This week at Horse Camp we are stepping into a place of Wonder as we live together in the midst of God's beautiful creation, bond with one of God's incredible creatures, and experience the love of our God in Christian community.

This week we are inviting your kids to cultivate their curiosity about God and it has been such a gift to watch them do that. We've invited them to ask the questions they have about God and the life of faith and to wonder together as we all seek to know God more.

Each day, we have a different question that guides us. Yesterday, our question was "What if God is bigger?" We had our closing vespers under the stars and the cross at Highpoint, a beautiful spot in an open field at the highest point on our camp. We worshipped right at dusk and as the sun disappeared into the horizon, we invited the kids to lay down and look up at the night sky as the stars began to make their appearance. We talked about how big our God is - that our God is big enough to hold whatever worries we carry - whatever problems we see in the world around us. We gave them a chance to pray those worries and problems up into the great big sky, up to our God. To hear a group of middle schoolers voice the brokenness they see in our world was a sacred thing.

We then read these words of scripture from Isaiah 40:26 -

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one

and calls forth each of them by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

We reminded them that their God is powerful and mighty, and that their mighty and powerful God also is the God who knows them, created them, and calls them each by name. As their counselors spoke each of their names up into the night sky, we reminded them that their God is big enough to hold whatever worries, fears, or problems they face.

Highpoint is located in the midst of a large horse pasture that our horses are turned out into each night. As we worshipped, our herd of horses started meandering closer and closer to us, until by the end, some had seemed to join us, standing right at the edges of the tarps on which we were all laying. It was holy - worshiping together, under the expansive night sky, with our horses surrounding us and the large high point cross above us - it was a holy moment nestled in a week chock full of holy moments.

We are so grateful to get to share in this week of holy, crazy, challenging and fun moments with your children! Thank you so much for entrusting them to us.

In the name of our big and awesome God,

Clare and Julie

MS Horse Camp Co-Directors