Stuff God Did at Timber-Lee's Winter Xtreme

"Thank you for this weekend! You made me rethink things and want to grow even closer to God then I already am! This weekend was a great experience for our whole group. One of our friends trusted Jesus as her savior. This brought us all together and it was awesome to experience that with her! She is excited to read the Bible. She got her first Bible today. She is so excited!! Thanks again!"—from a high school student via Facebook.

We just got back from a weekend at Timber-lee with 450 high school students and youth leaders. 

[Click any pictures to enlarge for viewing.] Our family has had a long, fun, and spiritually significant relationship with Camp Timber-lee. The picture above was taken about 10 years ago in 2003. 

This year (2013), at Sadey's request, we all lined up for he picture above like we in 2003. So now you can compare the two pictures and see how the Allison kids have grown up and how I have grown older and how Stacy never never seems to age at all. (I still think that's because I'm a low stress marriage partner.)

This year I had the honor of speaking to about 450 high school students and their youth leaders. I've never experienced a year where a significant number of students didn't respond by receiving Christ as Savior or re-engaging their relationship with God. And this year we saw lots of both. One reason for our long history with Timber-lee is simply because it's such a spiritually fruitful partnership. Don't get me wrong. We know it's God doing the work. We just like partnering together for His ride.

"Thanks for an amazing weekend at Timber-Lee! The message was powerful and I know the students enjoyed it as well! God bless!!!"—from a youth leader via Facebook

Tubing, tobogganing, broom ball, outstanding food (did I mention the bacon and eggs for breakfast?) and much more—combined with the general fun and craziness of students and youth leaders—combined with a powerful opportunity to encounter God in a fresh way makes this a life-changing time together.

"Thanks for sharing the Gospel at Timber-lee this past weekend! The best part was seeing a student tell his mom he accepted Jesus. —from a youth leader via Twitter

It was a blast to partner with my friends, Hello Industry, the worship band for the weekend—who are also from Central IL!

"I want to thank you for the awesome weekend and bringing a message that allows God to move in students lives and bring them to Christ."—youth leader via Twitter

In between all the fun stuff and large group gatherings, there's lots of time for connecting one-on-one and in small groups.

"I just wanted to say thank you for the wonderful weekend at timberlee. It was great, myself and two other friends welcomed Jesus as a savior. We have almost everybody who went with us already doing the 21 day challenge (reading 1 chapter of the Gospel of John for the next 21 days). It's just amazing. Thank you again, so much." —a student via Facebook

"I brought a couple of friends with me. I was fairly concerned coming into it just that they would feel out of place as someone who didn't believe or as someone who just starting to consider Jesus. One friend was an agnostic/borderline atheist, and I remember several times you saying something to the effect of "No matter where you are in your journey with God, I'm very glad you're here." I know for that specific friend, it was just what he needed to hear, so thank you." —a student via Facebook

Thank you for reading and enjoying these pictures. We are your Cadre missionaries and we know we couldn't do this without friends like you who pray for us and partner with us financially. Again, THANK YOU!

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