Dear Camp Greystone,
Hi! I miss you. I am sure camp looks beautiful around this time of the year, with the leaves changing in the mountains. I wanted to write you this letter to tell you a few things: why I love you and what you mean to me. So here it goes:
Greystone, I love you for many reasons. When I first pulled up to the staff parking lot last May, I wasn't so sure how we were going to get along. There were so many counselors who were both similar and different to me, and I was overwhelmed with all sorts of information about you, but a week and a half later I was head over heels in love with you. Greystone, I love you for your tradition. I was never a camper growing up, but I feel deeply connected to you because of the traditions I have been lucky enough to share a part of. I love your dining hall songs, where girls young and old smack their hands on the table and yell "I don't wanna go home." I love your quiet, still moments with candle light raised above us, and your crazy, wild moments when the girls of BU3 run and hide from a wasp. I love your council fire, where girls are told, "Good job, you have worked for this and have received recognition for your work." I love your message to girls that in a midst of a harsh, oftentimes hateful world, they are enough because they are fearfully and wonderfully made by the creator of the universe. I love how girls are free to run, to play, to roll down the grassy hills (yes, people do this at camp,) to dance and to be who they are in a safe place, where they hear the truth that they are fully known and fully loved.
Camp Greystone, you have a special place in my heart. I know it sounds cliche, but you mean a lot to me because of the Summer I spent learning and growing about Jesus and who He is, and the life that He has for us. Thank you for giving me a community of college aged women from all over the country (and the world) who want to take part in the work of loving young women. Thank you for bringing me some of my best friends (I'm talking to you Courtney Koenig) and for allowing me to wake up every morning to a miracle in the mountains. My time spent with you was so valuable, in more ways than one. So thank you.
I know that you will continue to change lives in the young and old alike, just as you have since 1920. Thank you for your yummy, nutritious and filling food, thank you for your beautiful, wonderful, magnificent evidence of the Creator, and thank you for honest, life-giving, life-as-it's-meant-to-be community.
To sum it all up:
Greystone, you're alright... you bet you are.
Love,
Macie
