The Lasting Impact of Summer Camp

Introduction

“You can go to camp this summer.” This beautiful sentence filled my hearing in the spring of 2002. These were words that I had been waiting to hear ever since my brother attended San Juan Bible Camp a couple years before and I heard his tales of fun, friends, and fabulous food. Little did I know that what I was going to experience would not just define the summer of 2002 for me but would hook me on camp ministry and God would use my years at camp to guide me into the ministry that he has for me to do now.

Planting Seeds

I still remember pulling up to camp that summer. The sun shining, my sense of smell was overcome by the scent of pine, and the chatter of excited kids all ready for an exciting week of adventure that lay ahead. My mom checked me in, I met my counselor, said goodbye to my mom, and the week began with the tasty traditional Sunday meal of cheeseburgers and marinated vegetable salad. After dinner was over, we went to chapel which we would have twice a day for the whole week. Now if I am honest, this was the part of camp that I was looking forward to the least but as chapel began the camp director came into the chapel tent wearing a Hawaiian shirt and straw hat. He talked over the rules for camp that week (You must always wear shoes the only exception is bed and the shower, no guys on the girls side or girls on the guys side, don’t go in anyone else’s cabin but yours, don’t play with the gravel on the floor of the chapel, watch out for the tent spikes and chains around the chapel, etc.) and then we had a time of musical worship and then teaching time. The theme that year was “Live Out Loud” and the speaker talked to us about our theme verse, John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” I had grown up in church and probably heard this verse many times but this night at camp I became intrigued by this “abundant life.” I didn’t truly know what it meant and at that time (I was 11) my intrigue quickly evaporated. However, it planted a seed in me that would grow and continues to grow to this day.

Looking Back

I spent the summer of 2003 (Take Me To Your Leader), 2004 (Go for the Gold), and 2005 (Great Adventure) as a camper again. Summer 2006 (Treasure Seekers) I began working at camp and being a camper during high school camp. Summer 2007-2008 I spent all summer at camp working as program staff. It was during this time (2007-2008) that things at home became tumultuous. My dad was drinking, yelling, and leaving us more and more often. I felt abandoned and camp was, or at least what I thought was, a way of escape from the pain that I was feeling. Camp, however, was not just an escape from the pain but it was a place where God was present to me. I believe that it was during this time that God became real to me and became important to me. I finally understood, not just in my head, but in my heart what the “abundant life” was really all about. Since then, I continue to grow in my relationship with God and continue to live in the abundant life of the Son and have since spent many years privileged with participating in Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation and have been able to see many others begin to understand and experience the abundant life.

Building Monuments

The book of Joshua records a story when the Israelites crossed over the Jordan river they decided to one person from each tribe of Israel to grab a stone and to build a memorial with the stones so that when their future children ask about the stones they can tell them, “tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever” (Joshua 4:7). It was a physical reminder of what God had done for them in the past. San Juan Bible Camp was this for me. I am no longer working every summer at camp or in full-time camping ministry, but whenever I feel that God is far from me or I get beat up and burned out in the ministry that I am doing, to this day, I still look back on my time at camp and remember hearing about and experiencing Jesus and his call to the abundant life.

Conclusion

While it may not happen immediately or quickly, God can and does use camping ministry in powerful ways to call his children to Himself. To call some of His children, like me, into ministry. To call people into the “abundant life.” This is the lasting impact of camp.