In 1999, when I was 19, Sarah Helser (a fellow Lurecrest summer staff member) gave me the following painting.  She said it represented a word from the Lord.  She said:

 "God will reveal His nature and character to you and teach you who He is.  The primary way He will do this is through His word.  He will pour Himself out to you through His word, and as you drink it in it will overflow to others around you." 

 This picture was given to me 2 years before I ever learned of the SBS program, and 7 years before I became a part of the ESBS.  Pretty cool.

When I was 20, Ken Helser, Lurecrest camp pastor at the time, came up to me and said "I saw a mental picture of you and your wife and two children coming out of the walled-off (a building at lurecrest)."  In 2000 no one could have known what that would mean.  In 2011, when my second child was born, the ESBS was using the walled off as our dining area.  God knew that would happen.  The day we brought Luke to camp for the first time, Julia and I asked the students to gather around the door of the walled off and take a picture with us, as we celebrated a plan that God had on His mind for 11 years.

As I look forward to a future that is unknown, and as the ESBS enters its last year at Lurecrest I am reminded that God knew exactly what he was doing when he created this program.  He knew who would be involved with it (right down to my 2 year old son), and he knew exactly where it would be (right down to the building) and He knows where the ESBS is going.  

Tom

ESBS director