I am always interested when I come across info that is relevant to camp ministry. What do we have going for us here at camp? Woods, friends, getting away from screens of all shapes and sizes, focused time learning about God, and time to play. Being in the forest feeds the soul and stepping into a new adventure grows you as a person. Seeing someone a little older than you who is hungry for God’s word changes you. But this week Scruffy was listening to a podcast on the value of play. 

This weekend is the CamasCon Christian Board Gamer’s Retreat. It’s a perfect time to look at the value of play. 

So, Scruff was listening to a podcast, as he often is, and came across a fascinating study. As many studies do, this one had its roots in tragedy. Up until recently, the largest school shooting occured in the 1960s. But the perpetrator left a suicide note asking if someone could figure out why he felt the way he did. And so a scientist was assigned this task. Why did this man in particular kill? He studied the killer’s life, perfect student and soldier, always getting great grades, never getting into trouble. But one thing stood out about this man’s life. He never relaxed and never played. He was always on task. The researcher looked deeper and found out that this man’s father had prevented him from playing, ever, even as a young baby. Taking the idea further, the researcher went into prisons and started interviewing killers. What many of them had in common, they didn’t play.

God did not design us to live like this.

Exodus 23:12–“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.” 

Mark 2:27–“Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Now, if you don’t come up to CamasCon or Summer Camp this year are you going to go on a shooting spree? Probably not. But this startling story emphasizes the value of something simple that we try to accomplish here at camp. We play. At CamasCon they sit in front of complicated strategy board games for 3-11 hours at a time. At Junior Camps they ride horses and have water fights and run all over the woods looking for chess pieces hidden in the forest. At home, my boys snuggle their chickens and ride bikes and have monster pillow fights. My step dad would go hunting or chop wood. My grandfather fiddles around in his wood shop. I curl up with a good book and a cup of tea when I am weary. These are all forms of rest, forms of play.

Hiking and crafts, paintball and slip-n-slide, night games and singing and three legged races in the meadow. God made us to work hard and to accomplish great feats. But He also made us to rest and play and be refreshed. He knew that the human soul needs careful care. He knew that we would see Him in the gentle way that sunlight filters through the branches of a forest and in the sound of laughter as kids dig through bowls of mashed potatoes looking for Skittles. He understood that if our souls were never at play, they would shrivel and die.

And so I challenge you today, have you taken the time to play? Walk a mountain trail, grab a picture book and pull your child into your lap, set up a board game with you sons, make a craft out of pine cones with your little girls. Remember how God made us. We must pause from our perpetual accomplishment and take the time to be refreshed. It is to our benefit that we rest. How can we ever see God if we are constantly focused and busy. He will not always chase us down and tackle us demanding that we see His glory. Sometimes we must rest and be quiet, or laugh and be loud in order to see Him at work and find rest for our souls.

Boo Boo

Spring has finally come to Camas Meadows. This is a view from our small gravel road taken on my morning walk. I no longer have to pick my way over treacherous icy patches. The road is clear, if a bit muddy. The meadow is mostly free of snow, only a few cold white mounds remain. Birdsong fills the morning air and frogs fill the evening shadows with their soft melody. Crocus are pushing up through the brittle gray strands of last year’s grass and yellow pine lillys dot the hillside on the drive up Camas Creek Road. 

The unfolding of spring around us speaks to me of resurrection. 

Romans 1:20 says that “God’s invisible qualities–His eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made…”

God shows Himself in the world around us and spring tells of how we are made new. Three little girls chose God last week for the very first time. They are new, like spring, breaking across the meadow in all of its fresh beauty. Our Lord came down among us so that we do not have to stay cold and dead like an icy winter night. We are made to live and grow. Seeing springtime change the meadow around me, gives me a glimpse of all that God wants for us. Resurrection, new life, growth and change and beauty. Like the new shoots of the wildflowers, stretching past the dead leaves of yesterday and daring to become something new.

John 12:46–“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”

Spring in the forest

Boo Boo

Scruff has been wanting to do some more woodworking. Consequently, he’s spent some time perusing table designs online. He was scrolling through a bunch of pictures when a certain table caught my eye.

“That one.” I said, stopping him before he moved past it.

Both of us paused and admired the table. A gargantuan plank had been sawn from a single massive trunk. The surface cut and sanded glassy smooth and treated with a gleaming finish. What made this lovely bit of craftsmanship stand out from all the other beautiful tables?

The wood was damaged.

Something had gouged out or perhaps eaten away a large chunk from the center of the tree. Dark and irregular, the deep wound rested at the heart of the magnificent table. The damaged place reduced the practicality of the piece. I could imagine businessmen losing their coffee cups and pens down inside the blackened crevasse. As a mother, the thought occurred to me that cooked carrots might be hidden inside, or small jars of bugs or captured frogs. I suppose the table had lost some of its usefulness because of the gaping wound. It had been damaged.

Oh, but it was beautiful.

The utter loveliness, caught my breath and stilled my eyes as they roved over the other pieces of furniture. This one was more amazing than all the rest.

Why?

You tell me. Here is the link. Obviously, I cannot afford this table any time soon. But anyway… for me, the character of the piece is what drew me in. There was nothing else like it. The tree must have been ancient and enormous, great and tall and strong. It had survived some deep wound within itself and had lived on. It continued to grow and thrive and the rest of the wood shone with the rich colors and intricate grain that always enchant me. But that deep gouge at its heart, this bought my love. The table was simply gorgeous.

We are like this, you know. You and I. Is there any among us who has not been wounded?

A rental group was up a few weeks ago. The speaker was Chris Weedin. He spoke for us at Sr. High Teen Camp last summer. Chris asked Scruffy to start out their testimony time on the last night of their retreat. Scruffy’s testimony is not pretty. God called him out of a dark and terrible place. But then, isn’t that what God does for us all? Without Him, we are diseased and dying. Then The King rides rampant through our darkness and makes us new. After Scruffy started things out, kids got up to speak. One after another, after another, after another. Broken, bleeding, and beautiful. Until 1:45am they came.

I can imagine their Lord, watching from His throne as each one stood and walked forward.

“That one.” He said. “I want that one.”

For just as I stopped and stared in amazement at the beauty of that wounded table. Our Lord sees the glory waiting within each of us. Gleaming wood, delicate grain, wounded heart. So lovely. Do not forget, my friend, what you are to your Lord and King.

 Psalm 34:18–“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Boo Boo

There are two sides to every coin. Every beauty is paired with a difficulty and hardship, yes even hardship has its advantages.

I was reminded of this yesterday during our family’s “Screen Time”.

Now, there are a few difficulties associated with living and working up at camp. Before the new power system was put in, we would occasionally lose power for…oh two months or so while waiting for a part for the generator. Pulling stuck cars out of the ditch is a regular part of life. And joyful teenagers who want to talk will occasionally drive up to our house at 1:00am in the hopes that someone is still awake and eager for conversation. Luckily, Scruffy usually is because I am always in bed by then.

But the perks, camp perks are the absolute best.

It was my youngest boy’s pick for screen time yesterday. He really wanted to play Lego Indiana Jones. And so I let him…the only problem. His brothers wanted to play a different game with Choco downstairs. My little guy was all by himself without anyone to play with. He was really sad and I had a particularly complicated dinner to prepare. I was able to spare 15 minutes to play with him, but had to get back to the kitchen after that. Then a gift of God wandered through the door of the staff house. Sméagol was up to work in the kitchen. I inquired about his interest in Lego Indiana Jones. After he rushed off and checked in at the kitchen, Sméagol came up to our house and played Lego Indiana Jones with my little guy. He was ecstatic. One of our cool, fun counselors all to himself. This was little boy heaven. And I was reminded of the beautiful perks of living and working at Camas Meadows. So I would like to remind you, dear counselor, of a few of those camp perks. In case you get discouraged, because yes, it is going to be hard. But hang in there, much blessing will come as well.

If you chose to become a camp counselor this summer, there will come a moment (probably more than one) where you find yourself overwhelmed and discouraged. Yes, we prepared you for this job in Staff Training. But somehow it all seems much more difficult when it is your camper who ran around the lodge 10 times on a dare right after the ice cream eating contest.

Camp holds vast quantities of fun and is a whole lot of hard work to make happen. So for those hard days, I wanted to remind you of some of the camp perks that you can expect along with mopping the kitchen at midnight and having to be the donkey in your cabin skit because no one else wants to and your hair is the shaggiest.

Camp is in the forest. Not a park or a little patch of woods outside of town, we are situated in the actual forest. There are deer and elk, bear and cougar, chipmunks and porcupines and owls. How often do you get to look up at the night sky without any light pollution? How often are you able to walk back to your cabin without a flashlight because the full moon is so bright that it causes actual shadows to stretch out under the trees? We are smack dab in the middle of God’s creation and camp is a beautiful place to be.

Camp is busy. Bored? Not if you are at camp. There is always something going on. Paintball, horseback riding, hike to The Stone Face, campfire, Meadow Games, Lake Day, midnight walk to Inspiration Point, Night Games, Skit Night…One is never bored at camp. Exhausted, but never bored.

Your friends are at camp. What? You don’t know anyone at camp? That doesn’t matter. Friendships are forged through the fire of accomplishing a worthy task together. Facing difficulty for the sake of others. Striving and sacrificing so that the kids can have an awesome time, has a unique perk of its own. You meet other people who are willing to give, work hard, and stretch themselves to the limit for the sake of the Lord. They make the very best kinds of friends and you get to keep them after the summer is over.

So there you have it. Hard work does have its own rewards, but it is nice to know that you gain more than personal improvement. Yes, you will learn and grow, gain skills and toughen your resolve to follow your Lord. But you will also gain so much more. The Lord is generous in His gifts. I have found this time and again. This week I got to see God’s overwhelming generosity to our family. God is good. He brings us beauty among the ashes of our hurting and joy to garnish the frustrations of life.

Boo Boo

Just hanging out for the weekend, how on earth is that genuine and profitable ministry?

Scruffy has been hoping to schedule more events for our summer staff and the opportunity presented itself recently. On the weekend of February 27th through March 1st he was able to plan a weekend for staff to come up to camp, free of charge. It is true that they will be working hard for several hours on Saturday to provide a tubing day for local youth leaders, but the rest of the time is for them to hang out, at camp, together. What is the point in that?

Our staff forge friendships through the fires of a difficult and demanding summer of service. They give all summer long. They push on through fatigue and lack of sleep so that children can have a fun and safe time at camp learning about Jesus. We train the staff, we push the staff to go beyond where they imagined they could, and we also want to encourage and support our staff. That is what this weekend is all about. We want to inspire them in their walk with the Lord. We want to show them that they are loved and appreciated. We want to give them a place to come to where they are an integral part of the body of Christ.

Think back to when you were a teen or college student. School is full of deadlines and pressure and kids who are so much cooler than you. Work is busy and all about how well you can fit into the adult workplace with efficiency and skill, even though you are in many ways still a kid. At home you do hours of homework and learn not to be snotty to your parents on the day that the cat caught fire when it jumped up on the counter to investigated the gas burners on the stove and the sink clogged and overflowed all the way down the hall.

Now think about that one place where you felt safe and at home and able to be yourself. And not just yourself, better than yourself, because you had someone encouraging you and urging you forward. Is it a park where you went jogging in the evenings? Is it that first restaurant you worked in where the owner took you under her wing? Is it the kitchen in your old house where your Mom let you pull up one of the tall stools to nibble cookies while she worked? Is it the garage where you and your dad rebuilt that Mustang convertible? Is it that quiet pocket of forest where you would take a book and a quilt and sit quietly to read?

