Arkansas Assemblies of God

 

MySpace.com by Dane Hall

Myspace.com is my own personal space on the internet.  It is unique to me, and no one else has exactly the same information located on my myspace page.  When I think about the many years I have worked in Arkansas camps (at the end of this summer, I will have worked 66 kids camps and youth camps), I reflect on what God has done on those sacred grounds through the years, I realize that in Arkansas we have had myspace even before we had the internet.  Thousands of people can go back to their personal space on the campground where God significantly touched their lives and change them forever.  It is not myspace.com; for the Arkansas Assemblies of God, it is myspace.camp.

Needless to say, I believe in camp.  Instead of listing all of the reasons that camp is so important, I would like you to hear from some of our most recent campers and workers.  Each one of them has a myspace.camp.  These are their stores in their own words.

 

My father pioneered First AG at Crossett in the early '40s.  We always attended both the district councils and family camps.  I always looked forward as a teenager to those special times, hoping to make new friends who shared my Pentecostal faith.

I had a girls trio from our church who sang at camp, and I played piano for song services, usuall when Duell Tanner was leading.  Duell's wife, Olivia, was my cousin.  They had one of the original little cabins on the campground.  It was always a treat to go there and visit as a family.

I remember sittin in a service as a teenager, listening to Opal and Tommy Redding singing.  Opal was playing the accordion and six months pregnant.  I thought, "Never would I do that!" - Only to find myself 21 years later at 38 years of age, a missionary's wife in Colon, Panama, on the high platform of the old theater, playing the accordion - and six months pregnant.

That child is now a pastor's wife here in this district, Michelle (Mrs. Tom) Miller.  Her children attend children's camp every year at the old campground.

I find myself with the usual old age nostalgic longings for the old "family camp" days.  My sisters and their husbands, Joe & Lavenial Adams and Dibrell & Joce Helton, and my mother and father, Claude & Addie Roberts, share greatly in those memories.  Ironically, I never found a special boyfriend at camp.

My husband, Paul Palser, and I have enjoyed 55 years of active ministry.  We pastored churches in Louisiana, spent 15 years in foreign ministry, pioneered a church in Waco, Texas, and spent our last 12 years of full-time ministry in Orlando, Florida, as C.E. pastors in a large church.

- Lane (Roberts) Palser (Minister's Wife, Magnolia, AR)

 

 

My space is on the left side of the auditorium, about three rows up.  It officially became my space in the summer of 2003.  I had tried a lot of things in my life to try to make me happy and complete.  I was like the woman with the issue of blood.  She had seen a lot of doctors to try to help her condition, but she only grew worse.  This was me during my high school years.  I had tried a lot of things to try to fill the void in my life, but the void only grew worse.  It was at church camp, in my space that God changed my life.  The first night I went to camp, I saw God moving in people's lives, but I felt nothing.  I was so upset; I thought something had to be wrong with me.  The next day I prayed and read my Bible during my free time.  That night, I went into the service with an expectancy that God was going to do something in my life, something I had never really had before.  It was that night, in my space, that God changed me forever.  As I lay on the floor weeping, I was in awe of the love He had for me and how wonderful He was.  It was that moment, in my space, that the void was filled.  That night I felt complete for the first time in my life.  After everything I had tried before, I knew nothing would make me as complete as God did that night, and has continued to since then.  That moment was the very thing that kept me close to God in college, one of the hardest place to be a Christian.  I know that God gave me a foundation in Him that night, in that space, and I thank Him every day for it.

- Jill Elliot Alfaro(Recent ATU graduate from Nashville, AR)

 

 

In my many experiences at the Arkansas District Camp, God has touched my life many times in many ways.  Ten years ago I was filled with the Holy Spirit for the very first time.  I can still take you to the spot.  Church camp is a time of spiritual renewal and a place to come fact to face with God, have no distractions, and just be vulnerable to God's will and His plan.  In the summer of 1999 I felt and still feel today, God put a call into ministry upon my life.  At the age of nine I lay on the gray steps of the old auditorium and cried for two hours worshipping God as well as I knew how at that age.  After moving into high school and going to youth camp, something amazing happens every year.  One service in Camp 4 of 2005 went until 2:40 in the morning, and then when I got back to my dorm room we had a prayer meeting with my counselor and the rest of my roommates until 3:45.  No one will ever convince me that God is not real and that He does not move on that campground.

- Joseph Kelley (11th grade, Cabot High School)

 

 

Of all the spiritual experiences in my life, at camp or otherwise, my most cherished took place on July 5, 1995 at youth camp.  Sitting in the 3rd row on the left hand side, I didn't answer the altar call initially, though I know I should have.  I stood up, lifted my hands to Heaven, and asked Jesus into my heard as a rededication to what I did as a child.  Then several of my friends, Chris Allen, Jeremiah Sanders and then Assistant DYD Dane Hall gathered around me and I was filled with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.  I don't know how, but the next time I opened my eyes, I had made my way around the rows and altar and was dancing next to the stage.  It's a memory that will follow me the rest of my life, and it is the number one reason that I bring students in my youth group to Arkansas Youth Camp.  I want them to have an experience like God gave me.

