel, then ran back just in time for the final song of combined chapel! What a crazy way God worked out that timing! And those juniors… they sang their hearts out like you wouldn’t believe. All the counselors came up front to help us lead motions, and they had so much energy and joy. The campers’ faces lit up as each song was announced, and they sang louder than they had all week. “Waves of mercy, waves of grace…O, my God, this love, how can it be?” As the juniors sang, I prayed and thanked God for His love and His waves of mercy and grace. And as the rest of camp sang “Give Me Faith” at the close of combined chapel, they sang just as loud. Oh, what a pleasing sound it is in our Lord’s ears to hear His children sing out praise to Him! No matter what the age or the song; it is a sweet, sweet sound in His ear. Thank You God for hearing our praise and being glorified in it!

Saturday, after our morning staff meeting, we went to our weekend church. We set up and had dinner with the pastor, then came back to camp since there was a host-home mix-up. Which was another wonderful testimony to God’s timing, because this just so happened to be the weekend that Josh proposed to Stephanie!! I got to be there when they got back to camp and see the ring and give Stephanie a huge hug!

Sunday was INCREDIBLE as well! We played the main service and youth service (so almost all our songs), and afterwards had a huge picnic with the church. We all spread out and talked to people of all sorts of ages and backgrounds. The pastor kept telling us what a blessing we had been to those people, but we kept saying that we were the ones who were blessed! The best churches are the places where we can build each other up, where fellowship is a blessing to both sides and God is glorified in every person. We went back to camp after that, set up, and then went back to Traverse City for dinner and fun hanging out on the beach. It was great to spend some time as a team since Ashtyn will be gone next weekend for her sister’s wedding. We took a team picture, mimicking the team picture we had taken at Freeze Out in the snow.

The title “Waves of Mercy, Waves of Grace” is much more than the lyrics of a junior song. God has given me so much mercy, getting rid of the bad in me that I don’t deserve to have taken away, and He has given me so much grace, giving me blessing after blessing after blessing that I don’t deserve. I am so in awe of how much He loves me. How can it be? God’s grace is so unexplainable and unorthodox; it is sometimes hard to believe that it is true. The only right response is worship. I praise God for every good thing He gave me last week that I didn’t deserve, for His waves of mercy and waves of grace.

Until next time, Soli Deo Gloria!!

~Deanna