93 Stinky Children (and Other Reasons I Love Camp)

The COGWA Youth Camps program has a special place in the hearts of children and adults. Why? What about this program makes it so important to so many?

There are a lot of reasons for any rational adult to dislike serving in COGWA’s youth camp program. The days are long and demanding; the living quarters are subpar and cramped; and caring for dorms of high-octane, super-excitable campers is intensely exhausting on both mental and physical levels. And yet, every year, hundreds of volunteers sacrifice their time and money to make sure these camps happen.

Why?

My experience at Camp Lone Star

Last month I had the privilege of serving as a dorm counselor at Camp Lone Star. It was my first time at that camp specifically, and my first time at a preteen camp in general. When people asked me how it went, I gave them the most honest answer I could. “It was exhausting,” I’d say. “But worth it.”

Exhausting, but worth it. I’ve served on camp staff about a dozen times in eight years; and whether that camp was surrounded by the forests of Pennsylvania, the arctic tundra of Wisconsin, the high-altitude plains of Kenya or the rustic gravel roads of Texas, I always got to the end thinking that camp was exhausting but worth it.

It’s the kids. They’re the reason for both those things. They make it exhausting, but they also make it worth it. During orientation this year, I joked that a successful camp session meant getting to the end of camp and still having all the campers I had when we started. But really, it’s so much more than that.

Real growth at camp

Ninety-three kids arrived at Lone Star this year, some of them for the first time, many of them not knowing their other dorm mates, all of them filled with questions and apprehension and curiosity. Over the course of the next few days, it was our privilege as staff members to watch them blossom.

And they did.

I had a camper, terrified of heights and going underwater, who challenged himself to ride the zip line at the lake. “I’ll probably do it once,” he said. He rode it 10 times before camp was over. I saw other campers looking out for each other, giving each other support and encouragement while they tried all kinds of new things.

But the best part of camp—the absolutely best part, and the reason I keep coming back—is that sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get to be there when it clicks. You get to be there when, all of a sudden, part of God’s Word starts to make sense to a young mind. You get to be there when these precious little ones start to realize that this isn’t their parents’ church or their grandparents’ church; this is their church and God is working with them and they get to be a part of something incredibly fantastic. That’s a revelation they’ll carry with them the rest of their lives, and getting to be there when it happens is an honor beyond words.

So, yes, being on staff at camp is difficult. It demands quite a lot from you in quite a few different ways. It’s exhausting in every sense of the word, but the rewards are beyond measure. It’s worth your time; it’s worth your money; it’s worth whatever it takes for you to be there—because sometimes the simple act of your being there is the first step toward making an impact that will last a lifetime.

If you ever have the chance to be part of camp, take it.

It’s exhausting, but it is worth it.

To learn more, visit the COGWA Youth Camps website.