So…why camp?

I came across another reason why we do this thing called camping ministry.

Scruffy read an article recently about a Cornell study showing that people get more satisfaction from experiences than from things. Camp is full of experiences. Kids set aside their phones and IPods, their videogames and computers, and they drive into the mountains and come to camp. They toss their sleeping bags onto a rustic wood bunk, and run through the grass in the meadow playing American Eagle. They listen to the sound of crickets and owls at night, they walk the packed dirt road up to Inspiration Point and stare up at the stars, they sing worship songs with a teenager strumming an acoustic guitar, they prank other cabins with bags and bags of popcorn, and they kneel together in prayer on the cold linoleum of their cabin floor.

Camp is something you actually do.

We were made for this. Although this study is a secular one and the researchers were looking for the secret of happiness rather than anything having to do with God, I think they have touched upon a deeper truth.

God did not create us so that we could have a bunch of stuff. He formed us from the dust and gave humanity the breath of life for something bigger than hording.

Ephesians 2:10–“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

God wants us to do stuff, not just to have stuff.

Camp gives kids and adults the chance to do. We sing and we hike, we listen and we laugh, we clean and we toil, we run and we sacrifice and we love. These are the things for which we have been made. Of course these will bring us more joy, it only makes sense.

Boo Boo

Sometimes things come full circle.

This picture is of our son’s cabin as they celebrate their victory in the cabin competitions. Our boy is on the shoulders of his counselor The Thing. But that counselor is the son of Scruffy’s friend Carrie. Scruffy was his AWANA leader long before he became The Thing. And long before Carrie had any children, she went to High School with Scruffy and was one of the only Christians that he respected, long before Scruffy was a follower of Christ. She was also one of the few “Cool Kids” who was kind to everyone, even a hurting kid from Peshastin, who was angry with God, and didn’t know his place in the world.

So Carrie was kind to Scruffy.

God found Scruff at college in 1992.

Scruffy was the AWANA leader of Carrie’s son.

Scruffy was the Camp Director who trained The Thing when he grew up to become staff.

The Thing was our son’s wonderful camp counselor.

The thing’s parents stop Scruff at the store, tears in their eyes, and thank him for being part of their boy’s life. Just like The Thing is part of our boy’s life.

And it all started when a teen girl took the time to be kind.

God is love and love is everything.

Boo Boo 

We are cleaning up from a rental group last week and preparing to receive another one at the beginning of this week. Then the summer will be officially over. It has been a long and lovely chain of camps. From staff training in June, to these last few rental groups in the final days of August.

Camas Meadows is a simple place. A few log cabins on an alpine meadow, wrapped in quiet forest. Small and insignificant. But so much has happened this summer. God makes beautiful things out of dust, as the song goes.

The speaker at Jr. A Camp said something about mankind. How we were the ragged beggar who was rescued and made a prince. Enemies of God, we now stand before Him as heirs to His throne. Isn’t this the story we love to hear most of all. Luke Skywalker, whiney farm hand, saves the galaxy from the Emperor. Harry Potter, orphaned boy living beneath the stairs, sacrifices himself to defeat Voldemort. Aragon, unknown ranger, is the king in hiding who will wed the Elvin princess and inspire mankind into the next age.

One of my oldest son’s favorite Hank the Cowdog books is Hank and the Case of the Hooking Bull. I think I know why. Normally, Hank rescues the ranch from marauding dinosaur birds (pelicans) or a robot alien in the garden (an armadillo) or saves Sally Mae from poisoned food (by eating all the steaks). Most of the time, Hank is just a dog, doing doggy things and imagining that we could never live without him. But in The Case of the Hooking Bull Hank is more. When a dangerous bull threatens Little Alfred, Hank risks his life to save his boy. He is injured in the line of duty. And even Sally Mae, his archenemy, acknowledges his heroism and condescends to pay good money to get the stinky old dog patched up. Hank is a hero.

That is our story.

What we were before, is not who we are in Christ. God made us to be more. He made us to be princes, but we have chosen to live as paupers, away from Him. But He ransomed us and enabled us to be more. More than everyone thought we were. Heroes.

God makes beauty out of ashes. Beautiful things from dust. This summer was all about that. We are small and we are simple.

God is big.

2 Corinthians 4:7–“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

Boo Boo

It is the last day of camp. Saturday morning. I am sitting on the back porch at the lodge. The worn wood of the deck is smooth under my bare feet and the sunlight slants down through the trees with that bright airiness that seems particular to mornings. My three boys and one of the cook’s grandsons are digging in the volleyball court. They have a running hose and a labyrinth of rivers and lakes crisscrossing across the sand. The campers are singing. I’ll Fly Away and Lean on Me and Blessed Be Your Name. The gentle tones of an acoustic guitar and children’s voices touch the forest this morning. I find myself weeping as I type and listen. For no reason at all.

