Outdoor Play and God

Posted on June 21, 2014 by Kristen

Last week Scruffy pointed out an interesting article about outdoor play. It is written by secular scientists who are researching the connection between outdoor play, spirituality, and environmental appreciation. Now the Michigan State University Investigators have barely taken a glimpse at this fascinating concept. But I think they have tapped into an age old truth that further research will only confirm.

Romans 1:20–“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

It is 7:31am and I am in my favorite puffy chair at the Staff house writing. If I glance out the window up toward the cabins, I see the mottled morning shadows in the undergrowth that creeps across the hillside and shaggy strips of lichen draping the puzzle piece bark of Ponderosa Pines. I hear birdsong from nearby branches and shoo away a squirrel that tries to break into our home through a gap by the air-conditioner. There is something of God in these simple and powerful sights. Something that tugs at the soul.

A lung-full of crisp morning air and the brush of bright leaves across your skin, the crunch of pine needles under your feet as you run and the wind drying the sweat in your hair when you top the ridge after a long hike. The grumbling strength of a bear and the fluid grace of a deer bounding across the meadow. These things speak of God.

A child, hiking and dancing, running and falling and frolicking and imagining. A child out in God’s creation begins to understand all these things. Just as anyone who is near God is amazed and apprehensive, awed and comforted. Nature has that effect upon us, because it is His. Is it any wonder that a child would understand that we must cherish the splendid world that speaks to us of God? That we must not trample upon the works of His hands.

An ancient truth. But no less vital for this generation of children.

So as these secular scientists suggest, we must get out little ones outdoors. Let them feel a caterpillar rolling across their skin. Allow them the warmth of sunlight on their closed eyelids. Walk them past the fierce chittering squirrel and the bounding hare, the massive bull elk blowing frosty clouds of breath on an October morning and the silent cougar that is but a flash before it is gone. These things speak of God and so many people are missing them.

This is something that a week at summer camp can offer to the children entrusted to us. We sing about God and learn about God from the camp speaker, but sometimes the walk up to the cabin and that fleeting glimpse of a doe and her fawn is even more profound. God is here, in the Glory of His creation and we shall become a sorry people indeed, if we miss Him as He walks among us.

Boo Boo

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/05/02/outdoor-play-can-enhance-kids-spirituality/69283.html

The Art of Giving Courage

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Kristen

Encouragement

It seems insignificant, too simple, a side dish to the main thing of what we are trying to do at camp. But for some kids, encouragement is that fresh drink of hope that enables them to carry on.

I know someone who loved going to the dentist as a child. The receptionist always smiled, the hygienist told him what a good job he was doing at holding still and brushing and opening his mouth up wide. For several years he thought that he had a unique talent. That he alone could sit and spit and say “aaaahhhh” so that those cheerful dental professionals were wowed by his abilities. It was only later, in his adulthood, that he realized they did this with all the kids who obeyed. That they were simply being encouraging. But for a boy who had grown up without it, encouragement was a rare and dazzling phenomenon.

There was a girl who arrived at camp and didn’t smile. Most kids are excited, they are hyper and nervous and running around all crazy meeting their cabin mates and counselors and hugging their parents goodbye. Her face showed none of this, only stone. The next day our camp speaker sought her out, wanting to ask how her first day at camp had gone. He couldn’t find her.

Had we somehow lost a camper in the woods? Was she hiding in the canteen, buried amongst the snickers bars refusing to come out? Had she been abducted by Big Foot and a passel of squirrels?

Nope, she was smiling and he didn’t recognize her.

I see her once in awhile around town and she always smiles at me. The last time, she ran over to our car dragging a friend. She introduced me, told me she was coming to camp, and dug through her buddy’s backpack to yank out a camper registration. As we drove away they were double checking the camp dates to make sure that they had signed up for the same week.

