This past weekend I took a group of ladies from my church to a women's conference at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters in Andrews, NC. It was a wonderful weekend of worship and fellowship, and it was also a fun reunion for me because a group of ladies from the church where I grew up also attended the conference. Two of those ladies, along with their husbands, took me to Snowbird's youth camp for the very first time twenty years ago. They took me there every summer from the time I was 12 years old until the time I graduated from high school. This sweet reunion allowed me to reflect on the last twenty years of my life and be thankful for all of the people God has used to draw me closer to himself.
I grew up in a Christian home with my parents and my younger brother. We attended church and prayed regularly. My brother and I participated in Sunday School, church events, and Vacation Bible School. As a rule follower by nature, I mostly stayed out of trouble and tried hard in school and sports. While my parents and church did not preach a works-based salvation, I would have told you in my early years that I was a Christian simply because I thought I did far more good things than bad things. I saw the Bible as a book of rules we need to keep in order to make God happy. Since I was a good rule follower, I knew I had a ticket to heaven.
Thanks be to God, my pastor faithfully handled the Word of God each week. Right before I made my first trip to Snowbird, God showed me through the preaching of Scripture that “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6). God revealed my desperate need for a Savior to cleanse me from my sins, and he gave me a new heart to love him and to serve him. Little did I know that a few short weeks after my salvation he would begin using the ministry of Snowbird to grow me, strengthen me, and equip me with the tools I needed to live a life of godliness.
My experience with Christian life and worship up until attending Snowbird for the first time was praying at mealtimes and going to church on Sunday mornings to sing a few hymns and hear a sermon. After only one night at Snowbird, I realized the Christian life was so much more than thanking God for food and attending a weekly meeting. It was an entire lifestyle. I did not want simply to go through the motions of routine worship. I wanted to know God in all of his fullness.
By far the most important aspect of discipleship that I learned during all of my time at Snowbird was how to study the Bible systematically. I met Sarah Conti one summer after she taught a breakout session on studying the Bible. She then became my mentor and faithfully poured into my spiritual life over the course of the next several years. She is the one who walked beside me and taught me how to study the Bible verse by verse. In her breakout session, she encouraged, “Take the responsibility for your relationship with Christ, and don’t be satisfied with being spoon-fed.” She also warned against studying the Bible simply as an intellectual conquest but rather as a means to know the very God who breathed the words of Scripture.
My journal entries during my middle school and high school years show the impact that Sarah’s teaching had on my spiritual growth during that time. In those entries are Bible verses, reflections, commentary notes, prayers, questions (and some answers from Sarah), and sermon notes - pages that I treasure because they show the work of God in my life. Having Sarah as a mentor as I began to learn from the Scriptures was a true gift in my walk with the Lord. She was a much needed source of accountability, encouragement, and wisdom during the critical years of high school. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. We need other Christians to walk alongside us and spur us along. We all need someone like Sarah who can speak truth into our lives and help us grow in godliness.
As my husband and I are now raising two young girls, we want to ground them in the truths of Scripture. Several years ago I heard a conference speaker compare training our children to setting up radar screens for them. In an aviation control room, a radar screen shows the location of all aircraft in a certain area. If anything crosses the airspace that does not belong, red lights flash and sirens blare to warn that danger is present. I want my girls to know God’s Word well enough to know when things cross their paths that do not belong. I want lights to flash and sirens to blare so that they can recognize sin for what it is. I now realize that the staff at Snowbird was doing exactly the same thing for me as I was growing up. They were training me to have a godly radar so that I could walk in a “manner…worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27).
As I reflect on the many ways Snowbird has impacted my life over the last two decades, I cannot help but thank God for the way he has used that gospel ministry to reach others for Christ. I enjoy attending the women’s conference every year because it is a chance for me to return to the place that played such an integral role in my discipleship as a student. It continues to spur me on in the faith as an adult. I still get an adrenaline rush from the many on-campus recreational activities, and I will always be a kid at heart when it comes to rock climbing towers, giant swings, and ropes courses. Many of the same staff members who met me as a twelve-year-old kid are still there, and it is a joy to visit with them when I get the chance. I am thankful for my youth leaders who took me to Snowbird twenty years ago, and I am grateful for the work God continues to do in so many lives at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
Sweet reunion of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church ladies twenty years after our first trip to Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters in 2001
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