News 11/10/2006 Generation Joshua's iGovern 2009: a camper's perspective by Josh Leftwich “Taking a Stand!” Those three words became more alive then you could ever imagine during our week at Generation Joshua’s iGovern camp. Each morning began with a wonderful time of worship and devotion, during which we heard from the amazing staff of Generation Joshua. They spoke on how we could take that stand in our faith by strengthening ourselves in our prayer life, our choices, and our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. As Generation Joshua Director Will Estrada stressed over and over again, “if we don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, politics will be an eternal waste of time.” So each morning’s devotion guided and encouraged us to strengthen that relationship before we moved on to other things like our guest speakers. Each morning and afternoon we had the honor of hearing guest speakers such as Rick Green from Wall Builders, Chaplain Douglas of the United States National Guard, four United States Congressional representatives on our fieldtrip to Washington, D.C., and many others. All of these speakers were incredible. ChapSlain Douglas’ words in particular changed my perspective on the future. Anyone could have told us, “You can be anything you want!” Captain Douglas took a different approach. Not only did he tell us that we should strive to be “all that we could be,” but he also told us that God had called us to rise above the challenge of this world, to work hard, and to live up to our potentials— for God! These words were really amazing, and set all of us at camp on a new train of thought. Chaplain Douglas and the other speakers inspired us every day to be motivated and “take a stand.” One of the greatest things about camp was the learning process. I personally am a visual learner, and GenJ took the idea of visual learning to a new level.You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that not only was this camp full of visual learning, but it was as close to the “real deal” of politics as a highschooler can get. Upon arriving at the beautiful campus of Patrick Henry College, we received important camp documents such as nametags, schedules, and congressional titles. From that point on, we were members of the United States House of Representatives. Each person was assigned a state to represent at the daily congressional sessions where we would debate, amend, vote, and pass legislation written by Generation Joshua staff and campers. Sometimes bills would pass with little debate. At other times, we spent whole sessions debating back and forth on one bill. As a learning experience, this helped us to test how far we were willing to go for our legislation. Topics like gun rights, healthcare, immigration, and many more were the subject of these bills, bringing different but equally passionate feelings to the table. At the end of each session, however, we all remembered that we were brothers and sisters in Christ, and left our major differences in the “congressional halls.” The best part of camp is the relationships you build. With everyday team activities, you quickly learn a lot about the people around you. Every day, we gathered on the field to play giant team games such as dodge ball, capture the flag, human pretzel, telephone, and (my personal favorite) water war. These games brought everyone closer together as we worked hard to win the prize for our team (our political party) which usually meant a big cash payout for our campaign. Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot to mention the most important part of camp, “The Presidential Election.” Out of the 114 students at iGovern East, there were 12 brave campers who tried to run for president. To narrow down the field, we held a primary election. This was possibly the toughest part of the overall election, because candidates had to prove to the 57 people in their respective parties that they had what it took to lead them to a victory at the end of the week. Out of 6 candidates in each party, only 1 could continue on as the party candidate. The blue party chose its candidate, Jonathan Monroe, and his running mate, Melody Anderson, to represent them in the election. The gold party voted, and after a runoff chose myself and my running mate, Taylor Sandbek, to represent them in the election against Jonathan and Melody. From that night, the race was on. Most of the rest of camp was spent writing speeches, making commercials, waving signs, winning votes, and in general, campaigning for the two candidates. The big event that played a HUGE part for the campaigns was the Gala (better known as the Formal Party) Everyone dressed up in their fanciest dresses, suits, and tuxedos, to go out and win endorsements from the different lobbyists at the party. As a candidate for president, I spent the entire night shaking hands and convincing the different lobbyists to support our campaign. Many campers did the same thing for the candidate they supported, and by the end of the night we had raised enough money to have a presidential campaign. The rest of the week included a press conference, a formal debate, and a pushup contest between the two candidates. The loser’s name does not need to be mentioned, but let’s just say I have been working out a lot since returning from camp. By Thursday night, we had all poured every ounce of our energy into our campaigns. As we all gathered together in the meeting room, we nervously awaited the election results. After everyone settled down, the results were in. By a difference of four votes, Jonathan Monroe and Melody Anderson won the presidential election of iGovern East 09! They were very excited, as were Taylor and myself for them. With a final word of prayer, we all enjoyed the victory party with snacks and a movie. A nice and relaxing end to a very exhausting week of campaigning! As Saturday morning came around, there were many tough goodbyes. Friendships were made at camp that would last throughout the next year, and some, for a lifetime. As campers left, it seemed that we were watching future doctors, lawyers, preachers, governors, representatives, senators, and presidents go back home to their towns where they would be tried and tested, but also given the chance to “take a stand.” Thanks so much to all the GenJ staff for making iGovern a life-changing event! And to all the iGovern campers and students alike, don’t forget the words of wisdom we learned there. “Stay strong, stay focused, never back down, and most of all, take your stand!” Josh Leftwich is a Generation Joshua member from New Jersey.   Share in what the Foundation is doing. Subscribe to The Foundation Report e-mail.   « AND »  © Site Copyright 2010 Home School Foundation P.O. Box 1152 · Purcellville, VA 20134 · Phone: (540) 338-8688 · Contact Us