As Christians, we should be in the business of giving courage. Christ is our hope and our strength when we have none. God has reduced Himself to one of us and died among us so that we might live. We have courage to give. A smile, a hug, a crazy skit, a cabin full of bran new friends. Encouragement. This is one of the things we strive to do at Camas Meadows. Pray for us this summer that in Christ we will succeed.

I Thessalonians 5:11a–“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up…”

Boo Boo

Ladies Retreat, Pain, and Doggies

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Kristen

For the first time in years, I had the opportunity to participate in the Camas Meadows Annual Ladies Retreat. During one of the sessions I was able to attend (I have 3 boys at home and so my attendance tends to be sporadic at best) the speaker was reading from I Samuel and the story of Hannah. We remember Hannah for her sacrifice and devotion and faith. But I was struck by the words used to describe her tale.

Wept

Would not Eat

Bitterness of Soul

Wept Much and Prayed

Look upon your servant’s Misery

Remember Me

Deeply Troubled

Pouring out my Soul

My Great Anguish and Grief

So many times all we remember is the triumphal climax of this story. Hannah has a baby boy and she gives him to God. But Hannah experienced her Dark Night of the Soul as well. Many many dark nights in fact.

We had to say goodbye to our dear doggy Shamu this week. He has been beloved by our family and campers alike, for almost 12 years. And when you are in that moment of grief, weeping in the darkness, lost in the sadness and pain. It is hard to look at all the greats in the Bible and remember that they didn’t know how their stories would end.

They walked through darkness as well, but they trusted that God walked with them. Because that is what He has vowed to us. Not that our path will only contain butterflies and flowers, but that He is there, among us, in our ecstasy and in our grief. That He is God, whatever this world contains. That He is Lord, whatever pits and heights our tale must traverse. That He is love and the we are His. These are the things to which we can cling. These, these are truth.

John 16:33–“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Boo Boo

Spend Yourselves

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Kristen

The Deadline for Summer Staff applications came this week.

Scruff and I will be reading applications and praying and interviewing kids and praying that more people will suddenly decide to send in an application at the last minute. Getting enough counselors can be difficult. But the Lord always provides. And I was thinking about what exactly a summer serving at camp offers you. How can I lure you to come and serve with us, especially when other places can afford to actually pay you? How can I correctly portray the impact that a week of fun and sun and Bible sessions and night games has on the children you give your summer to?

I can’t.

What can we offer you here at Camas Meadows? After a week of serving kids with us you will be completely and totally spent.

At camp you will thoroughly spend yourselves. Spend yourself until you think that there isn’t a single drop of energy left in your body to give, and when you reach that point, then you will give more. You will not get enough sleep. You will not have the alone time that you think you need to recharge. You will have to get up way too early to have that precious moment in the Word with your Lord. You will think about skipping that time, but you will need it. Because God is all that will keep you going. At first the sheer energy and joy and utter rowdiness will push you along in a joy-filled wave of activity. But then you will run out. Then you will see what is left when your energy and drive and sleep has all evaporated. Who are you, beneath everything else? You will not be enough. And that is alright, because He walks among us, hoping for these moments when we are truly spent.

It is that moment when you do the motions to the crazy songs and then wrap your arms around your campers shoulders for the slow songs and then hide behind a bush and weep for 5 minutes crying out to God because they will be going home in 2 days and you know what kind of home that is. Then when even your tears are spent, you pray and you wipe your face and you run down to the meadow to play capture the flag and crawl through nettles and step on a bees nest and hike to inspiration point and finally TP the boys cabin because you promised the girls on the first day that you would. And then you lay in your sleeping bag all stinging with nettle scratches wondering how you will ever wake up in time to read your Bible in the morning, much less make it to Staff Meeting. But you do, because there is no way you will survive unless you are clutching the hand of Jesus for every stumbling step.

Being spent is Scruffy on Sunday in the summer. Weeping through the worship time and dropping off to sleep during the sermon. Don’t worry, I jab him awake with my thumb. But anyone who has spent a summer at camp understands being spent.

