Camp has a rhythm. It has an ebb and flow like nothing else. Growing up here I’ve become accustomed to the strange beat of the world around me, but we are forever baffling others.

Most people are busiest on Monday through Friday with the workweek easing off on the weekends. In the winter our schedule is the opposite. Toward the middle of the week we are gearing up for another rental group, the group comes on the weekend, and we take a bit of a breath at the beginning of the week around Monday and Tuesday. From the middle of December to the end of March my husband does not attend church. He cant, he has work.

April is a slower month. Although, this is when we are reading staff applications and agonizing over our staffing choices for the summer to come. But we try to grab some time with friends and family before summer camps rush in full upon us. May is packed with rental groups and last minute craziness as we scramble to get everything ready for the busy summer season.

We have week-long rental groups in the summer and we also run our own set of camps. For these camps we must choose and train our summer staff and then it is full blast ahead with a workweek of five 17-hour-days, one ten hour day, and Sunday where we do spend the morning together going to church, but Scruffy needs the afternoon and evening to do cabin assignments and talk to campers and parents and counselors on the phone answering all of the important pre-camp questions that go with the week of camp that’s coming up.

When summer camp ends it is so bitter sweet. We hate to see the campers and counselors go. We hate to have them walk out of our arms and lives and back into a world that is so much more difficult than hikes to Inspiration Point, Smoore’s by the campfire, and Morning Jam (singing praise songs in the amphitheater) with Choco. But it is also good, because my husband hasn’t really slept for a couple of months and we’re all a little bit weepy and twitchy.

Fall is the time to recover, to rest and do the piles and piles of office work that has jammed up Scruffy’s desk over the summer, to work on our tree fort and float the river, and gather fire wood and get ready for the rental groups to come. Yeah, we have a few camps in the fall, but we also get to recover.

So if you were wondering what happened to us, why we disappeared off the face of the earth for the entire summer, don’t worry. We’ll be back in the fall. If you are confused about not seeing Scruff at church for three months, don’t be concerned. You will see him again on the fourth Sunday in March. We are here. We are just riding a whole different set of currents than most of the rest of the world, following the strange seasons of camp.

This weekend is our fall work retreat. The boys and I will be outside with a bunch of other volunteers pulling weeds, scrubbing mattresses, washing windows, cleaning out “The Bat Cave”, and doing whatever else is required to get the camp ship shape for our winter rental season.

This may not seem like a big thing, but work retreat is huge. This camp was built mostly during work retreats. Where other camps have a denominational backing and the money that goes with that, we have a rag tag collection of dedicated volunteers from many different churches. These volunteers built our small lodge our three cabins, our large lodge, the shop where we work on camp vehicles, and the staff house where our family lives.

They give up a fun sunny weekend for a whole bunch of hard, thankless work and the things that God does here at camp, every glorious moment is made possible by their toil. So thank you. Everyone who is here, who has every been here, and who will someday be talked into coming up to sweat and hurt and bleed over piles of firewood and closets overflowing with skit costumes. You are doing Kingdome work. Camp couldn’t happen without you!

Boo Boo

This is reposted from Faith Friends and Frappuccinos at http://faithchats.blogspot.com/ where I blog once a week with three other writers.

There have been times that I’ve heard complaints about campfire at Junior camps. Junior campers are not necessarily very deep and spiritual when they share and they often get rather silly.

My oldest boy was a first time camper this week and I was nervous. I just can’t believe that he is this old, I mean it seems like we were just rushing around trying to get his carseat installed and inspected by an official careseat safety fireman so that we could bring him home from the hospital. Ok, so maybe every parent doesn’t refuse to leave the hospital until after their carseat has been seen by the firechief…but this was our baby. I’m sure you understand.

So, this was his first week of camp and despite my nerves, I was able to watch something amazing happen. I got to watch the boy who didn’t want to play paintball, slap on a camo shirt and rush out there like a natural. I got to see the boy who swore to me that he would never ever in his life sit upon a horse, ride off with his cabin behind the wrangler. I got to watch the boy who hates to be onstage get all silly in his cabin’s skit and say a Bible verse from memory in front of a crowd. And my little guy, who begs me not to make him go to church, my little boy was doing the motions to the worship songs and sharing at the campfire. 

Amazing things happen at camp. Sometimes you hear about God for the first time or are rushed away to a safe place where you can just be a kid for one week out of the year. And sometimes you grow up. Sometimes you step away from your brothers and your Mom and Dad and realize that you can stand on your own. Thank you so much to Joker and the rest of our staff this week. Thank you for your blood sweat and tears. For staying up late when they had nightmares and giving your whole heart on the paintball field. He had a marvelous time, just like all of the other kids for whom you give of yourself. Just like all of the other kids that you love.