For many of our staff, that place is Camas Meadows.

And that is why weekends like this are so vital. During the summer, our staff work their tails off, day and night. They haul wood during work retreats and they learn and grow during the Summer Staff Winter Retreat. But once in awhile, we want to just invite them up. We want them to be able to come to a place where they are welcome, where they are at home, where they can be themselves and maybe even more than what they thought they could become. We want to be the body of Christ to them.

So much ministry is going on, when you are doing nothing more than showing love to the brother or sister beside you. So simple, and yet vitally important.

Boo Boo

Have you heard about “Forest Kindergarten”? What on earth is it and what does it have to do with camp? Well, Forest Kindergarten is based on the German “waldkindergarten” model. Strangely, as our ability to study the human brain increases, our value of the simple times of unstructured play during childhood increases as well. Current studies indicate that the intensity and super-scheduled nature of the classroom can be a deterrent to later learning. The solution, get outside and just play! Which is exactly what occurs at Forest Kindergarten. The human brain is busy and at work when children are allowed to simply interact with the outdoor world. You thought that building forts for hours at a time and poking mud puddles with sticks was a waste of time? Not so. Children have a greater capacity to absorb information when they are submerged in nature and a great love of learning can be developed from such an environment.

I read a cool article about outdoor kindergarten this week, so what? What does this have to do with camp?

I live at a Bible Camp, God’s beautiful creation is all around me. Whenever I read something like this, I can’t help but think of camp. Here at Camas Meadows we sing crazy songs, engage in interesting competitions involving mayonnaise and slices of cheese, and learn about God’s great love.

All of this is set within the backdrop of God’s amazing creation. Not only do kids get to read John 3:16 in their Bibles, but they also get to hike to Inspiration Point in the dead of night and gaze upon the vast array of stars spread across the heavens. They tromp through the forest, getting sweaty and tired until finally the canyon view at The Stone Face appears. Steep sandstone cliffs topped by a giant boulder shaped like the stern visage of a mighty Native American Brave. Birdsong and the chattering of squirrels. The mottled shadows and gentle rays of summer sunlight. Spider webs blanketing the undergrowth in the black forest and the silent passage of deer.

God’s creation is astounding and lovely. It is mighty and furious, tender and deadly and strong. Nature points to God in all of His inexplicable holiness. Just as the human brain is stimulated for growth and learning by a few meandering moments on a path through the forest, I believe that God’s creation stirs the soul as well.

Take the time to step outside this week. Run your fingers across the rough tips of grass in an overgrown lawn. Stop and listen to birdsong. Watch a squirrel stealing sunflower seeds from a birdfeeder. Feel the bite of snowflakes against your face during a storm. Watch the rush of clouds across the sky on a windy afternoon. Not only will such activities stir the mind, you just might get a glimpse of the God who made you and loves you as well.

Boo Boo

Camp is chaos with a direction. Not everyone is geared to work at camp. Some folks need a job description, a number of hours they are expected to work, days off, and the promise of a set bedtime. And then there is camping ministry. One never knows what is going to happen next. All the small business owners out there are nodding their heads. They know exactly what it is like to have responsibility for everything that must be done, no matter the day or hour. For some people, this kind of adventure would drive them crazy. But for some, they simply haven’t tried it yet and don’t realize how amazing it is to watch God work His wonders in the midst of our fears and feelings of inadequacy.

Our summer intern posted a beautiful newsletter article that walked us through her first terrifying and amazing week as a camp counselor. I want to repost that here, because it was so real and honest and fabulous. But I also want to give you guys a sneak peak. I want to take you behind the scenes as Scruffy considered making that phone call that would push our dear Sparks way out of her comfort zone and into a leadership position.