This is what we have to offer you.

At Camas Meadows Bible Camp you will spend yourselves.

But even though you may feel like a chocolate chip cookie that has been jumped upon by rabid orangutans and then tossed on the freeway and run over by three dump trucks and a trailer hauling elephants, this is ok with God.

He can do so much after we have crumbled.

In that moment that we give up, that we fall in a heap at His feet and tell Him we cannot go on. That is when the real work begins. Not our work, but His. You will see God’s glory, if you stick around after you have been entirely spent.

And so I implore you, come serve at Camas Meadows, or on a short term mission, or with Campus Crusade or Compassion or World Vision or…. Spend yourself on behalf of others and watch God do what He does best. He takes our emptiness and brings about His glory. Life for us and everyone around us.

This is what He does, even with those who are spent. Especially with those who are spent.

Boo Boo

Spring CamasCon

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Kristen

Scruffy is hauling his 200+ board games back home today. The spring CamasCon is over and now they must all be placed back on the shelf in our dinning room. Scruff started this board game retreat seven years ago because of his personal passion for strategy board games and the people who play them.

Yep, Scruffy is a card-carrying geek. He even has a profile on www.boardgamegeek.com. Christian gamers from all over the state and even a few other places as well, congregate at Camas for a weekend clustered around the camp tables playing games. They nibble snacks that aren’t messy because that would mean food dust on the games. My brother brings up a 3-foot-long gummy worm for everyone to eat and wears his Yoshi sweats the whole time. And pretty much everyone doesn’t sleep.

Jeffery, the youth pastor from Little Stone Church, was the speaker this week and he talked about growing up as one thing and becoming something new in Christ. A story that Scruffy has in common with him. My three sons did the very best quiet sitting that I have ever observed. Usually I must hover around them at camp saying things like: “Sit down. Stop bouncing on the couch and kicking your feet in the air. People don’t like you to sit on their heads and pull their ears while they are playing, boys.” And yes, I did say some of these things…but not the whole time. The boys are growing up into sweet little geeks that make their Daddy proud.

CamasCon is a strange and lovely time of refreshment. Fifty-three campers came, not counting my boys, with at least half of them being new. And yeah, Scruff has to transport his 200+ games back and forth twice a year. But to Scruff it is worth any hassle. How often do you get to play and worship with people who have a passion for exactly the same things that you do? CamasCon provides this service for the geeks that I love.

Boo Boo

First Spring Flowers

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Kristen

We have a tradition up here at Camas Meadows.

The first flowers of spring belong to Grandma Autumn. There is still enough snow on the ground for my sons to dig snow tunnels, although I see bare patches beneath the trees. But spring is here. The first flowers never appear up on the top of the hill where Winter’s grasp takes so long to loosen. They push through the loam on the banks of Camas Creek Road as it twists up the mountain toward the meadow. For the whole month of March and sometimes into April, we drive by these sunny roadside banks at 5 miles per hour looking for splashes of yellow. Finally the day arrives. Bright yellow pine lilies appear on the banks and we gather the first few blooms of spring for my grandmother, Autumn Griffith, one of the camp’s founders.

When the first blossoms finally came this year, I handed the small bouquet to my youngest son and he took off like a shot, barefoot and coatless, for Grammy’s house. Because she had been waiting for this moment all month.

Just so you know, it is spring now at Camas Meadows. It may not look like it. But soon the melt will reach the top of the mountain and we will have flowers of our own blanketing the forest floor. Even though my boys are busy digging forts in the snow banks, we are confident that the advent of spring has occurred. The pine lilies have been found and presented to Grandma Autumn. The rest of the season is soon to follow.

Boo Boo

Watering

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Kristen

Yogi has been many things up here at camp. A camp counselor (yep, Yogi and Boo Boo…but I must point out that my name came first), a longtime friend, and now one of our board members. He was up the other night and I asked if he could remember any moments from camp that might help me with the blog.

