Your final gift of 2010 can lower your taxes and help students meet Jesus Christ in 2011.
Right now, Highland Lakes Camp has nine programed camps scheduled for summer of 2011 and if we see the same number of students who accepted Christ in 2010, than 1,220 students will have met their Savior.
You can help grow the kingdom and make the Bell Ring at Highland Lakes Camp with you gift this year.
Please consider making your gift by Dec. 31, to help Highland Lakes spread the good news of Jesus Christ to thousands of students in 2011.
"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." John 15:12-15
The passage in John 15 tells us that Jesus is our friend. Do you consider Him as a friend? It is sometimes not what we consider our Lord, but scripture is clear He wants to be our friend. Many times we view God as our guide, leader or sometimes view Him as a mean parent. These views of God aren't bad, but we should add friend to our list of thoughts about God.
What does your friendship look like with Jesus? It should be similar to our friendships on earth. We talk to our friends, share secrets with our friends, cry with our friends, be open and honest with our friends and love our friends. We have the option to talk to God in prayer all day long. Spend time in His word and be honest with our Lord.
Remember, He is your Lord and also wants to be your friend.
Would you like to give a gift that makes a difference in the life of a child or teenager?
Santa Claus ties, snowman paper weights, fruitcakes, sweaters you'll NEVER wear...these are but a few of the choice gifts that we get/give but don't really want. How many of the gifts under your tree this year will make a lasting difference? How many will positively affect our world, our churches and The Kingdom? How would you like to give a gift that could make a difference and bring lasting change? Have you considered making a donation to Highland Lakes Camp in honor of your family, your church or your favorite Christian leader? Making a donation to Highland Lakes Camp makes a lasting difference in the lives of children and teenagers all over Texas and that's a gift that makes a difference. Give The Gift that makes a difference eternally. Donate Online Today @ www.highlandlakescamp.org/donate
HLC3 is glad to have hosted: The Fair Family, the Navigators, the Crosby Family Reunion, Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church, the LIT Group, and Hope Chapel.
We pray that God continues to move in mighty ways among you and your groups.
"I went to this camp and I loved it and if it wasn't for what God did at this camp our youth group could've been 15 kids short when we met again in heaven .... this is a great camp and God can do some amazing things when your out in the middle of nowhere... our group got so much closer because of the week we had at camp." - Courtnee Bourquin
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.” Philippians 2:1-2
HLC3 is a serene, inspirational setting, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. If you are looking for such a place, we believe There is No Better Place.
HLC3 is home to an adventure ropes course both low elements and high elements.
What is a ropes course?
A ropes course is an outdoor individual development and team building activity which usually consists of low and/or high elements. Low elements take place on the ground or only a few feet above the ground. High elements are usually constructed in trees or made of utility poles and require a belay for safety.
Our ropes course includes: a rock wall, 40 foot tower, zip line and many other elements. Our staff is trained in all area of the ropes course and is ready to take your group on it next adventure.
If you are interested in booking your next adventure, event, retreat, reunion or meeting at Highland Lakes Camp there's "No Better Place!" Give us a call 888-222-3482 or check out the website @ www.highlandlakescamp.org
HLC3 is glad to have hosted: St. Martin Catholic Church, Shoreline Church, Temple High School Choir, BLH Bradshaw Mission II, Hope in the City and the New Braunfels Leo Club. We hope to see you all again soon. God Bless.
After the storm rolled through Central Texas we lost power, internet and phones. As of 4:30pm yesterday, Highland Lakes Camp is now at 100% concerning all these areas.
We thank you for your prayers and look forward to hearing from you.
We are experiencing a phone and internet outage at the camp. The storm brought much needed rain but unfortunately it knocked out our phones. We can not even get our email. Hopefully they will be up some time today. Please be patient and keep trying to reach us.
Highland Lakes Camp and Conference Center (HLC3) is a serene, inspirational setting, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. If you are looking for such a place, we believe There is No Better Place.
We have meeting space for groups as large as 1500. The Miles Auditorium is equipped with sound and lights and is our premier worship center.
If you are interested in booking your next event, retreat, reunion or meeting at Highland Lakes Camp. There's "No Better Place!" Give us a call 888-222-3482 or check out the website @ www.highlandlakescamp.org
HLC3 is glad to have hosted: The Regents School of Austin Retreat earlier this week.
It's not to late to book your next event, retreat, reunion or meeting at Highland Lakes Camp. There's "No Better Place!" Give us a call 888-222-3482 or check out the website @ www.highlandlakescamp.org
Summer 2011 dates are set and many of the program guests are tentatively booked. We will be releasing dates and program guest information for Journey Camp, Preteen Camp and all our other programmed camps soon on facebook and right here at Camp Happenings.
