Camp Staff Saints
by Ted Slater on 05/15/2009 at 6:00 PM
I remember that summer well. When I was maybe 10 years old, I spent a month at Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. I still remember playing tetherball and roofball, eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches in the cafeteria, playing in the ball field, the three days we spent hiking and camping along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, enduring the cold morning showers, getting letters from home, being invited to play morning reveille on my trumpet, wetting my bed....
And I remember my camp counselor. Affirming, strong, fun, engaging.
A dozen years later, during the summer after my freshman year of college, I became a camp counselor. Leading my campers in Bible studies, shooting rifles and bows with them, hiking around the grounds, cleaning up goose poop and outhouse toilets ... and helping one boy who had wet his sleeping bag avoid embarrassment by discretely having it washed.
It was great being on both sides: as a camper as as a counselor. Great memories, and growth in character.
In today's featured Boundless article, "Camp Staff Saints," John Thomas affirms the summer camp experience. When he was a kid, lonely and trying to deal with his parents' divorce, it was summer camp counselors who brought him out of his shell and started him on the long journey of healing. And as a young adult, John was able to be the one drawing kids out and helping them heal.
Of all that I've been privileged to do over the years, wearing that cotton, red staff shirt has been one of the highest honors. Putting it on was like putting on a medal. It symbolized perseverance under trial, integrity in life, grace under pressure, faithfulness to Christ, and, for so many kids like me, it symbolized hope in a hurting world.
I'm thankful for the weeks I lived among the trees and slept in the cabins, thankful for the relationships and long talks, thankful for what I received, and for what I was able to give.
1. B. Minich said the following at 7:04 AM on May 16:
Man, I miss camp counseling. I totally agree, it is worth it. I even took a week off last summer to go back and work at camp again for a week!
One of the neat things is the bond you have with your fellow staff members. You really do get close to these other men you serve with (I worked at an all boys camp). The staff will normally be an unbelievably crazy bunch!
I can totally relate to the wetting the bed circumstance - I did the same thing one night (I actually had to loan him my bag while I washed his). Then, that morning, we had all of the campers "air out" their sleeping bags to get the "stink" out of them. (This was done to air dry the camper's washed bag without drawing attention to the fact that his was out there all alone).
2. Adam Thompson said the following at 1:32 PM on May 17:
I was a camp counselor once at a Christian camp. It was unique for me because I was only a few months older than the oldest students. I learned alot that week about leadership, and had a marvelous time.
3. H.A.P. said the following at 9:44 AM on May 18:
You never know how the Lord may use the kids you take under your wing at camp to be a blessing in your life!
I took every opportunity to be at camp as a teen and to be a counsellor when I was too old to be a camper. Three years ago, I was contacted by a girl that I had counselled the previous summer. She invited me to go with her on a short-term missions trip to help out at a camp overseas. I prayed about it and went even though I knew no one but her. The man who is now my husband was the camp director!
4. Leah said the following at 11:46 PM on May 24:
I have a friend who got married two years ago. She and her husband took a shortened honeymoon so that they could take 2-3 months off over winter (your summer) to fly to the US as counsellors for summer camps at Camp Redwood Glen. They're going back this summer (or winter, for us) too.