I’m a Survivor: Winter Youth Camp 2013

I have been involved with youth ministry for about 8 years now and always consider it a badge of honor to survive youth camp. This past weekend was no different.

For those that have never attended youth camp, I will try and describe the experience from a young adult’s perspective. My perspective.

The weekend starts officially at the very moment on Friday evening when we begin to cram backpacks, pillows, sleeping bags, and suitcases into cars already overloaded with teens and pre-teens. Fortunately, there is always a junior high boy (or 5) that forgets his sleeping bag and pillow, so we always seem to have room for all of the luggage. The placed we were staying at this year was not too far, the car ride only lasted an hour, so there was not too much time for havoc to ensue. However, it IS enough time for kids to get carsick so we were on a diligent watch for emergency pullover sites, any containers that could be used for unexpected putrid fluids and of course, we knew at all times where the car window handles were located.

Upon arrival, there is always a portion of time where the kids tumble out of the vehicles to look around and gain their mountain feet. This is good as the girls needed mountain feet to make it up to their cabin.  I wasn’t too worried about the hike because I run. Unfortunately, I do not run up cliffs, so it became a work out every time I needed to get something out of the cabin. But in all seriousness, our cabin was awesome and the scenery was beautiful. This view confirms that verse that says:

"For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for a lifetime;
Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning." Psalms 30:5

I can confidently tell the parents of the girl campers that we woman youth leaders don’t get ANY sleep the first night of camp, so should an emergency happen, we are alert and awake. Unfortunately, because we do not get any sleep on Friday night, I cannot say that we are as alert on Saturday night…So when I say that I “awoke” to a beautiful sunrise, in reality it was more like I joyfully and ecstatically realized the sun was finally rising, confirming that a sleepless night was soon to be over. Luckily, one of the best parts of camp is being able to look like a camper, so tired eyes can be somewhat masked by a beanie (look, I'd much rather post pics of everyone else, but I don't post pictures of the kids for privacy reasons).

As I saw the sun beginning to rise, I heard the other youth leader in the room, Jessica, tumble out of her bunk to use the bathroom around 6:30am. Unfortunately, we soon found out that our door was stuck shut. There is nothing like the inability to use the commode to make one begin to panic, so imagine how this might affect a room filled with 8 girls. I jumped out of bed and tried the door handle and it would not open the door. By this point, all the girls in the room were awake and a little concerned.  Our room was about 10 steps off the ground, so I thought that punching out the window might be the best solution to our problem, that way we could enter the cabin from the outside door. I aggressively lifted the window while simultaneously punching out the screen. Unfortunately, the window was too heavy to stay put once lifted, which I found out BECAUSE it was too heavy to stay put, so I held the window open while Jessica started her climb out said window-only hearing “Eye of the Tiger” at this exact moment could have made this experience more epic.  Unfortunately, the drop was longer than expected, so there were a few scrapes and bruises for that leader, and more importantly to me, I am pretty sure that a spider dropped on me at one point while I was holding that window open, but I remained strong. Parents, this is what we do for your kids. And THAT is how Saturday started off.

We had a morning session for the kids where we discussed identity issues. This session was soon followed by a trip to the snow. Thank you to whoever invented snow pants. I borrowed a pair of snow pants from a friend (I am definitely more of a beach person, so I own a ton of swim suits, and zero snow pants), and I am pretty sure they saved my life. This thought occurred to me while I was flying down a mountain, connected to a chain of kids on inner tubes, while looking back to see my inner tube trailing behind me. Thank you snow pants. Luckily we returned to camp with the same number of kids that we left with earlier that morning.

Saturday night at camp is always my favorite time. It comes after a long day of activities and sessions of course preceded by a night of no sleep. But we normally have a campfire on Saturday night and it is so relaxing and fun to hang out with the kids, just chatting and laughing. Oh wait, I almost forgot that the junior high boys like to fart into the fire, but other than that, Saturday nights at camp are so fun!

The drive back to town on Sunday is much quieter than it was leaving town on Friday, and to me, THAT is a sign that camp was good.

Why do I do this? Because it is incredibly important to me that young people know that God loves them, that they are created and accepted by the Creator who says they are valuable and that there is ALWAYS hope.

So with that, I leave you with another video I do not own: