Kingdom of God Networking
I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes as I walked into the cafeteria before breakfast, but I stopped dead in my tracks moments after entering the building. Rather than the enticing aroma of bacon, the frustrating scent of burned-out electronics filled my senses. I looked at the cafeteria staff who confirmed my suspicions that the warming oven had died—again.
I wasn’t entirely surprised. The warming oven had quit working several times already this summer. Our facilities manager, Mark, had worked on it and replaced the thermostat. When it died again while Mark was out of town for his mother’s funeral, one of our supporters sent a professional repairman to take a look. “This is a really old machine,” the repairman said as he was wrapping up his work. “If this doesn’t fix it, you’re going to need to replace it.”
So, there we were, in the middle of summer camp, less than 24 hours after the repairman left, and the warmer had quit again. A replacement was going to cost over $2,000 and would take almost a week to arrive. How would we pay for it? And what would we do in the meantime? The solution, we knew, was in God’s hands.
O.A. had been teaching lately about networking within the Kingdom of God. We decided that Facebook could be a handy tool to facilitate that. We shared the need and even created an online fundraiser so that people could make donations. Within ten hours, we had raised the entire $2,200 needed to pay for the oven! A couple of extra donations even covered the shipping.
I looked through the list of people who had contributed toward the purchase and was so pleased to see that the donors included longtime supporters, parents of campers, former staff members, and even leaders of other camps. In the meantime, Sam Burleson, pastor of nearby Salem United Methodist Church, offered to let us borrow their warming oven until the new one arrived. It was a beautiful example of Kingdom of God networking. Believers of all ages and from all walks of life had come together so that we could continue the work of ministry here at South Mountain Christian Camp.
You are part of that network too. And your contributions to the Kingdom of God go far beyond South Mountain Christian Camp. Every conversation you share, every prayer you pray, and every skill you lend are vital parts of this worldwide network to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to people. God is using you to make a difference!
If you would like to partner with us through your giving, you can easily make a contribution through the donate button below.