We are booking now for the weeks that HL3C doesn't program.
We have the last 2 weeks in July 2011 that we could book new groups into. For those outside of Texas we have the last week in May till June 3rd that we could book for a 20% discount!
If you are looking for a place to do your own camp program, give us a call 888-222-3482 or check out the website @ www.highlandlakescamp.org
We are looking forward to Summer 2011 and hope to see you there.
Highland Lakes Camp (HLC3) would like to thank Christians on Campus, Austin Texas for choosing HLC3 to host your August 27th-28th retreat! We enjoyed hosting your group and look forward to your next retreat!
Highland Lakes Camp (HLC3) is glad to have hosted: The Singing Women of Central Texas, Calvary BC of San Marcos, Ebenezer FWC, FBC Georgetown, UT of Austin Multicultural Information Center and St. Martin Catholic Church. We hope to see you all again soon. God Bless.
I can't thank you enough for being a friend to the camp. Without outside monthly support we simply can not do what we do. With your help we are reaching students with the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! 387 have made professions of faith so far this summer with still 4 weeks to go! Plus hundreds of other major life changing decisions including 46 that have surrendered to the ministry! WOW!!!
Our camps are selling out because we offer the best in programming, organized camps, and our beautiful facilities.(Highland Lakes Camp: No Better Place) Not to mention that I have been hearing all summer long how great the staff is here. We do have some of the best college students and full time staff who are giving up their summers and lives to be able to serve here. Believe me they don't do it for the money! It is all to Gods glory!
It takes great sacrifice on our parts: Jesus says in Luke 14:25-27 "One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one's own self!—can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple." MSG
It is hard to imagine putting anything above our own life or especially the lives of family, but Jesus tells us to follow Him we must give all our ideals, ways, comforts...up and let Him live through us. When He does He may take us into dangerous places or even have us give it all, our very life. I know many of you are doing just that giving up every desire of your own to be obedient to Christ and sharing the gospel with students and to anyone who will listen!
You are supporting your churches and the camp sacrificially with your finances and time. My heart and thanks goes out to each of you and I want you to know I am encouraged each day here to know you are serving along side of us in getting the message out to as many as we can before we go home.
Encourage others as we live each day to offer themselves as living sacrifices to our Lord one day at a time. Watch and see what Jesus is doing all around us! What an exciting time to be alive!
SPICEWOOD (July 20, 2010) - Highland Lakes Camp and Conference Center (HLCCC) is a camp where students can come to get away from everyday life and learn about Christ and have fun.
The campgrounds is nestled next to Lake Travis and surrounded by Central Texas hill country.
HLCCC offers many services to rental camps and holds its own programmed camps. There are many activities for all ages. They include a ropes course, lake front water toys, banana boats, paint ball, swimming pool, archery, BMX course, and rifles.
There are HLCCC programmed camps for all ages. Journey Youth camp includes grades 7th – 12th grade. Preteen camp is for 3rd - 6th grade. Children’s camp is for children that have completed 1st - 3rd grade. The last camp hosted by HLCCC is Boys and Girls Camp for grades 1st -6th grade.
HLCCC has served a total of 5,336 guests as of July 17. That is a total is a combination of 20 various rental camps and five programmed camps.
Many first time decisions to follow Christ have been made. Other decisions include recommitment, surrendering to Ministry, baptisms, and various other decisions. The grand total of decisions made for Christ is 889.
We had another amazing service here at Highland Lakes Camp. Glory to God!
Approximately 40 students committed their lives to Christ last night. This morning in worship these students stood up claiming their faith in Christ before everyone. What an amazing start to their journey.
We want to invite you, again, to join us tonight at 7:45pm for live worship.
Thank you so much for those of you who are helping us out by donating to get our on air service going. Our first two service broadcasts had 128 people check in. Not all stayed all the way through. We had some technical difficulty to start, but we are working on those to continue to improve the service. Please pray about how you can help out by joining our "Friends of Highland Lakes" Support Ministry. A monthly support ministry to keep us introducing people to Jesus Christ! Click here to go to our page http://www.highlandlakescamp.org/475242.ihtml.
We had 30+ students surrender their lives to Christ Tuesday night! Check out the video above of Joel's Testimony and see what God did in the service. Most amazing alter call I have ever seen. No music, no emotional pull. Only sitting, praying in silence students and Gods gentle voice calling each one to Him!!! Awesome!! To see the service go to Live stream and click on the video of last nights service. Branch did an incredible job of leading us to the throne of Jesus Christ!!! What a first week of camp. Please pray for the rest of the week for God to continue to work in students hearts!
