The Summer Staff Winter Retreat is one of our most unique and needed camps of the year.

All summer, our staff are required to be mature and focused on the needs of the campers.

They cannot simply hang out with each other when there are kids to chase, slip-n-slides to zip down, the dunk tank and devotional times to run, and night games to supervise.

All during this intense time of summer ministry, whenever Scruffy catches a tired counselor chatting with a fellow staff member instead of supervising the low ropes course or doing crafts with a camper, he tells them the same thing.

“Wait until the Summer Staff Winter Retreat. Then you can hang out together as much as you like.”

And they do! This is their time to simply be together. Summer Staff Winter Retreat is vital to the health and vitality of our amazing volunteers who give their time, sleep, and whole hearts to serving kids all summer.

This is their chance to be the campers and to be served by us instead of pouring themselves out in service.

From teens who hope to become C.I.T.s next summer to counselors with many years of experience, this is their chance to fill up on both fun times together and to be replenished by delving into God’s word as students rather than leaders.

So while at first glance this camp simply looks like a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings (and a few seasoned veterans) escaping to the mountains to have Nerf wars, do puzzles and crafts, play board games, and go sledding. It is in reality so much more than that!

That crazy teen racing through the lodge with the Nerf gun is the same one who sacrificed his sleep this summer to wash your son’s sleeping bag at 5:00 am after an accident. None of the other campers ever knew and your little guy just jumped right into the rest of camp, knowing that his counselor would take care of things.

That girl making bookmarks or attempting to beat Scruffy at another board game is the same one who held your daughter’s hand when she was scared at night and prayed over her as she fell asleep.

That screaming teen mattress sledding, just might be the same one who listened carefully and then answered just as carefully when your middle school son broke the silence in discussion time with: “I know I want Jesus, but I don’t know what salvation is.” (See Middle School Camp 1 Blog)

Part of the reason they can buckle down and serve with their whole hearts in the summer is that these unassuming young people have become an incredible team.

And one of the ways that they grow into a team, ready and able to accomplish real kingdom work, is by playing and praying, singing and chatting, sliding and sledding, studying and roughhousing together at Summer Staff Winter Retreat.

So what about You? Would you consider investing in the ministry at Camas Meadows Bible Camp by joining the team as a Summer Staff Winter Retreat camper and then if you feel called, a summer camp counselor?

Matthew 9:36-38–“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”