Camp is the highlight of most kids summers. It's where you get to escape your parents for a few weeks and have fun with your friends and make some new ones! You get to go hiking, participate in arts and crafts, go swimming, sit by the campfire, and do all the things that you have been waiting to do all year long. The counselors are the coolest and you constantly looked up to them. You asked them questions, you wanted them to come with you to your activities with you and most of all you wanted to be a counselor yourself one day.

Camp changed my life, not when I was a camper, though. Camp changed my life the year I became a counselor. It was a few summers ago when I had just turned 16. I applied for a position at a camp called Special Friends Camp, and honestly I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Little did I know that those two weeks of camp were going to change my life forever.

The first night I was a little taken back to say the least. I was thrown completely out of my comfort zone and was placed into an environment that made me very vulnerable. I could barely walk into a hospital or a nursing home without feeling uneasy much less completely care for my campers.

Well, as time passed, my co-counselors and the campers themselves assured me that everything was fine. They made things easier for me and it allowed me to grow not only as a counselor but as an individual as well.

I learned so much about myself in those two weeks and I could not be more thankful for that experience. I learned about patience, that when trying to care for people with special needs you have to allow them to move at their own pace -- you can't rush them. Just like you can't always rush things in life, one needs a patient heart because things are not always going to come when you want them to.

I learned to be humble and to be thankful for what God has given me. We complain about so much daily when in reality we all have very little to complain about. At camp we had individuals that could not walk, talk, feed or bathe themselves and although they needed help to perform most of their daily routines, they never let it get them down. They kept their head high and were grateful for what they had and were grateful to be at camp. This taught me that the minuscule things that I complain about are so minor compared to what others go through and that I should be happy with everything that I am blessed with.

I also learned that you can form some of the most amazing bonds with people who you can barely even communicate with; that even though you only get to see your campers once a year you make an impact in their lives and they make an even bigger impact in yours. Throughout the weeks of camp, you are given countless hugs, flashed a huge amount of smiles, and the words, "I love you, counselor," ring in your ears for weeks to come.

This is only scratching the surface and I could go on and on about camp for days but, anyone who has worked Special Friends Camp, or any other camp, knows that you get out way more than you put in and that is why camp is so life changing.