There was one year that he had a group of guys in his cabin who had chosen to follow Christ the summer before. Yogi came upon them with a pile of cassette tapes (I told you this was a long time ago) jubilantly yanking all of the tape out in long strands of destruction. They felt the tapes were hindering their walk with the Lord and were sacrificing their beloved music in order to serve Him better.

Yogi was amazed because he was watching fruit ripen that had been planted a year before. Their counselor from the previous summer had mentioned the music. But it was only after a year back at school and another summer of fun and teaching and being urged forward in their walk with God, that this seed matured.

And so Yogi ushered these boys into his cabin and loved them and played night games with them and watched in wonder as the seeds of the summer before bore fruit right before his eyes. They were ready to move on. Ready to let go of the things they had loved before and devote themselves to God. The previous counselor did not get to watch this moment. It was Yogi, who stepped in and watered those seeds. Yogi was granted the privilege of observing the fruit.

Planting and watering and harvesting, all these things occur at camp. So do not get discouraged with the role you are are given. God calls us to serve and the harvest will be His. One job is not more noble than another.

God has mighty plans and He wants to use you and He wants to use me. Maybe we are planters or watering the seeds. Perhaps we see the harvest after others have poured out their lives and love upon someone for years. Just be faithful with every day that is given. Our Lord is good. Remember that He loves each one of His children, no matter which part of the field they are toiling upon. We are his servants and all the Glory belongs to our Lord.

I Corinthians 3:8-9a–“The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service…”

Boo Boo

Gorp

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Kristen

This week we are privileged to hear from a long time friend and counselor Gorp. I’ve been waiting with bated breath for Gorp to write something for the blog. So glad he did!

Written by Steven Whitham, camp name: Gorp.

Nearly a year ago, Kristen asked me to write about how Camas Meadows had affected my life. It has taken me that long to put my thoughts to page. The truth is, writing this was a daunting task because I don’t like opening up to anyone and everyone. At the same time, Camas Meadows means too much for me to relay anything less than what’s really on my heart.

So allow me lend you my eyes.

I first attended Camas Meadows when I was 13 as a camper. Like many other things in my life, my insistent mother pressured me into going. Not that I was opposed to going, just apathetic about it. And like so many other things in my life, I’m afterwards glad my mother is so insistent. That first week changed my life forever in a positive way. Since that year, I attended Camas Meadows once more as a camper, 3 times as a counselor including a summer where I worked every week. My last time working as staff, I took leave from the Army to work at camp.

In order to explain what Camas Meadows means to me, I should explain a few things about myself. For those who don’t know me, understand that I am naturally introverted. I usually only share with a very select few. For those who do know me, this will set some context.

I am an Army captain, having deployed both to Iraq and Afghanistan. My last assignment was leading a group of men whose primary responsibility was tracking human beings to be killed or captured. 70-80 hour workweeks at home, 90-100 hour workweeks while deployed, kept me underweight 20-25lbs from the stress. I’ve lost friends, seen inhumane things I won’t share on this blog, sent men into combat and nearly lost one in a firefight (a distance of 2 inches saved his life), while folks at home debate whether what we’re doing is even moral. (By the way, my experience is tame in comparison to most.)

When Jesus needed rest, he went to the garden. Camas Meadows is my garden. In a world gone berserk, Camas Meadows remains a place where everything is, in a word, right. Every time my life turns upside down, Camas Meadows is my refuge. It’s where I go to take a life pause, catch my breath, and heal. Never underestimate the power of safe haven.

When I need God most, I find Him at Camas Meadows.

Camas Meadows Bible Camp is a place where all the world’s distractions melt away and God meets you where you are. If you’re a “lost” soul, God finds you. If you’re a Christian with lost direction, God will light your path. If you’re hurting, God enters your wounds. In my time there, I have had the privilege of leading others to Christ, but also sitting speechless, giving only the gift of my shoulder as others show me their shattered hearts just hoping someone, anyone, will understand. And I have witnessed miracles, physical and spiritual, personal and otherwise.

