Poison ivy, Bev's scrummy coffee cake, campfire, boys!
Uhm, camp was the highlight of my summers as a kid. As I grew up, I got to go an additional week each summer to help with a younger group. I loved it . . . . well, not the smelly water and the rusty showers and the mosquito bites! The food was terrific and the volunteers seemed to be there for us, the campers.
The annual faculty hunt was a favourite. We'd go out in our "families" or teams and try to find the adults staffing for the week. Each one was awarded different points, with the dean being most valuable. The older he was, the easier he was to find!
We'd act out Bible stories, something they don't do much anymore, and memorise verses. I think people have been diverted from hell because of some of the verses I learned there.
It was called Pearson's Mill Christian Assembly when I was young; later they changed it to Rainbow Christian Camp because the camp had moved from it's original site and the old name seemed irrelevant.
Friendships made there have lasted over the years and the memories, well, some best forgotten and some best remembered! When I meet someone new, that I think I might have known, often we'll find we went to the same camp as kids. I coulda found a number of good-husband-material at that camp! And the girls from Kokomo! We were so much fun they could never put us in the same cabin together. I preferred cabin 5 or 6 . . . . further away from the Dean of Girls in Cabin 1! I think my name features on the rafters on both sides of the lake. How it got in to the boys' cabins I don't know.
I remember missionaries from all over the world. They had a huge impact on my worldview and the fact that I've now been in nearly 30 countries and have lived outside the US for nearly 25 years.
Campfires. Amazing vespers talks. Life shaping events. They are all part of how God used good people over time to form me spiritually. They gave me many of the tools I use today in ministry, and in life. Leadership. Conflict resolution. Determination. Faith. A sense of community. Those volunteers have scattered, some have died. What they gave to the campers lives on and is at work in abundantly more ways than they could have ever imagined.
This past summer I went back as the resident missionary with the goal of expanding the campers' worlds a bit. While I hope I did that, I think much of my value there was with the adults God brought to the camp. Many of them have scattered already . . . .
So it goes. Go for a summer. Go for a lifetime.
Uhm, camp was the highlight of my summers as a kid. As I grew up, I got to go an additional week each summer to help with a younger group. I loved it . . . . well, not the smelly water and the rusty showers and the mosquito bites! The food was terrific and the volunteers seemed to be there for us, the campers.
The annual faculty hunt was a favourite. We'd go out in our "families" or teams and try to find the adults staffing for the week. Each one was awarded different points, with the dean being most valuable. The older he was, the easier he was to find!
We'd act out Bible stories, something they don't do much anymore, and memorise verses. I think people have been diverted from hell because of some of the verses I learned there.
It was called Pearson's Mill Christian Assembly when I was young; later they changed it to Rainbow Christian Camp because the camp had moved from it's original site and the old name seemed irrelevant.
Friendships made there have lasted over the years and the memories, well, some best forgotten and some best remembered! When I meet someone new, that I think I might have known, often we'll find we went to the same camp as kids. I coulda found a number of good-husband-material at that camp! And the girls from Kokomo! We were so much fun they could never put us in the same cabin together. I preferred cabin 5 or 6 . . . . further away from the Dean of Girls in Cabin 1! I think my name features on the rafters on both sides of the lake. How it got in to the boys' cabins I don't know.
I remember missionaries from all over the world. They had a huge impact on my worldview and the fact that I've now been in nearly 30 countries and have lived outside the US for nearly 25 years.
Campfires. Amazing vespers talks. Life shaping events. They are all part of how God used good people over time to form me spiritually. They gave me many of the tools I use today in ministry, and in life. Leadership. Conflict resolution. Determination. Faith. A sense of community. Those volunteers have scattered, some have died. What they gave to the campers lives on and is at work in abundantly more ways than they could have ever imagined.
This past summer I went back as the resident missionary with the goal of expanding the campers' worlds a bit. While I hope I did that, I think much of my value there was with the adults God brought to the camp. Many of them have scattered already . . . .So it goes. Go for a summer. Go for a lifetime.
Comments
I browsed through your other posts and enjoyed them... although I still like actual conversations with you better :)
Wow! 30 years from now, those kids at camp are going to be blogging about this awesome missionary chic who impacted their lives forever. And for some very odd reason, they just can't shake her.
I, still to this day, can't go to a library with out thinking about you. Odd, huh? But the most powerful and impowering words I have ever heard came from your mouth, I know as a gift from God.
Rainbow... is the cave still there?
Where in the WORLD are you now?
I'm in Auckland, New Zealand and it is cold here this time of year! Brrr ... another reason I'm mising camp!
WHAT did I say!? The Holy SPirit musta been ON that day. Remind me.
Yes, the cave is still there and is used, but much of the activity is over in a new building beyond Girls' Cabin 6. Are we friends on Facebook? that might be easier? :-)