Last weekend all three of our boys had the opportunity to be campers with their Dad. Two of them are too young to be summer campers and so this was a big deal. Chris Weedin aka VanHelsing, was the speaker and he led a “Raising A Modern Day Knight” weekend here at camp for boys and dads.

Our boys were ecstatic. They got to sleep over at camp, sword fight with Choco, fight The Dark Knight with their Daddy, and build forts and have Nerf gun wars with Odysseus (one of our camp counselors) and Choco (our maintenance director) while the dads were in session.

 While all the boys were wrestling/Nerf warring/fort building, all the dad’s watched the “Raising a Modern Day Knight” video sessions and had discussions about fatherhood. Then they finished the weekend off with a knighthood ceremony with their boys (using a real sword) and getting to fight the “Black Knight” together as a team.

Scruffy (our director/my husband) brought home three exhausted but happy boys when the weekend was over. Thank you Chris, Scruffy, Choco, Odysseus, and Sweet Tea for making this wonderful camp happen. The boys had a blast and so did their daddy.

Boo Boo

So, I was running around all crazy the other day. I had to drive down off the mountain to pick up my oldest boy from a birthday party and get a bunch of vanilla icecream for camp, but first I needed to pick-up a dishwasher for the weekend. One of our C.I.T.’s (counselor in training) had traded dishwashing time for the chance to come up as a camper to CamasCon and so Scruffy cashed in her I.O.U. and sent me to Tumble’s house to pick her up.

As we wandered through the dark countryside, missing the right driveway and doing sudden U-turns into small country roads, we started talking about camp. At one point she told me that she had become a completely different person since camp. “What do you mean?” I asked. And then she told me a story I have heard before. She was at that place. The watershed. That point where a Christian kid looks back and sees their childhood faith, looks forward and sees adulthood approaching, and wonders what they are going to do with God once they have stepped out on their journey alone.

Was God just some lovely myth from her parents, passed down through her family to land in her lap?

She came to camp as a C.I.T.. We hounded her, we trained her, we made her work and struggle and didn’t give her much time to sleep. And we loved her. The girl that I drove up to the camp kitchen that night was confident. She knew who she was and she knew her Lord.

“What about camp was so significant to you?” I asked.

“The love.” Tumble said. “When I am at camp I am loved. It is the one place in the whole world where I can be myself.”

So, I wanted to tell you good job. Sometimes camp does not run smoothly, everything is all crazy, equipment is breaking down, and you wonder if you’re ever going to get it right. Well, you did Camas Staff of 2013. You remembered to love.

Boo Boo

My husband is giving his testimony at CamasCon this morning. As I was praying for him I realized that it is easy to despise the quiet works of God. Things like a long phone call on a rainy day, holding a crying baby so your neighbor can take a shower, or a weekend of boardgaming with friends who love God.

It was not a mighty sermon that won my husband over to God. It was not a fierce and determined missionary or someone stopping him on the street and handing him a tract. No, Scruffy was edged closer and closer to the kingdom of God by quiet acts of love. A believing friend stopping by to borrow chewing tobacco, Christian friends asking him to join a game of football, and spending hours upon hours playing video games with a young man who eventually shared his testimony. Simple, even ignoble things. All used for the glory of God.

So, do not despise the quiet works of the LORD.

Do not despair. God is at work. If we set these things before Him. If we accomplish tasks with His love and an eye upon His kingdom. God can use that. He is the master of using the simple things of this world to accomplish mighty works. That can be you my friend, and that can be me.

This week at Camas Meadows Bible Camp that means CamasCon. Playing games all night, creating a place where no one is going to yell and throw game bits when they lose, eating lots of snacks and drinking too much coffee. Hearing Scruffy talk about his ragged journey toward a God who dared to rescue the sinners and the sacrilegious. Simple things, done with love.

But Scruffy knows not to despise them, for that is how the God of all wisdom finally captured his heart.

Boo Boo

There aren’t many camps running during the fall. But autumn at Camas Meadows is one of my favorite seasons. Frost in the mornings, bright sunny afternoons, chilly starlit evenings, and the sound of bull elk bugling and fighting in the undergrowth through the window at night. When I was a little girl the meadow supported a herd of 200 elk. Now there are only twelve. But they are still lovely to behold and the boys and I are on the lookout all fall for Big Boy, the king of the forest.

There are several bulls on the meadow this year and they spend their days fighting it out over a small herd of lovely ladies. For the boys it is not enough to get a glimpse of these beautiful animals, they want to see the biggest strongest most fearsome elk on the meadow. They want to see Big Boy. First we would see one bull and yes he was impressive. Surely he was the one. But no, the cow elk were nowhere to be seen. Then another bull would bugle and brandish his antlers and we were completely convinced. But again the cows were not. Finally we found him, Big Boy, the king of the forest. Of course he was always hiding behind a tree or branch, but I did the best photography I could. And so here for your viewing pleasure is Big Boy. Three different views of Big Boy, in all his glory, as well as some branches and trees.

Boo Boo

What is Camas Meadows Bible Camp?

People can and do spend $1000.00 dollars a week to send their kids to camp. We are not that camp. Some camps have a vast complex of buildings with cabins for kids and married couples and adults with bad backs. We are not that camp. Some camps have their own lake or pool, jet skis or giant inflatables, climbing walls and cabins that are built right into the tops of trees. We are not that camp.

We are tiny. We are simple. We are a small cluster of log buildings hidden in the woods. We are some old weathered benches gathered around a campfire in the meadow. We are kids standing together raising their hands in worship accompanied by a teenager and a guitar.

But we have our place. God has called us too. And there is something lovely, a breath of the divine, in walking along with your master on the road He has prepared for you. 

Boo Boo

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