I can’t remember the last time (before this week) that I spent any extensive time at Summer Camp, though it used to be a huge part of my life.
I think it was approximately 2012, when I went back to preach at the Sunday quasi-church service at Camp of the Rising Son (CRS) in French Camp, MS. Before that, I had spent five wonderful summers working there from 2000-2004. I also “suffered for Jesus in the Bahamas” at a Christian camp in 2003-2004 for a school year while I was wrestling through God’s call that ultimately led me to seminary. In Fall 2004, I was still wrestling and still camping, at the Leaders in Further Training (LIFT) program at Camp of the Woods in Speculator, NY. Three camps in one year finally convinced me to go to seminary the following year. (Sometime in 2004-2006, I worked a whole two days at Twin Lakes in Jackson, MS, mostly to help a friend with Ropes Course. I don’t remember if I was paid, but they fed me steak, which was good enough in my 20s.)
My wife and I met after she had served for five summers at another camp. After about as long of a break, she returned to her old camp[1] triumphantly this week as the camp nurse, a position she is both eminently qualified for (as a registered nurse and a school nurse and much more) and has never filled before.
As my kids experienced camp for the first time, Liz and I got to stay in the nurse’s cottage, featuring AC, indoor plumbing, and a full kitchen with a Keurig. I’ve worked a little bit remotely and spent a lot of my time doing study leave things (reading, praying, journaling, reflecting) as well as a few hours on crowd control duty in the nurse’s cottage.
The memories and the comparisons (to my old camp) have been plentiful this week. So without further ado, here’s my Top 10 Things about Camp:
10 - No Screens - We had a long road trip to get here, which meant a lot of screen time for the kids to make the trip bearable for all. Once we arrived at camp, bye-bye screens. And I haven’t heard a complaint from the kids. One caveat - one evening it rained, so the backup evening activity was watching Cars 2, always a crowd pleaser. (Also, I will not pretend I took a screen sabbatical. Today, I’m wearing my Indiana Pacers hoodie and telling the campers what happened in Game 6 of the NBA Finals last night.)
9 - Songs - Camp Songs are a genre of their own. There is no Top 40 list, they barely make sense sometimes, and they’re not even related to the outdoors half the time. But they fill dead time during the numerous times that you’re standing in line, waiting, or whatever.
8 - Food - I’m not saying it’s great, but it’s distinctive. In fact, it’s probably worth its own Top 10 list, in ascending order:
(And here’s where the formatting gets wonky; sorry!)
10- Chicken, Bacon, Ranch “Quesadilla” - A little disappointing. It was a mixture of the former plopped onto a tortilla, so it was really more of a make-your-own quesadilla. That said, it could’ve been worse, but something had to be 10th.
9 - Lasagna - It was edible. The garlic bread was good.
8 - Chicken pot pie - It was serviceable and filling.
7 - Dirty Grits - A southern delicacy with a twist. Sausage and cheese make them “dirty” and delicious.
6 - Corndogs - Might be too low. What can I say? The cornbread was crispy and perfect, and they gave me two of them to start off.
5 - Chicken Biscuits for dinner - The only time I went back for seconds.
4 - Chicken Nuggets - Hard to mess them up. I supplemented with the following item.
3 - Salad bar - A daily feature at lunch and dinner here, and if you saw the other veggies, you’d feel the same way about salad.
2 - Taco Wednesday – They just hit right and had all the right toppings this week.
1 - Camp Stew - I’m using the CRS name, not the local nomenclature. Top notch campout food. Exhaustion and hunger make a great sauce. (HT, Chris Gibson, my father-in-law.)
(End wonky formatting; resume previous list…)
7 - Hypochondriacs at the nurses station - Too many stories to tell and too many are HIPPA concerns. My favorite was the five-year-old girl whose arm itched and came back four times in a day. We’re fairly certain she needed a mom figure to give her an ice pack and put an “emotional support band-aid” on. But she was cute, and she made us smile.
6 - Activities - From Wilderness to Sports to Horses, there’s always a lot to do. My favorite is always Rock Climbing, and my wife’s favorite is Horses. I’ll ask the kids theirs tomorrow when I see them.
5 - Friends - We got to know the staff just in time to pack up and move on next week, but my wife and I both reminisced about good friends we made at camp. Even during a short week, we enjoyed getting to know a group of devoted kids who want to serve Christ and camp kids while they have some fun.
4 - Inside jokes - It took me a few days to understand what was going on in the dining hall. At some point, I realized I was old, and the inside jokes had had several weeks (or years) to develop before I got here. I once was on the inside; now I’m in the Air-Conditioned comfort of the Nurses Cottage.
3 - Pranks - Official CRS policy was no pranks, and definitely no pranks in front of campers. “Unofficially,” I once stole all of the deodorant from the female counselors when they left for campout. One of my last acts as a CRS staff member was to steal (with two helpers) a canoe from the group of female counselors who decided to sleep on the floating dock in the middle of the lake. It was during camp cleanup when no campers were around, and Austyn yelling, “You guys are jerks. That was such a jerky thing to do!” will forever make me smile deviously. Apparently, she had to swim to retrieve the canoe and then sleep all night in a wet swimsuit. Were there any pranks this week? No good ones that I witnessed.
2 - Fewer distractions - While this might lead to some of the above items (inside jokes, pranks), it also leads to the following.
1 - Jesus - For whatever reason(s), I loved Jesus more after working as a camp counselor, and my wife (and hundreds of others) would say the same. I can’t say I got to know the staff all that well this week, but I noticed many things that warmed my heart. I’ll share one. We worshipped at a local PCA church on the Sunday morning before we checked in to camp. This church happens to own the camp, and my wife used to be a member there years ago. As we were leaving, I noticed a young lady taking a suitcase from one car to another; she (the pastor’s daughter incidentally) had also sang special music during the worship service. And then a few hours later, I noticed her sitting at the staff table, ready to slave away in the Southern sun, serving in yet another way. As a pastor who also has a daughter (and a son), I was encouraged to see a young woman having grown up in the church still serving the church and the parachurch (camp) in the precious bits of spare time she had.
She’s one of many with similar stories, and a reason to hope that our kids will be allright, a reason to remember God’s promise to finish the good work He’s started in all of His children (Phil 1:6).
-Pastor Matt, 6-20-25 (I’ll see you all soon, and Pastor Josh, I’ll see you at General Assembly on Monday)
[1] Location not disclosed for privacy reasons.