A little known (or overly talked about) fact about me is that I went to church camp every summer from 2nd to 12th grade. As a young girl I accompanied my mother on the drive down to drop my brother off for a week of fun and spirituality, and needless to say that I was jealous of him. By the time I hit 2nd grade, I was so ready to go to church camp. Sure, I cried and sobbed as my parents left me, but soon enough I ran around the grassy areas playing games with other children. Like I said, this is either something you have never heard about before - at school I tend to just say “summer camp” to avoid awkward conversations regarding religion - or I have talked your ear off with fun camp stories. Either way, church camp played a huge part in shaping the person I am today.

I have written about camp before, as it is not a place you forget. There is no better feeling than going for a nice hike in the wilderness, sitting around the campfire with your friends, or making crafts on a rainy day. Most importantly, at the end of every week I felt rejuvenated in my faith. I left with life long friends and a sense of purpose. There are simply not enough thanks in the world for every counselor, director, friend and staffer who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.

For the first ten years of my camp experience I called Templed Hills my home. This campus is beautiful, with a large rolling hill, cabins up in the woods, and my favorite pool ramp. I mention the pool ramp because whenever we had quiet prayer outside, I would lay down on the pool ramp as I talked with God. However, for my last year of camp we learned that Templed Hills was on sabbatical and thus inhabited a new place - Pilgrim Hills. While it wasn’t the same, it became a second home. Templed Hills lives in my heart as the place I grew up - where I met some of my best friends, the place I first saw Newsies, and the pool where my friends tried to teach me how to dive. Moving to Pilgrim Hills felt wrong, as I wanted to end my experience where it started, but with great directors who understood my feelings, Pilgrim Hills became just as important.

Recently, the U.C.C has decided to sell Pilgrim Hills and reopen Templed Hills. My heart is sad for the fate of Pilgrim Hills, as I want others to have the same experience as me. I want campers to feel that it is their home, and for some of the younger campers moving is going to be hard. It devastates me that it comes to this, although I knew it was going to come someday. On the flip side, I am happy to return to Templed Hills and create more memories on that campus. In case you have not caught on, there’s a flood of emotions involved here. Reopening the old campus feels, for lack of a better word, odd. In a sense, I had already “grieved” losing that campus and knowing that it was unlikely I would ever make memories there again. Conversely, I had not expected myself to grow so close to Pilgrim Hills considering I have only been there for two camps, and I cannot wait to spend a third summer on campus. I hope whoever inherits Pilgrim Hills treats it as the haven it has become for children and adults alike and that they realize the self-growth that has occurred on the campus.