Boo Boo

Yep, we started out our summer here at Camas Meadows Bible Camp with the Senior High Teen Camp last week. It was an amazing week and difficult to put to words. Skits and pranks and long heart-breaking chapels. The dark mania of nightgames and the sweltering hot of lake day all mixed up with snacktime and singing and playing zombie re-ball in the lodge. In a word…camp.

With my boys a little older now, I was able to attend staff meeting in the mornings. I got to watch the counselors stumble into Choco’s house in a sleep-deprived daze because they had spent all night talking, making cookies, or weeping with their campers. I got to see prayers answered and kids reaching outside of themselves to someone in need. I watched those with no strength left do great and wonderful things because they didn’t need strength, the Lord used them just as they were and He accomplished His work in powerful ways.

I can’t sum it all up. This week was too big. But I can give you just a glimpse. A glimpse of a camper who could not participate because of physical issues. A glimpse of a counselor who sat with her during night games, just talking. A glimpse of the person that the whole camp was looking for during nightgames stumbling into this camper and giving her the points for finding him. They won cabin competitions that day. And then when the counselor stepped back a moment and gave the rest of her girls a chance to serve they stepped up. They looked for their cabin mate during chapels and activities. They sought her out and they welcomed her in and they found creative ways to make sure that she was a part of it all, even though she couldn’t run or hike. Put all of these small moments together with hurting kids and the many people who weep and work to show them love, with the ache of delving deep into God’s word and the joyous agony of honesty and an open heart and you will have a bit of what this week was like. Thank you everyone. You have given of yourself and God has made something beautiful, despite all of our many failures and insufficiencies, I saw His glory this week and it was a lovely sight.

Boo Boo

My oldest boy is going to be a camper for the very first time this year. Since two of our most experienced and awesome guy counselors were spending the week Scruffy had the idea of holding a practice camp for our oldest and any of the kiddos who were too young to be campers.

And so my three boys, my nephews and niece, and our cook’s grandson got the chance to be campers for a day.

They went on a hike to the pond and ate lunch without their parents at a camp table all together. They did archery and built sand castles, sped down the slip-n-slide and played board games. They had a little campfire and read stories with Shinobi and Maximus. Then my 3 little guys hiked all the way up to the Mountain Panther cabin and slept away from home for the very first time. Thank you Shinobi, Maximus, Hatu, and everyone else who helped to make a marvelous day of memories for our little ones.

There comes a time in life when you want something terribly. Something that is difficult. Something that is going to cost you. And you finally want that something badly enough to pay the price. For some people it is a sport, a job, a mission trip, a college they want to attend. But something comes into your life that pushes you over the edge and for the first time ever you bust your hiney off to accomplish that task.

For some kids, that something is to be a camp counselor.

They have been a camper for years. And they have been watching the counselors, admiring them, envying them. Then they turn 15 and the possibility is before them. If only they will fill out an enormous pile of paperwork, convince their parents and pastor and Scruffy that they are responsible, and pay for the privilege to learn the job at Staff Training…then they too can become a camp counselor, in training.

Many of them give up, but some of them will succeed. They will fill out the papers and get the pastoral reference and do the Bible study. Then they arrive at camp to be trained for something that they really really want to do.

It is our privilege to open up the big beautiful world of work and sacrifice and labor and toil to these frightfully young individuals. We teach them how to sweep a floor so that the dirt hidden in the corners actually ends up in the trash. We show them how to plunge a toilet and clean out the dunk tank and how to sneak a urine filled sleeping bag into the wash before a child has a chance to be embarrassed.

We teach them how to set themselves aside for the sake of others and it hurts. Sacrifice is painful, especially that very first time. But then we get to watch them grow. We get to see them singing fast songs with bright-eyed Jr. Campers when all they want to do is collapse on the couch and snore through chapel. We get to see them restocking the bathrooms when they see the empty dispensers, when a week ago they would have just logged a complaint.

Yeah, it isn’t always pleasant to drag a group of new C.I.T.’s (counselors in training) into the real world. But it is also a privilege. Because we get to be the ones who tell them “Yes, you can do this.” And then watch them do something difficult and beautiful and important. And we get to see their eyes when they realize that yes, it was worth it after all.

Philippians 2:3-7–“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves, Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but make himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…”

Boo Boo