Dallas Cowboy’s son & other youth score at Camp Exalted

Posted: 8/03/07

Dallas Cowboy’s son & other
youth score at Camp Exalted

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

AN MARCOS—Snagging gummy worms immersed in a paper plate full of vanilla and chocolate pudding is not exactly what Eugene Lockhart expected to be doing recently. He had anticipated being on the field at Texas Stadium with his dad, who was leading a Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas fundraiser.

Instead, Lockhart joined nearly 250 middle school and high school students and college freshmen for Camp Exalted July 16-20 at San Marcos Baptist Academy.

Few campers knew at first that he was the son of former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Eugene Lockhart. The younger Lockhart wore the typical urban teenage accoutrements—a baseball cap, expensive fashionable sneakers, baggy shorts and an attitude of invincibility.

Like most of the young people at Camp Exalted, the eighth grader came seeking direction in his life. Lockhart soon learned some valuable lessons.

In the praise and worship services one night, Pastor Blake Wilson of Crossover Bible Fellowship in Houston preached to the young people using video clips from movies like Independence Day while talking about Revelation.

“He talked about the end of the world, and I realized it was time to make a change because I don’t want to go to hell,” Lockhart said. “I wanted more God in my life. I was doing a lot of stuff like sneaking out of the house to hang out with my friends. I used cuss words a lot.”

Through sermons, praise and worship sessions, quiet times and the Christian leadership training classes at Camp Exalted, Lockhart realized he needed to change.

“If someone says a cuss word around me, I’m going to tell them to stop because I’m not going to be around that kind of language,” Lockhart said as he proclaimed he has learned God’s purpose for his life.

“I’m going to be an evangelist and spread God’s word,” Lockhart said as he talked about telling his friends about how “God is good” and how he’s changed.

For freshman camper Desmond Granger, a member of New Providence Baptist Church in Houston, the camp confirmed a decision to serve God. The 15-year-old student wants to be a pastor even as he continues recovering from bone cancer.

Fifteen-year-old sophomore Adeola Olabode, member of United Christian Fellowship in Arlington, plays volleyball and basketball and had drifted away from God because most of the games were on weekends, including Sundays, so there was no time for church.

“It’s been a good experience, and I’ve gotten closer to God,” Olabode said. “I used to complain about crickets in my room, but after watching a video showing how many people still sleep outdoors in Africa, I thank God he allows me to have a roof over my head.”

Camp Exalted is designed to “exalt Christ” and is modeled after the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Super Sum-mer camps. The Camp Exalted curriculum focuses on developing leadership skills including worship, ministry work, moral purity and family relationships.

The camp, partially funded by the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, also is geared to “providing campers with the tools to impact communities, not just influence them,” according camp Director Joe Fields, youth pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Lewisville.

“We stress skills needed to impact a community because the ramifications are forever,” Fields explained. “We’re teaching students how to navigate what they’re going through in the real world. We want students leaving here to practice the tools and the discipline they’ve learned so they can impact their peers.”

Baptist leaders praised the late president of the African American Fellowship of Texas, Ronald Edwards, for jumpstarting the camp for African-American youth—one of few such camps in Texas. Camp leaders are working to help students get their lives right and to help them examine how to make key decisions in life, in school and in college and careers.

“We understand the importance of impacting young people. It’s important to us … it is growing us. By God’s grace, he has brought us them so we can give back to them,” explained Brenda Suggs, camp instructor and member of Tolivar Chapel in Waco. “We’re taking too much for granted with activities at the church because of lot of important questions aren’t addressed.”

By the time camp ended, there were 72 professions of faith in Christ, three calls into ministry and numerous requests for special prayers and rededications.

“It’s more than chips and Kumbayah,” Fields explained. “We want to impart the knowledge to these young African-American students that you may never meet 50 Cent, but you will meet God someday.”