2 minute read
Southwind
from Generous Portions
by Young Life
SOUTHWIND — 1972
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).
Advertisement
“It was the fall of 1971, during a big weekend camp for over two hundred kids and leaders. We were using a large facility in central Florida we had rented many times. It was a bright Sunday morning, and I was in the camp manager’s office, preparing to pay the weekend bill when I was stunned by a comment he made. ‘Look out the window at that,’ he said, ‘you’re bringing too many of them here. We can’t have you bringing so many of them from now on.’ “When I looked out the window all I saw was a teenage couple, an African-American young man with his arm around a white girl, walking to the dining hall in the middle of a crowd of their friends. After what the manager said, I was in a state of shock. I distinctly remember thinking, as I wrote out the check, that this would be the last one I would ever write for this camp.” (Charlie Scott, longtime Young Life staff member, in his book The Story of Southwind.) This experience launched Scott and the rest of the Florida Region staff on a mission to pray for and find the next Young Life camp “where every kid would be welcomed and accepted.” Four months later, the staff learned of a property for sale near Ocala. The owner happened to be the father of a kid in Scott’s Young Life club. The asking price was $175,000. For a mission with no money budgeted for another camp purchase, the only thing to do next was pray. The first gift of $5,000 toward the down payment was given within a week, with the second portion of $3,600 being given by the owner himself. The rest was provided by 11 people, and Young Life had one more camp. (MFT, p. 78)
Ocklawaha, Florida
Sometimes God’s generous portions flow out of our response to injustice, or a problem that needs to be addressed. Charlie Scott would not tolerate kids being referred to as “them;” he could not ignore God’s heart for every kid. Are there issues of injustice in the world that tug at your heart? What are they?