- Adam Fithen (Youth Pastor, First AG, Vilonia, AR)

 

 

The summer of 2004 was the confirmation of all confirmations.  Rick Lorimar was speaking and the title of his sermon was "Keep on Swinging".  After we all went through a prayer tunnel, he had a specific altar call in the front, I was standing in the back, and the presence of God hit me like a ton of bricks.  I just remember being face down in the second aisle from the left.  All I could do was cry.  I don't know why, and I don't know how long.  The next thing I heard was Rick asking where I was.  I stood up, and he called me out from the platform saying, "Chris, I don't know you son, but God has a call on your life and you will do great things if you keep Him first." I just broke again.  I will never forget that back row of tiles.  All of my TEARS, PROBLEMS, AND WORRIES LIKE UNDER THOSE TILES!

- Chris Blaylock (Senior at SAGU from West Memphis, AR)

 

 

My space at Arkansas camps started when I was eight years old and continues to this day.  It started with me and continues in my children.  Around the front of the auditorium and at many places in the altar area I have experienced God in such powerful ways.  I remember pouring my heart out to Him, asking Him to use me in some way for His service as a teenager.  Camp has always been a place of refuge for me, a place where the world for the most part cannot interfere.  It has been a landmark in my life of the power of God.  There is not enough paper to tell how special my space at Arkansas camps has been to my life.

- Denise Maness (Pastor's Wife, First AG, Paris, AR)

 

 

My space is on the second step of the platform in the middle.  In 1994 at the age of eight, I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  Ten years later in the same spot, I was delivered from 15 years of hatred and bitterness toward my birth mother and her family.  That is the place I return to sometimes in my mind when things are looking bad.  I am then able to say, "God, you delivered me then, and I know you can do it now."

- Joe Garner (Junior at CBC from Mountain Home, AR)

 

 

On the night before my tenth birthday God filled me with the Holy Spirit at camp.  My life has not been the same since, and I am so glad I was changed that night.  I go through things every day, but God's Spirit is always there to give me guidance and comfort.  I look forward to camp all year long and God always blesses me.  Last year God made me realize just how much my friends needed Him and I pray every day to be an example.  Praise God I am seeing results.

- Britney Farris (10th grade, Gurdon, AR)

 

I received the "Gleaner" in yesterday's mail...I was very impressed by the articles about the improvement at the campground.  During my years as administer at Hillcrest Children's Home, I so much appreciated the Arkansas District and especially your services at the campground.

Year after year we were able to send all of our eligible kids and young people to the camps where they were able to mingle with the other kids and young people and also to receive such a tremendous blessing and out-pouring of the Holy Spirit. Many of them were saved and filled with the precious Holy Spirit while there.

Blessings upon you and yours in your great and wonderful district. 

- H.W. Thiemann (former Hillcrest Director, Torrington, WY)

 

  

When I was a teenager we looked forward to camp, because we knew awesome things happened there.  My space is on the right beside the steps.  Many nights I lay there laughing for hours and having to be carried out.  Now as I go with my daughter, I am eager to see what God has in store for her.  I am so glad that the God that touched me 15 years ago is the same God that I see changing lives every year at camp.  I loved camp as a teenager, and I love it even more as a counselor.

- Gina Oberg, Harrisburg First AG

Arkansas camp is one of the biggest reasons I am in full-time ministry today.  At the age of 7 (almost 8) I attended my first Kid’s Camp.  Except for one year, I attended camp every year as a camper and later as a staff member.  My space is in the old auditorium on the left hand side in front of the stage on the tile floor.  That is where I was filled with the Holy Spirit at the age of 8 years old.  It was also in the old auditorium that I felt God calling me into full-time ministry. One of the most significant memories I have of camp is from that first year at the age of 7.  Way back then there was a pay phone just inside the door of the old cafeteria/girls dorm.  It was off limits to campers.  My counselor for that week of camp was the late missionary Randy Dorsey.  I will never forget him for this but he gave me the money and let me use the pay phone to call home just hear my parent’s voices.  Several years later as a youth camper I was fortunate enough to attend Randy’s last camp and attend his special callings class.  It was such a great honor to have him minister to me as a camper. 

Camp is a place where all the distractions of the world are completely shut out.  When that happens, there is an open door for God to move in our lives and I believe that is why camp is so important.  I can’t wait for my 3 kids to experience camp just like I did in years to come.                                                              

                                                                            - Shane Gore, Owasso, Oklahoma, Finance and Worship Pastor

 

If you have a testimony that you would like to post on our website, please email us at info@araog.org.

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