Because you have opened this, at one point in your life you had the amazing opportunity to go on summer staff at a Young Life camp for a month. You were convinced by someone, you applied yourself, you were asked very last minute by a friend or coordinator, but the Lord put together the greatest team/community of people that could have ever stood side by side to welcome in a months worth of campers. You were on the waterfront, on ropes, landscaping, cooks and bakers. You ran the snackbar, retail, you washed everyone's clothes in laundry, or you were a sound tech. From the office staff to the town runner or maintenance crew, you were on summer staff.
1. The feeling of receiving the acceptance packet.
The day that you get an email from one of the Young Life camps that you applied to with an attachment, that was the day. You remember everyone you were with and where you were. You got your assignment!!
2. The GroupMe.
This was a GroupMe that some days you dreaded being in because you knew literally no one in it and it was just a bunch of awkward messages of people trying to get to know each other. You stalked just about everyone in the GroupMe. But after summer staff, it was the one group message you actually wanted to look at, because you had just spent a month with these people and they knew your ins and outs. Reminiscing on old memories, arguing over horses and ducks, or finding places for your friends to stay while they visit near your hometown.
3. Knowing every day by what meals were served and what events were that day.
Day 1 of camp means big cookie for dessert, Day 2 means enchiladas for dinner, and Day 7 means cheesey potatoes and blueberry pancakes for breakfast! Finding your favorite meals with other summer staffers and cheering about what day it was because you could enjoy the same meal together with the same amount of joy.
4. The indescribably amazing community.
Living in one building with the other 45 summer staffers and 40-something work crew means: BONDING! Having worship nights, summer staff meetings meant bonding and sharing stories and struggles. Going back to your room after a long and hard day at work knowing that someone would be there with a smile and a hug ready to love you and support you. The constant encouragement and love as you pass by people every day seeing them working hard. If you were behind the scenes, your coordinators and fellow summer staff appreciating the work you do even if the campers don't. Bringing 26 hot dogs to the A-team on Day 1, or ICEE pops to the waterfront on a hot and long day. Putting up bible verses around rooms with lollipops to support everyone on hard days.
5. Mail day was the best day ever!
Every day at 6 p.m. in the lobby of the summer staff/work crew cabin meant MAIL TIME! It was the greatest day because it was the only communication to the outside world you were going to have that day, sometimes that week. It was a package from mom, or a letter from your best friend from school saying how much they missed you.
6. Quoting the program teams bits to each other.
Some times there are just going to be things said that only your summer staff get, those are especially those moments when you quote the program teams characters bits. They always cheered you up when someone walked up behind you and said your favorite line.
7. Nap time!
Napper? No? Well, we all napped the second we could. Whether it was some of the waterfront drooling on a chair by the pool during Real Life before their first shift, or the kitchen staff getting off at 3 o'clock for the first time in days and going and napping by the lake.
8. Sharing the same disease.
Over 100 people living in the same building, literally in bunk beds means: germs! Everyone getting upper respiratory infections, or sinus infections, or bronchitis and pushed through it. Emergen-C becoming the most sought after item on camp. Making tea runs during shifts, and keeping a bag of cough drops in your fanny pack just in case someone went into a coughing fit.
9. Camp song!
It was the song you left the dining hall to, it was the song the campers entered into club with, it was the welcome song, it was the song we all jammed to in the club room after the campers left on Day 7. We all know them by heart now because hearing them every day for a month meant that it grew on you even if you hated it on Week 1, Day 1.
10. The interns.
We all had at least one, so we got close to them. We got to know them so well, even the ones that we didn't call our own. They became part of the summer staff. Sometimes they would walk into the lobby at night and we would chant for them spraying them with water. They looked after us. They drove us on an EZ-GO back to our cabins if we were too sick to work but refused to leave. They asked the hard questions, like "why are you here?" they got to know each of us by name and story. They were part of our summer staff in their own special way.
11. Camp crush.
Everyone had one, even if you say you didn't, you did.
12. Breakfast in bed.
That meant sleeping in (yes, sleeping in) until 8:30 a.m. every morning and getting to spend time with all of your summer staff girls or guys enjoying fellowship and eating breakfast burritos. It meant not having to get up at 5:30 a.m. that one morning the entire week.
13. "Cabin Time."
"Cabin time" meant girl talk in the showers with everyone in the bathroom talking and giving input or it meant someone picking a song and everyone singing to the top of their lungs in the bathroom, or it meant staying up an extra hour or two to talk through everyone's days, someone's camp crush, or just to have deep conversations.
14. Appreciation for worship music.
Not having your phone for a month means no music, so when someone said they could play guitar and someone else had brought a guitar that meant there was going to be worship that night. The appreciation for how much peace it brings and just the longing of missing it.
15. The tan lines.
We all had them. A good bit of our jobs were outside so we either had the awesome waterfront tans which consisted of shorts, Chacos and lifeguard tanks (bro tank tan), or the ropes tan of T-shirt and shorts tan with sock lines. Or the glorious landscaping bro tank tan too.
16. TABLEAU!!!!
Whether you are in the eastern division and tableau meant '80s night, and it means the best dinner and the best day of outfits or if you are in the southern division and tableau means western night full of the same, tableau was everyone's favorite night.
17. The endless inside jokes.
Whether it be inside arguments over dumb things, quotes from the program team, or just funny inside jokes that came out from nowhere that were constantly said just to make someone laugh, we all had the endless numbers of inside jokes.
18. Alone time.
Whether it was getting up an hour earlier to spend some time with the Lord in an empty dining hall with an apple and a cup of tea, or taking a shower just to be alone for once we all appreciated the alone time that we take for granted at home.
19. The dancing.
Even if their wasn't music, someone was always dancing to keep the mood up. Non stop dancing was the way to let your emotions out
20. The goodbye.
Don't lie. You cried. We all cried, whether you are a crier or not. We all ugly cried. Some people said "bye see you never again" and others clung on to each other and sobbed, while some ran away from people that they physically could not say goodbye to.
Shoutout to Lake Champion's June 2016 Summer Staff, love y'all.