WOW! Our first camp is already here. Welcome SBTC's M3 Youth Camp. Jared and Crew are expecting great things this week! We are excited at what God is going to do this week. Pray for many to come to Christ and for God to move in the lives of students this week .
We also have posted our first live video stream of our first Sunday SMT worship service at Fellowship of Pace Bend. Great job guys. We will be streaming live the worship services from each camp this summer. Stay tuned for times. You can roll over the summer camps tab and scroll down to Live Stream Services to see past services and times for the next service.
What an incredible group of college students we have this year! God has been so faithful in sending us so many students who love the Lord and have willing and servants hearts. We can't wait to see all that God is going to do through each one of them this summer as they serve. We will be updating you on who is serving and where they are from in later posts. Check back each day for updates throughout the summer.
Preparation for the summer is moving along, but there are a number of projects that need to be completed before May 23rd.
1) The remodeling of the old office into the Health Center has presented some unexpected challenges and has taken longer than expected to complete. We could use volunteers who could help with plumbing, finish trim, and installing cabinets.
2) Our Mud School House Building is going to also be used as a dorm and there is plumbing, finishing shower installation, some dry wall and insulation and ceiling cover in the classroom/ sleeping area that needs to be done.
3) One of our staff homes developed a water leak. After having a leak detecting company come out to investigate, we found out the plumbing in the slab would have to be discarded and the home would have to be re-plumbed through the attic. We can use folks to volunteer to help us re-plumb their home.
4) Work was done on the ceiling in the kitchen and after the old ceiling came down it exposed a number of electrical issues. We hired an electrical company to rewire much of the dining hall and much of the new ceiling was completed. The entire track is up, but we need help getting the rest of the tile cut and in place.
5) The front fence has been completed and the prep work has been done; we need help in getting it painted. The 25 year pipe paint is very costly and we do not want paint to get on the rock columns; so this job will take a skilled team to accomplish.
6) The rains have greened up the campus and after 2 years we are seeing grass cover the lawns. With the team working on so many different projects, we could us some folks to help us mow.
As you can see we have several different kinds of needs so if you fell led to help out in any way please contact Karen Cunningham in our office to sign up to volunteer! Our office number is 888-222-3482
We want to be your friend on Facebook. You can find out about upcoming events and find out what is going on at camp. You can add us at http://www.facebook.com/highlandlc.
This month we are hosting the annual Highland Lakes Women's Conference. Called to A New Day will be February 26-27 and it looks to be a wonderful event. It will feature Carolyn Porterfield, Teresa Harmening and Dr. Rebekah Naylor. Registration closes Friday, February 12, 2010; so register today.
On March 12-13, Highland Lakes is hosting the Texas Hill Country Hot Hearts Student Conference. Hot Hearts 2010 will introduce students to the incredible truth and reality of Jesus Christ. Through dynamic worship and messages that cut to the heart, your students will see that Jesus can and will change their lives by drawing them into his abundant, eternal kind of life and transforming them from the inside out. Your students will catch a new vision for living committed and adventurous lives in the strength and power of the risen Christ. The featured guest are: Afshin Ziafat, Aaron Ivey, and Remedy Drive. You can register online this year, so sign up today.
During summer camp at Highland Lakes Camp youth are broken out into six color groups: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, and Purple. What Highland Lakes Color are you?
Here is an update from Ashley written and posted on her facebook Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 12:29am
Week 1 in Limuru
We arrived in Kenya early Tuesday morning after having to change flights. Heathrow airport in London had shut down due to weather, so we had to go through Paris. We should have, but didn't leave to go see the Eiffel Tower as the people in the airport said we did not have enough time. We did get a Paris stamp, yay! (and it was Ashley's first in her passport.) We left Paris around 9 pm for Kenya. When we arrived our luggage did not show up with us. Dr. Shaw let us stay at Brackenhurst and rest up before we met up with the team in Misiri at Christlike Academy where we will be doing most of our work.
The men (Daniel Brown, Matt Baird, and Dr. Raney) had accomplished a lot but not as much as they had hoped. The walls of the school were blue in most rooms and black in others and the teachers wanted them to be cream. This was quite a task if you can imagine. By the time we arrived, most rooms were primed and some had one coat of paint. The boys (Cameron Harper and Josh Williams) are doing the woodwork, building tables/desks and forms (benches) for the students. We spent the afternoon planning and there are about 60 tables that need to be made and just as many benches. It is quite a task but it can be done. They have finished the bookcases as well as the storage area for food.