I didn’t know what to Blog about this morning. I am weary with a terrible cold and void of writerly brilliance. But here I am, somehow finding a corner of camp to share with you.

This is the last Camas-run camp of the summer. We have rental groups through the rest of August. It has been amazing. This week, at least three children re-dedicated their lives to Christ, and one little girl decided to follow Him for the first time. But even more than this has occurred. Camp is like the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. It takes you away. It is a place that is different then the every day. The forest is bright and clean around you. Wild life thrive nearby. Camp can be incredibly noisy (Have you ever heard 60 kids singing “Pharoah Pharoah” or “Jesus Got Heaps of Lambs”), it is rowdier than the classroom or lunchroom at school. But it also holds a deep kind of quiet that speaks to the soul. At night, when the power is turned off and the dark and the stars surround you, black and bright in the heavens, the woods feel solemn and huge. Quiet, in ways we have forgotten. And the staff, they are here just for you. To love you and teach you and help you grow just a little bit more like Jesus. They are here to chase you in the water fight, urge you to snag the glowstick in capture the flag, and to slurp up gummy worms out of a tub of gravy when no one else from your cabin volunteered.

Things are coming to a close for the summer, but Camas Camps will be back. Much has occurred, kids have been loved, God has been glimpsed. I wish I had words to explain. But sometimes just a peek is enough. And that I can share with you.

Boo Boo

This week was a rental group instead of a Camas run camp. Actually two rental groups. For the first camp, the staff came on Sunday and then on Monday the campers arrived. This camp left at 12:30 on Friday and the next camp arrived at 1:30 that same Friday. This makes for a tight turnover, trying to get the camp ready for the next group. Nonetheless, after a month of Camas run camps it felt like a little break. Instead of being in charge of every little thing from stocking TP to shopping for lettuce to camper discipline, Scruffy gets to cater to the needs of these rental groups, helping them do the ministry they have come up into the mountains to accomplish. This second rental group finishes up on Sunday, Scruffy will do cabin assignments and other last minute details for Jr. High 2 on Sunday night, and then the staff and campers arrive on Monday for Jr. High 2 our last Camas run summer camp of the season.

Actually, there is a story about that second rental group, the Egyptian Orthodox Church. They have been coming up for several years now and we just love them. They even invited the boys and I to come and do crafts with them one year, so cool. But this year their leader called, they didn’t have enough campers to meet the 40 person minimum. Scruff thought about it and told them that he would facilitate their ministry this year anyway, even without the minimum number of campers. He just felt it was what God wanted him to do. So the leaders prayed about it and struggled, should they go through the expense themselves with such a small number of kids? Finally they called back, they felt that God wanted them to come as well. And you know what? Last week Scruff got a call from their leader. So many last minute campers had come out of the woodwork that not only did they meet the minimum, but she was forced to go and buy new craft supplies four different times!

One of those beautiful, quiet, miracles that God is such an expert at accomplishing. He is good when the campers are few. He is good when the campers are abundant. God is good to His word, accomplishing great things among everyday people.

Boo Boo

My oldest son is an incredibly active and inventive boy, but he is also quite straight-laced. When he was little he would plug his ears during singing time at church, because the music was “too wild”. If he is playing an imaginary game with his brothers and everyone is a tiger except one of them who wants to be a cheetah with a prehensile tail, he informs them that only new world monkeys have prehensile tails and that brother better pick a more realistic animal for the game. I love these things about him, but I also love to watch those moments when he lets go and runs rampant with joy.

Camp is one of those times. This week my boy was in the Sasquatch cabin with a bunch of his buddies and a little guy from Korea who spoke about 10 words of English. His counselor got an English to Korean translator on his phone and the camp speaker “just happened” to have a Korean Bible laying around at his house and off they went on a week of adventure. After the very first night game, three of them came to the nurse with bloody knees. They had all run down the same trail together, fallen, and limped to the nurse to show off their war wounds and get patched up. From the sidelines, I watched my little guy laughing and running with his friends. Not brushing his hair until it stuck straight up, doing crazy skits, and wonder of wonders, doing all the motions to “Pharaoh Pharaoh” during singing time. This boy won’t even look up from his book to glance at the overhead during church, but at camp he is a rowdy and confident participant in all things crazy. He even shared at the campfire. My guy, who gritted his teeth and endured standing up to get his reading award at school this year. He chose, on his own, on purpose, to stand up and say something in front of the camp.

I love to see him as a camper.

Camp is a special place. You are safe to learn, to love, to grow, to be goofy, and to TP the other cabins just as long as you never ever use duct tape. I love watching kids blossom at camp, especially my own.

Thank you Maximus, Pippin, and Spitfire for giving my guy a wonderful week. A week where he was away from my hovering, he was a Sasquatch, and he was free to be goofier then he ever had been before. Thank you for showing him that other people besides his parents believe in God too and for walking with him on this journey of growing up.

Boo Boo