Coming Back from Camp

Camp came to a close on Friday. I had a few more opportunities with D-n to share God’s word with him. At the beginning of the week, they gave each camper a Bible. I took this and underlined some of the verses we talked about the day before and others including John 3:16.

But all too soon, after chapel and lunch, we loaded the buses and returned back over the same scenic route from whence we came.  Only this time my mind was not filled with anxieties about what would take place but good, rich memories with God, counselors and campers.  

But still we returned.  We returned to the city where gas was $3.49, the streets where busy cars bustled about, and back to…well, back to life before camp.  It almost felt foreign in a way. 

Life was simple and much more focused at camp. 

 

My mind recalled a letter read by the camp director, Joel, sometime during the week. It was a letter by a former counselor from another Royal Family Kids Camp. While I do not remember the exact quote, at some point the counselor contrasted his life at camp verses his life back where he lived. He had made the discovery that the real life was at camp, ministering to the kids.

I knew what he meant.  I have experienced it several times in my life. Guinea. India. France. Camps. I would travel on mission trips or go to camp to serve and help other people or teach or counsel kids at camp—ultimately for the love of Christ. Then it ends and I return back to the previous ‘life.’  Life before the mission’s trip, life before camp—God impacted me throughout the experiences there but I always returned. 

And I feel very much like an apple on a freeway!  Frodo said it best in the third Lord of the Rings trilogy: the Return of the King. “There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire (Frodo’s home), it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same.”  Something during our journey transforms us. We are different. We are individuals who have tasted the depths of God and his kingdom, only to return to a fast paced, often times shallow society, where the common talk of weather and television shows pervade.  And we often yearn in the nights for those days to come again. 

Those who go and serve in such a way understand this.  God brings them to a mountaintop, lets them behold his glory, refines them, and speaks to them. Then when they return they find things different, not because of drastic changes in their home surroundings but because of the tremendous transformation in their own lives.

Yet God gives all who will go and then return a wonderful challenge. He desires us to be agents of God’s transforming grace in our lives when we return.  Perhaps the Lord's words to us are the ones he instructed the man freed from demon-possession.  The man wanted to accompany Jesus and his disciples but the Lord forbade him. "Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."  He desires that we take the mountaintop glories we catch and share with others.   

Let us pray then.  Let us work and minister to the people around us ‘because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).       

Till next time...carry on.

I want to acknowledge that all these camp stories are through my eyes.  There are others that took place with other counselors but they must tell their own stories—and I’d encourage them to do so!

While this year’s camp stories and lessons are done, there are other stories and lessons that must be written—so stay tuned!