This last summer I worked at Upper Missouri Ministries, a camp near the town where I grew up. This camp always was and probably will forever be a huge part of my life. To put this into perspective, I will give some background.
I first attended the camp as a Day Camper and I still remember one of the questions I asked my counselor: "When can I stay longer?" Ever since that camp, I spent every summer going to at least one camp all the way through high school. As such, I decided to work there the summer after my senior year as a Junior Counselor and then this past summer as a Counselor.
From the experiences I had, both as a counselor and as a camper, I learned many things. Today I will touch on the three that I think are the most prevalent.
One of the things I learned as both a camper and counselor is that no idea is necessarily a bad idea. Well this may not seem to be the case, I am not talking about ideas like jumping off of a bridge or anything that would involve harm. Instead, I mean ideas about, lets say, what to do for a game or a bible study or in free time. These ideas are often quick thoughts and, for me at least, don't get thought through thoroughly because they are often short notice, but this does not mean they should be discarded. Take, for example, one of the weeks I was a camper. The cabin I was in loved to play four square, but we did not want to wait in line every time we got out as we were not patient and we didn't always view it as fair. So we came up with the game of eight square. While this might not seem like much, today many of the kids who come to the camp know about and like to play eight square. My point is that these ideas that seem so small and insignificant had a large impact.
Another thing that I learned is the value of true friendship. This I learned mostly through the very tight-knit community that develops between the counselors. This is a community that shares countless inside jokes and also is always there for each other. There are many instances that demonstrate this. One is when I had an extremely homesick camper during my summer as a Junior Counselor. He was so homesick that he ended up locking himself in a bathroom stall and refusing to come out. This was one of my roughest weeks, and I was very thankful for the leadership staff who came and helped me with the situation. Although they were only doing their job, I have no doubt that they would have done this anyway. Anther example is when some of my coworkers and I were playing a game of watermelon with the campers. I was able to make one of my good friends, who was a watermelon, laugh quickly. Afterwards he told me that he was having a down day and that that helped lift his spirits. Once again, while these seem like little things, they show that true friendship is about being there for your friends even if you don't know they need it.
The final thing of great importance that I learned is the fact that kids are extraordinary. This is true for all kids, from the troublemaker to the one who sits and listens attentively to your every word. No matter how much it seems like they hate their experiences or how much trouble they cause, the campers always are sad to leave. At the same time, they grasp ideas that might seem too complex or too confusing for them, with ease. These qualities baffle me. Some may say that this is just the effect of camp on kids, but I don't think it is. In this day and age, children are too often seen as not being able to understand or comprehend. Yet they can pick up on ideas and different aspects of life with such ease. One example of this is during bible studies. Many of the ideas presented may be beyond them but they can quickly connect these ideas with others and are soon asking questions of equal complexity as the idea. These qualities is what I think makes them so extraordinary.
Overall, camp is not only a great experience, but a place of love and fellowship that taught me so many great values and things. I know my life would not be the same without summer camp.
