Messages given at the Florida Family Camps Farthest Out
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Betty Malz tells campers to pray for results, not for show, and she opens each day by declaring “Yes, Lord” before her eyes are open. She points to a neighbor who built trust at his bank through years of small deposits, so a single large withdrawal was honored without question. That is a habit she carried into the Florida Family CFO in 1991.
At the 1984 Florida Family CFO, Barbara Ann Chase leads campers in prayer for the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem. She recounts two years of praying for a Lebanese army commander named Haddad, and describes projects that brought an oil well and a flock of sheep back to Israel.
Barbara Ann Chase teaches Dick Eastman’s five-minute prayer clock for daily devotions. She leads campers in thanking God out loud for ordinary conveniences, from a flight attendant’s suitcase wheels to telephone lines. Spoken gratitude, she says, is the discipline behind hearing God clearly. The teaching comes from the Florida Family CFO in 1984.
Anne Pierson closes the week’s Lord’s Prayer series at the 1995 Florida Family CFO. She pictures a plane landing in Holland instead of the planned Italy to describe accepting her daughter Shelly’s disabilities. She ends with a chorus sung by a member of a choir for adults with intellectual disabilities, “I am determined to be invincible.”
Anne Pierson’s forgiveness message is part of her Lord’s Prayer series, given at the Florida Family CFO in 1995. It includes an eighty five year old woman’s creative writing about two hours of silent prayer. That prayer produced a single instruction, “treat her like you would treat the person you love the most.” The discipline slowly transformed her bond with a difficult mother in law.
At the Florida Family CFO in 1995, Anne Pierson teaches on “give us this day our daily bread.” She describes how she once gave away sixty dollars saved for curtains as a missionary offering, and how a check for five hundred dollars arrived days later, folded inside a curtain catalog.
Anne Pierson continues her Lord’s Prayer series with “thy kingdom come” at the Florida Family CFO in 1995. She recalls Ruth Robertson, a CFO speaker in her nineties, who once blessed her with hands laid on her head. Ruth Robertson later died quietly in the front row of another camp talk.
Anne Pierson opens the Lord’s Prayer line “Our Father” with a letter a young unwed mother once wrote her, ten years after leaving Anne’s home. The letter recalls how Jim pulled her onto his knee in their kitchen and wept with her, the day she came home from the hospital without her baby. The talk was given at the Florida Family CFO in 1995.
Al Durrance preaches under the marquee title “Turkeys Unite” at the Florida Family CFO in 1986. He warns against the chicken yard instinct to peck an already wounded bird. He calls campers to answer the Holy Spirit’s three questions: whether they are willing to be led, changed, and used.
Al Durrance recalls a small girl at St. Cloud who told her grandmother to leave because he was preaching love while sounding angry. He teaches from there that Christ’s authority always sets people free rather than binding them, and that forgiveness is a love stretched elastic enough to fit imperfect people. He gave the talk at the Florida Family CFO in 1999.