Ministry update from Bradley and Claire

Hello all! About a week ago Claire and I returned home from six days of local missions in which God moved in a powerful way. In our excitement to share this with our friends and family, we found ourselves typing up a rather extensive letter, which you now have in front of you. We have taken the liberty of adding each of you to the email list, and we will likely use this email list to send future missions or family updates. However, if you would rather not have these updates delivered to your email inbox, please feel free to remove yourself from the list! With that explained, we can’t wait to share with you this first update from the (soon-to-be newlywed) Gossetts!

Bradley: Every summer, our home church, Cross Assembly, funds and organizes Royal Family Kids Camp, a summer camp for 7-11-year-old children in the Wake County foster care system. This year, we had 39 campers and 21 counselors divided into 10 cabins from Monday to Friday. During these days, the campers swam, fished, built little wood projects, tie-dyed shirts, played with RC cars, jumped on bouncy houses, and more. But most importantly, they were surrounded by nearly 80 staff members whose goal was to show them the love that God has for each of them. Many of these kids were blown away that the staff are not paid to be there, but that they come out of love. Lots of these kids have never had someone sacrifice for them, praise them, serve them, or even show up just for them. They are victims of abuse, neglect, or abandonment, and they have learned by instinct to fend for themselves, trusting no one. Because of this, it nearly broke my heart when one of my campers (who had chosen me as his favorite counselor for the week) told me on Thursday of the week that he “only trusts God, himself, Bradley, and Claire” (who he had found out was my “engagement”).

In order for Wake County to allow the kids to come to camp, RFKC is not designed to be a church camp. While we teach the Bible and expect that everything the staff does is infused with a rich understanding of scripture, our goal is not to get kids to ‘pray the prayer’; we want kids to leave camp knowing that they are worthy of love and there are adults that can be trusted to not hurt or betray them. Sometimes after a short-term mission trip, it’s easy to feel like you didn’t really make a difference with what you did, but I will confidently say I know what we did this week matters. At least the four campers in my cabin know that I chose to be there just for them, because I love them. When Jesus walked the earth, he healed those who were the most broken and loved those who needed it the most. God doesn’t have a single physical body to walk earth anymore—instead He has commissioned millions of His people to do what He did: love the hopeless, helpless, and hurt.

Claire: When Bradley told me he wanted to write a letter to describe our experience at camp I was all over it! I can easily sit down with iced lattes for hours with anyone, pouring out how much this camp means to me, so I will do my best to condense my heart into a few paragraphs (while I sip my own iced latte of course). Bradley gave you a picture of what RFKC is, so my contribution to this project will be story-filled and emotional (the classic addition written by a girl… right?)

I attended RFKC for the first time last year, and originally I felt nervous and unequipped to take care of 40 kids with backgrounds of deep hurt. Sometimes I didn’t even feel patient with the kids I nannied! But God has drawn my heart towards kids in the foster system from an early time in my life, so I knew I wanted to go! The rigorous schedule of the camp left me tired by day 2 last year. But despite tired legs, I broke down in tears at the vast differences in perspective between myself and the campers. They are hoping the week never comes to a close, while I was excited to get back to my room that had significantly fewer bugs and cooler air. This camp is perhaps the only time the kids felt safe to sleep soundly or knew they had another meal promised to them in a timely manner. This realization gave me the second wind I needed, and I wished the camp would never end for their sake. But of course, the camp comes to a close and we send the kids back to their caretakers.

It took me a while to recover emotionally from “the hardest vacation I ever loved,” as many wise staff members describe the camp. I remember praying that I would get to see some of these kids again. This year I was ecstatic to see so many familiar names on the list! The feelings of “I wonder if I even made an impact” melted away as familiar kids seemed almost unrecognizable in their behavior! Last year there was a little girl who was 7 years old but perhaps the size of a 5-year-old. She barely spoke, kept her eyes down, and hardly smiled. Fear laced every move she made as her mind was used to being in survival mode. But by Friday of last year, she had begun to come out of her shell. Getting off the bus this year, she bounded down the steps with her messy braids flying as she ran up to us beaming, recalling all of her camp memories from last year! She quickly became friends with everyone at the camp and she was rarely caught without a smile! Her story is not unique! Many kids who came into camp last year trudged off the bus, walled up and closed off, but they are the same kids who came into camp this year with tearful reunited hugs and excitement for the week's events! One little girl plopped down into the cafeteria chair exclaiming “today is the best, I am so excited for a good meal!”

Like I said, I could go on and on (I might need to buy a second latte at this point…) but every letter comes to a close. Camp often leaves me wondering how much I really did, or replaying the days in my mind wondering if I could have done more. But many stories are shared among the staff and counselors at the camp of kids who were on a path in their life where it was lined with abuse and hurt, and although our camp doesn’t erase those events in their memory, it adds new memories to their mental storehouse. Memories of love and acceptance and FUN! These kids are little and have rarely had the opportunity to just be kids! Those memories are the ones that shift their life just enough that they grow up knowing that foster care is not what defines them. They are worthy of love, they are worthy of Christ’s love, and they are worthy of life to the fullest. All because some volunteers in purple shirts and basketball shorts, propelled by God’s love and fueled by the strength of the Holy Spirit, told them so.

There are three reasons we wanted to write out our experience from the past week to share with you. First, one of my (Bradley) campers specifically needs prayer for the next few weeks. He was told by his grandparents as they picked him up from camp that they were moving him to a group home—starting that night. That news was broken in front of one of our fellow counselors in the parking lot. It’s incredibly hard to hand off those precious little kids to unstable homes after a week of watching them let walls down, trust us, and have fun. I hope he learned that God can be trusted this week (we talked about Proverbs 3:5-6 & the story of Joseph all week), but we can’t imagine having to face such a situation 10 minutes after you leave camp.

Second, it costs RFKC almost $2,000 to send each kid to camp, and they don’t ask for anything from campers or foster families. Thankfully, Cross Assembly promises the full budget for camp each year, but that doesn’t stop us from giving to this ministry to support God’s amazing work here. In fact, RFKC is especially in need of funds for the coming year, because we plan on expanding to two camps in the summer of 2024—that means everything will be doubled. Praise God for working in the leaders to take this huge step, but support is certainly needed to make the leap. If you want to give, you can follow this link and select Royal Family Kids Camp as the fund.

Third and finally, RFKC is in need of more volunteers. As we mentioned, Cross Assembly Church has sponsored and hosted camp for over 20 years, but 17 different churches throughout Wake County and North Carolina were represented among the volunteers this year; it’s a team effort for the body of Christ! If you have a desire to be part of this amazing ministry with your time and energy, please pray through it and prepare your heart to join us. Before February of this year, I (Bradley) thought serving at a kids camp wasn’t “my thing,” but God convicted me that I had the time, resources, and ability to serve in this way, and He wanted me to go. We pray that He will speak to some of your hearts in the same way.

Thank you all for your investment in this ministry and reading this update. We pray you are encouraged and blessed by hearing how God worked earlier this month—we wish we were better with words so we could give you a better taste of how refreshing, powerful, and emotional it was.

PS. Cross Assembly put together a great highlight video to share with our church body. Click here to watch it!