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

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.