By the end of the week we had 4 rooms completed with a chalkboard and verses on the walls. There are 20ish tables waiting to be sanded and 10 benches as well. The bookcases have been sanded. The outside railings, doors, and window frames are painted bright blue (and the potties). I think we have done well with what we have to work with. We have spent at least one day at the lumberyard picking out and waiting for wood to be cut. All the screws are flathead and that is difficult for us to use. The boards that we do use are not measured perfectly it might be 3in on one end and end up being 5in on the other, but we make due. We have gone through 15 or more rollers as some just fall apart while in use. We have also had issues with the paint, as 'water-based glossy' means 'gas-based glossy' and the fumes are horrible which slows us down as we take many breaks.
The first day we arrived Kelsey got to drive us back to Brackenhurst from the slums. It was quite an experience with a video on facebook already. IT is very difficult to drive on the left of the road and be on the right side of the car. Having all men backseat drivers did not help and we had the WORST roads possible. The only problem was the ALMOST flipping of the car, ALMOST. It did not flip but no one will let me forget it either. I have gotten better I think but it is still nerve-racking. Dr. Shaw has encouraged me to obtain an International License so that I will not be driving illegally anymore. We will see.
Ashley has been very good with the children who attend Christlike and can fit at least four on her lap at one time if not more. The children are great and stay out of the way for the most part. Kelsey did have to use a stern voice a few times, but we think they have learned. Ashley is doing the sawing for the boys because she can cut the straightest line and we need the best we can get. She also has designed a logo for Christlike Academy and Christlike for Kenya, assisted with the verses on the wall (and one on the floor), and is making posters of numbers, days of the week, manners, and classroom rules for the classes.
The week has been good, but long. We have seen many friends and had fellowship and swallowship (aka ate) with them. The first night Ashley met my friend Besann who I assist with school fees, I think they like each other! We also saw Kiki, Liz, and Rosemary. We have eaten with Shaddrack, his wife, and 5-day-old baby, Ezra. The mzee Kamau assisted us a little with the painting, making sure we did it correctly, as well as our Kiswahili. The mzee is Shaddrack and Liz's father. We have seen many familiar faces, but not everyone yet. Everyone likes chapatti. Ashley and I learned how to make chapatti with the help of Liz and Besann when we all had dinner at her house. They are amazing cooks, we had beef stew, chapatti, avocado, cabbage, and mashed potatoes, and mafunda (a green orange). It was the best Kenyan meal ever!!!!!
Saturday we were tourists. Our group (minus Daniel because he was not feeling well) went to Nairobi town. We saw orphaned elephants and learned about them, went to downtown Nairobi to change money, travelled to the Twiga Center, Kazuri, a Safari walk, and ended the evening with a great meal at the Carnivore.
We had a great time. Ashley and I kissed giraffes at the twiga center once the crowd left. They are gorgeous animals. We also saw some warthogs hanging around there. The tour of the Kazuri Bead and Pottery Factory is always amazing. The materials are natural and from the area and the work they do by hand is mind blowing. They have awesome stuff. We also went on a safari walk where we saw the animals of Africa. Our group was lucky enough (with a tip or two) to see the leopard and lions up close (with a chain fence in between) and to pet the cheetah. The leopard got mad at Kelsey and jumped up at her on the fence, kinda scary but no harm done. The cheetah was nice, just an oversized house cat. The boys (Cameron and Josh) got to help at feeding time, feeding the lions and some other animals. They said it was the highlight of their trip (next to my first drive).
Over the next 5 weeks or so we will be out on several college campuses recruiting for our SMT (Summer Missionary Team) summer Program. I am looking forward to meeting old SMT's and new ones. On the home front God is leading us in some incredible ways for this summer. We several new staff members and Gary Sirkel who was our Director of Food Services has moved over to Director of Outdoor Education and Recreation. As many of you know he is multi-talented and has an incredible vision for the outdoor program. He is coming up with so many new games and activities that you will want to be here to see them rolled out this summer! John Mark Harvey has joined the staff as an assistant director along with Clay Albright as an assistant director both working with Gary! These guys have an incredible heart for our SMT's and what God is leading them to do in the outdoor ministry.
Be sure and look for us on your college campus and if we are not at yours be sure and fill out the SMT application online or print one off and mail it in. Our summer missionaries are the best around and that is what makes our camps so special. See you soon!!!
Highland Lakes Camp & Conference Center welcomes this weekend to Camp The Navigators from Killeen Texas - Weekend Retreat The University of Texas at San Antonio BSM from San Antonio Texas - Weekend Retreat
Today we had a prayer service for Ashley Beggs. She is leaving Saturday to Kenya with a group from Wayland to build a school and do other missions work there for 21 days. It has been real exciting to see how God has supplied the full amount of money to get her and her sister to Kenya. We know God has neat things in store for Ashley and we can't wait to see how He does it through her and the rest of the group. You can be praying for her and the group as they will be gone for 21 days.