Camps Farthest Out Messages on the subject of Guidance
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Speaking to campers at the 1990 Southern California CFO, Bert Kerley continues the recovery testimony he began in the previous session. Books such as “God Calling” kept turning up just when he needed them, he says; one appeared on a shelf while he waited out a friend’s phone call. He credits Norman Vincent Peale with teaching him to relax, think positively, and say no kindly.
Bert Kerley describes his practice of becoming still before making decisions. He recalls how the name “Peter” surfaced during a quiet hour, and how that name led him to the buyer who purchased his old house. The talk comes from the Southern California CFO in 1990.
Barbara Ann Chase describes a boy running in with a chocolate chip cookie that confirmed a word of knowledge. She then begins a line by line study of Ruth chapter 1, where Ruth clings to Naomi rather than turning back to Moab. The session was given at the 2000 Arkansas CFO.
Al Brock and Bunny Brock open the week’s evening service at the Florida Family CFO in 1985. Bunny urges campers to bring specific requests to God. Al then retells Esther and Mordecai, asking whether campers are here by accident or “for such a time as this.”
Annabelle Woodward continues the week’s ancestral line healing prayer at the California Ocean Pines CFO in 1982. She then illustrates surrender to God’s guidance with a mountain road accident that cured her habit of hurrying. She also tells of the replacement car she names “Mysterious Ways.”
When her granddaughter Michelle asks, “Gran, is Jesus God?”, Gertrude Dekock Keehn answers with a question of her own: would a girl who grew up to look and sound exactly like her mother still be herself? She brings that same picture of oneness to the movement’s deeper question of why tragedy strikes good people, insisting it is never God’s doing.
Judson Cornwall walks through Hezekiah’s charge that the priests stand before God, serve him, minister to him, and burn incense to him. He illustrates it with a young pastor who tried to credit him for his conversion, his marriage, and his calling. He gave the talk to the 1979 Missouri CFO.
Louise Eggleston recalls seven hours with a scientist who told her he prayed each morning from five until seven. As a boy he had promised God that he would give two hours every day just to read the Bible. Every mind, she tells the camps, is a tiny bit of God’s mind.
At Louisiana CFO, Genevieve Parkhurst leads campers, especially the children present, through an imagined walk across a June meadow and a cool brook to feel the presence of Jesus. She then explains how a clear conscience and an inner eye and ear let believers keep hearing God’s voice.
Ruth Robison explains serendipity: setting out to do one worthwhile thing and being handed something better. The lecturer she could not reach in a packed hall sat down one seat from her at the airport the next morning. She then puts a harder question to the camps: “What do you do with answered prayer?”