Campers SHAKEN

Matt Miles • June 13, 2023

   Genesis Week Camp has become one of my favorite weeks in the summer. Ten years ago the camp was started by Ryan Cox, my now colleague. It is a unique church camp in Illinois since it is the only place we teach year after year. Over the course of 3 years, Genesis Week covers Creation, Flood, and Babel so students that attend every year from middle through high school get these worldview foundations twice. The Lord has provided an avenue for us to impact young lives now and for generations to come. This year I was reminded of the importance of this camp, the first of the summer season.


  This year’s camp maintenance director is a former Genesis Week camper. It was great to catch up and see what the Lord has been doing in his life. He is now married to a fellow Genesis Week camper from years back and has two children. (This is a gentle reminder from the Lord we are not getting any younger.) He directly equated the strength of his faith to the study and worldview development each summer at Genesis Week. I was able to meet his wife and children over lunch one day. She expressed similar sentiment for the two years of Genesis Week she attended, stating, “They were my favorite weeks of camp ever.”


   One evening at campfire, a camper got up and expressed the Lord has called him to full-time preaching and teaching of the Word. He relayed to his fellow campers that the Lord, through Genesis Week, had greatly impacted and equipped him for ministry. I don’t know how many of you have the opportunity to impact young lives for the Kingdom, but please don’t pass on those opportunities. He went on to express that during his first summer my teaching had been most impactful. There are moments in life that are more than humbling, yet most rewarding at the same time – this was one of them.


   Another camper approached me and stated her desire to be a “creation scientist”. She asked how to be one. We talked through a whole game time about different avenues and possibilities. I expressed to her the need for more to step up and be called to science. She shared that for the entire past year she has carried everywhere the books she bought last year at Genesis Week so she could give Biblical answers to friends and family members on foundational issues from Genesis. I pray that the Lord continues to use her in a mighty way, as I observed her influence on fellow campers all week with positive results.


   This year, Genesis Week impacted 102 camper lives, along with all the adult staff. The Lord saved 6 students that realized He is the only door to salvation, and He called 5 students to vocational ministry. Ryan and I are deeply impacted year after year with the opportunity to pour Christ’s foundation into students’ lives for eternity. We thank the Lord for your support that makes this Kingdom work possible and encourage you to be SHAKEN to service, if you are not already. The Lord is coming, and there are many lost that need His direction. Blessings!

By Bob Dugas May 23, 2025
NS-29 Launch
By Matt Miles May 22, 2025
As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
By Ryan Cox May 22, 2025
Moses & History (part 2)
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