Southern Area
After-action Report

This year’s southwest Pennsylvania camp brought together six dads and thirteen sons, including a family new to ALERT Cadet, under the leadership of seven Cadre members April 24-27.  Camp began with Advancing Nathaniel Zook and Elijah Fields and promoting Isaiah Smith to Sergeant and Mark Fields to Captain.

Our camp motto, “No looking back!” reminded us that regret keeps us from capitalizing on what is ahead of us.  God is the Redeemer, such that what appears to be a mistake can become the foundation for his glory manifested in our lives.  This is one of the themes that comes from the testimony of Mephibosheth.  Were it not for his lameness he may have never discovered the life that awaited him in the presence of King David.  He could have easily spent his life running and hiding from the new regime in order to stay alive.  

In our company devotions, we answered three questions: Why do we want to know what a perfect heart is, what is a perfect heart, and how do we obtain a perfect heart?  Embracing that God gives strength to those with a perfect heart, we spent considerable time looking at some of the many manifestations of strength.  

Next, we more deeply grasped that a perfect heart means that there is no partial belonging to Jesus.  When we turn our heart to him, we obtain all of who he is.  We are no less his when we fail to yield to his leading.  Lastly, we concluded that receiving a perfect heart is available to us simply by accepting God’s offer to come into his kingdom. 

We saw in the story of Mephibosheth the quality of humility: total dependency.  He wasn’t even in the position to claim the promise made to his father by David, as he was unaware of what Jonathan had secured for him.  In the end we see that Mephibosheth wanted for nothing to be given to him by King David except to be in his daily presence (II Samuel 19:30). 

We kept the tradition of spending a half-day pounding hot metal into knives and other souvenirs, thanks to Ben Shaner, who volunteers his time to operate the blacksmithing shed.  

The other half of the day found us at the repelling tower, where some young men found the intestinal fortitude to trust a harness, carabiner, rope, their bodies, and the patient advice of skilled leaders. 

Our service project included cutting-up felled trees, cutting down saplings, clearing the roadside of trash, and dismantling and hauling away an old obstacle course.  In addition, before most of the Company arrived, we erected a new flag pole, due to our last one having rotted.

One of our new sergeants, Caleb Furlough, did a masterful job leading physical training in the early mornings, balancing useful stretching and joint flexibility with a degree of challenge to the more physically prepared.  Our other new sergeant, Isaiah Smith, trained our Color Guard.  Sergeant Jacob Lowman found his voice serving as Operations Chief for the first time, and Sergeant Stephen Fields, as Logistics Chief, made certain that everything that needed to be done was done when it needed to be done, if not sooner.  

With creativity and resourcefulness, we ate well.  Not having a cook at camp, participating families brought food supplies for cold breakfasts and lunches and other participating families brough already-prepared supper meals to be heated.  Our Cadre chefs always had our meals ready on time, whether it meant putting out granola, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, sandwich ingredients, homemade desserts, ice cream, etc. or heating casseroles.  They also demonstrated their grill skills with hamburgers and hot dogs.  (Maybe they should consider a food-truck business.)  I kept a small amount of fame for myself by making the fresh-ground and brewed coffee.  

We did much dodging of rain, but it took its toll on a couple of tents.  We also had a night below 32 degrees, so the fathers and sons were challenged.  Warm bright sun greeted us on our final day, which included our Parade and Review.  Thanks to our Holy Spirit, none of us went home thinking that the weather prevented us from making the most of our camp together.