staff training is complete...

These counselors look like they are shouting Hallelujah! I am!

These counselors look like they are ready for whatever challenges come to them this summer. They are an excited group and I could not be more thrilled with our solid staff. The past ten days were a joy.

On Sunday, we took in a baseball game. It was good to be off site for a half a day in the middle of our training. And so fun to cheer together, eat hotdogs and pretzels together and watch pastor Brad throw out the first pitch..

But this is what we left back at camp. Tell me how glorious this is!! We had lovely weather, perfect for ever activity and spent much of the ten days outside. Love that.

We got supplies organized for Day Camp Groups. I delegated this project out to a staff person who gets me. When I cam back to find this shelf so nice, I almost cried. I had this vision in my head, and magically, she just did it.

All 30 horses spent a lot of time in training, preparing for a summer of campers on their backs. Our wranglers are so incredible this year.

We worshiped every morning and night at a different outdoor worship site. I had forgotten just how beautiful this camp is, until we were sitting still twice a day with time to take it all in.

We sang lots and we ate lots. We have a new chef at camp who treated us to a fancy dinner before the camp food hits. Last night he made us fresh sushi that was divine, homemade sesame meatballs, blue cheese stuffed mushrooms (sad day, preggers can't have that...) and many other delicious things that we were surely never see again all summer. Now we're on to chicken strips and french toast sticks..

My happy campers. They're set for the week ahead and I can't wait to see all 75 of them in action. Rory is taking me camping tonight and I can't wait to just be with him. It was a good 10 days, but it is time to be home!

why I love camp the most...

Bottom line of why I love camp: there are few other places in the whole wide world where you get a kids undivided attention. When they are at camp, camp is their world and their life. Computer games don't come along, cell phones shouldn't come (though you'd be surprised how many are still snuck in!), televisions are no where to be found, and almost everything we do is outside.

I believe God made us to love his creation, and feel closest to him when we enjoy his imagination while laying the foundations of the world. Kids start thinking bigger thoughts, they start dreaming bigger, they start wondering if maybe this is not by accident, but perhaps by some glorious design...like God intended his kids to stand in awe of his world, and intended us to care for one another while living in community, and intended for us to learn how to treat each person with kindness and sincerity.

Camp is where faith in Jesus is passed on. I believe this so strongly. Especially when Sunday school is just an hour a week...it's worth it, and it's completely valuable. But it's also hard getting to deep conversation points in just sixty minutes. I know this after teaching Sunday school myself for seven years. You can get there, but those moments are trickier to unveil. But at camp, it seems like every night when the lights go out, a campers heart stands wide open and they start wondering about their place in God's whole big picture.

I've got enough friends right now that have turned away from faith in Jesus Christ that I am beginning to worry about my peers and what this all means a few decades from now. And the truth is, "turned away" is even too strong of a phrase. They're really just indifferent, not particularly interested and in no way committed to a faith in Jesus Christ. That's what worries me. But what I see every day at summer camp gives me so much hope. I see our counselors alive and excited and I see campers joy filled and full of wonder. And it's all surrounding God having sent his son, Jesus. We talk about Jesus taking away the sins of the world, and we talk about Jesus calling us to preach his good news all over the world, and we talk about loving our neighbor as ourselves. And there is a freedom and happiness and life that permeates camp that lets everyone know in the deepest part of their hearts...this is all true.

So get your kiddos to camp! Sign up for a family camp. I don't care what denomination or camp you choose, do your homework and make sure other parents give it thumbs up. And then send them. Because God changes lives at camp.

but the thing is...

I wrote yesterday about my terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad experience at summer camp. But the thing is, if camp is done right, camp should NEVER be an unsafe place for misfits. It should be the one place on earth where freedom is found. Free to be silly, quirky, odd and funny.

When I worked out at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp after my freshman year of college, I remember standing in awe of all of the costume changes we had during the day. We'd dress up for skits and special carnivals. But we also dressed up for theme meals and random announcements. I journaled about how one day I changed clothes six different times.

This is what I love about camp in its purest form. There is a freedom to be dorky like no other place in the world. It's all in the name of fun and for some reason, camp is still a place where this sort of odd behavior is still accepted and appreciated. Just see what I mean...

confession: I hated kids camp.

I hated my first summer of kids camp. Hated it. Homesick, sad and lonesome. Suffered through the days and hoped to never go back.

Honestly, I never stop thinking about that 5th-grade-Becca camper when I am training my summer staff. And I never stop thinking about her all summer long when I see the misfits trying to work their way into their group of peers.

My trouble was that I was so dang excited to take the swim test. I had just completed swimming lessons a few weeks before and had mastered my underwater breathing and got a star next to the front crawl portion of my swim test. So when it came time to swim around the swimming area, I was ready to show the world my new skills.

Unfortunately, it was a wavy day. And as I turned to make my next long swim around the deep end, I turned my neck up to get my gulp of air and instead gulped a wave. They swam me over to the floating raft where I choked on the lake for a while.

All of this was deflating enough. Remember, I had skills I was going to show the world. But to make it truly worse, I was given a scarlet letter in the form of a purple wrist band that signified to all at camp, "this girl can't swim."

Horrible! I still ache for that fifth grade girl. I had plenty of friends there that week, but my confidence was shot and all I wanted to do was find my mom and tell her the whole horrible story.

My sister was there that week as a counselor in training, and she kept encouraging me to retake the test, because she knew I could swim, and just not do the fancy breathing. But I was too embarrassed. To show up for the retake test might be more humiliating than wearing a bright purple, inch thick bracelet all week long.

My counselors that week were mediocre at best, and I remember one discussion where they announced that we couldn't canoe to the picnic area across the lake because "not all of us had passed the swim test." But then they found a lifeguard who could go along, as long as she was in my canoe.

I think about those counselors, too, when I'm training my summer staff. It's not okay to be mediocre. It's not okay to be that oblivious to the pain one of your campers is suffering through.

So that's my job now: to train our staff to find these suffering souls and to love on them! To make sure that camp might just be the one place where they actually fit in and feel gifted and empowered and safe.

There's no real happy ending to that purple bracelet story. Maybe it built some character. I didn't go back to that camp for another four years, and only went because I had friends who begged me to join them.

I passed the swim test that time around, and it was Christmastime before I clipped that pink bracelet off my wrist.

just checking in...

Staff Training is full swing and I could not be happier. This staff is so fun. Each individual is making me so excited just to get to watch them and their gifts in action all summer long. This is a laughing staff, a thoughtful staff, a faithful staff and a bold staff. I've got a fun summer ahead of me.

I got to come home on Saturday for some time with Rory. We went out to a lake and I started a book and he finished one. Then we ran errands together and it made for a fun, normal day in the midst of a very, very full schedule each day at camp. We've got one more week ahead of us, but everyone is in good spirits and we're happily getting to know each other. Thanks for the prayers everybody!