The most profound snapshots in time occur around the campfire at the end of every summer camp week, where kids share what God has done for them that week. For those who have never experienced this, let me paint the picture for you. Sitting in the cold on wooden benches or the grass with blankets, a fire, and embraces of friends for warmth, we look to a sky with stunningly vibrant stars set against a black canvass. Someone brings a guitar and we sing praises to God for His creation and His love. Everyone is exhausted after a week of fun and/or tears, too tired to keep their guard up but discovering they no longer need to. Worship becomes pure, authentic, and unashamed. One by one, people stand up, toss a piece of kindling into the fire, and speak what’s on their mind. Some speak for only a few seconds, thanking God or the counselors for the friendships they’ve made and the fun they’ve had at camp. Others share at length the most heartbreaking stories ever uttered aloud. Some proclaim joyfully their decision to accept Christ into their hearts. Some recommit their lives to Him on the spot. In that moment, all doubt about the week is stripped away. Counselors who have poured themselves out like a drink offering understand, perhaps for the first time, their role in God’s work that week. It’s beautiful. It’s right.

I once had a conversation with some wonderful Christian men who were unsure whether to support the camp because they felt its mission was incorrect. They believed every ministry should focus on “reaching the lost” and any ministry that wasn’t focusing its efforts that way was not worth supporting. As much as I love these men, I respectfully disagree with every fiber of my being. They were more interested in a quantitative conversion count than qualitative ministry. I get it. Christ’s Great Commission was about making disciples. But folks, we are fooling ourselves as Christians if we believe we don’t need ministering, ourselves. The camp’s motto since I’ve been there has been “planting and watering.” Again: right. I love the metaphor. God does the work; we are His tools. He adds to His family, and He recovers His prodigal children.

The ministry of Camas Meadows does not end with their summer camps, or even rental camps. I have participated whenever possible in CamasCon, a Christian board gaming convention where about 35-50 stereotypically introverted geeks of all ages sit around tables and throw themselves into different worlds, powered by shared imagination and confusing rulebooks. Talk about becoming all things to all men! It’s a time of fellowship, fun, and healing. Imagine working every day, struggling to live in a world with people who don’t understand you, and yourself being naturally disinclined to let others in. But two weekends a year, you have a place and a time to meet others like you; with whom you don’t have to pretend, who know you before you even meet them, where you don’t have to live by everyone else’s rules. Again, tired of keeping up your guard but discovering it’s not necessary. Then God meets you there, in the company of believers. It’s hard to describe the experience to those who have never been to it, harder still to describe it to those for whom CamasCon is not an attractive retreat (which is most people; we get it).

I love Camas Meadows. I love the people, I love the ministry. I love that the religion there is merely Christian as CS Lewis describes. I love the facility, I love God’s creation. I love God’s servants, I love his broken children. I love the Christian I am when I’m there, and the Christian I am when I re-enter the world.

I don’t think my words here adequately express my feelings, but I’m already well over double the word count Kristen asked me to limit myself to, so I’ll wrap this up. I hope those of you reading this will have a greater appreciation of the ministry of Camas Meadows Bible Camp. Much of the ministry that happens there cannot be quantified, but it is as powerful as any other. Camas Meadows has certainly impacted my life, and for that I remain forever grateful.

Fire and Shelves

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Kristen

Well it has been two steps forward and one step back as far as camp improvements go these past two weeks.

One Step Back

A camper with wet gloves thought that the propane heater would make a marvelous glove dryer.

It didn’t.

But due to a camper who went back to his cabin for a pen during chapel, Scruffy managed to douse the flames with water before the whole thing burned down.

Two Steps Forward

Scruffy finished a new shelf for the ladies room.

He was also able to get a new shelf put up for the guys. Either way, through burnt mittens or new shelves, the Lord is good. Although I must confess I prefer the new shelves.

Boo Boo