Usually one is a C.I.T. her first year, a Junior counselor her second year, and finally in her third year she is considered for the senior counselor position. But things don’t always work out like this. Sometimes a teen is not ready to be a Senior Counselor when their third year of camp experience rolls around. Sometimes we have too many qualified counselors and an individual must be a Jr. Counselor for another year. Sometimes there are simply not enough applicants and we must choose someone to step up. Once in awhile, we will even ask one of the permanent staff members to counsel. Scruffy, Choco, and I have all taken a cabin for a week when needed.

So, it was the night before camp and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except for Scruffy who was doing cabin assignments. The number of campers did not match up with the number of counselor applicants. When we are in a pinch with the girl counselors, I usually offer to counsel. This time Scruff was not concerned. “You don’t need to, I have someone in mind.”

When we are short on staff, God always provides someone. Sometimes it is a counselor from years before who is suddenly able to return and help out. Sometimes it is myself or one of the permanent staff members. Sometimes it is a new counselor who is ready to be pushed out of their comfort zone and into a position of authority. Sparks was 17 or 18 years old, demonstrated a solid understanding of the Bible and the Gospel at Staff Training, had a summer of experience at a different camp, and she was from the church of Scruffy’s good friend who highly recommended her. So Scruff didn’t even consider pulling me away from my parenting duties, Sparks was just right for the job.

Easy for us to see her potential, hard for her to feel prepared. It can be so difficult to move forward completely relying on God, but this is exactly where we want our staff to be. This is where God does His very best work.

And so without further ado, here is Sparks’ beautiful testimony.

“Recently I’ve been getting caught up in qualifications. Kind of a weird thing, I know. I’ve been looking for a job, reading about how to get the job I want, and how I need to acquire all these qualifications and skills before I can get the job I want. Honestly, it’s overwhelming. I keep thinking I’m so behind and feeling like I’m pushing against this constant wall of “experience.”
 
I’ve always thought that God’s way is backwards and upside down. He calls the unqualified, the inexperienced, and the weak. I struggle accepting that any of those characteristics could be used to describe me. I struggle accepting them because I don’t want to believe that’s what I am. But like the Bible says, “In my weakness He is stronger.” This brings me to the story of my first week as an unqualified, inexperienced, and weak counselor at Camas Meadows Bible Camp.
  
It was the night before my first week, first year, first everything, when I got a message from Scruffy saying they were short on girl staff and I was going to be a senior counselor that week. That first week. Of the first year. Of the first EVERYTHING. I had no dang clue what I was going to do.
  
That week my co-counselor and I had 8 campers. Neither of us had ever been campers up there so we were total newbs. But despite our under qualified-ness, we lead cabin discussions, created amazing sandcastles and skits, and loved those girls with all our hearts. We honestly didn’t know what else to do! During that week we didn’t know what Whatchamabob was, Morning Jam, or “The Pillow Fight”. Because we were such newbs, we didn’t know the exhaustion that comes with camp, so we would completely expended all our energy every day, all day. We were beyond weak at the end.
  

Three of our girls met Jesus for the first time that week. I still think of their little voices talking to God for the first time and it brings tears to my eyes. I wish I could live in that week always. I wish I could be that weak always. Because we were just winging it, we weren’t relying on God “consciously.” If that makes any sense. We knew we loved Jesus and we knew we wanted these girls to love Jesus too. Each day we didn’t pray “God give us guidance and wisdom as we lead these girls.” We prayed, “Lord, please let us make it to all the activities today and have fun.” In a way we knew God would take care of us. And he did. We didn’t ask everyday to be made humble, we were thrust into humbleness and it was good.
  
I was inexperienced, under qualified, and weak yet God used me. Yet now I feel like I have to be all these things before God can use me, but that’s not true! God will use me wherever he wants, whenever he wants. I just need to admit I’m nothing without him and that it is only through the love of Jesus Christ that I can accomplish anything. I am nothing without God. He is the ultimate qualification, experience, and strength.”

Sparks