Rough Draft [2] Definitely still needs alot of work...

Peaking through the stain glass windows, the suns rays bounce off of every surface, making the room shine with magnificent, cheerful colors. I began to stir and as I opened my eyes the glare on the bear white cabin walls seemed to unfold like petals of a rose. The sound of my favorite church hymn crawled under my covers to my ears, but it wasn’t until I opened my eyes to see last years counselor singing into her hair brush that I realized I was back at camp. I sat up examining the carvings surrounding me on every beam of my bunk, like the stars surround the moon, waiting for an uncontrollable grin so I could say to myself “yeah, I remember that year.”

I wasn’t raised in a family that attended church regularly, but every summer I went to camp with a few friends. Every year I began my count down for the next year the day that camp ended. From the moment i arrived i were treated as family, which i was in the eyes of God. There were no awkward moments at camp, it was as if i had grown up with these people even though i had just learned there names standing in small group assignment line. Everyday consisted of the same basic events almost always in this order: worship, breakfast, prayer, worship, wreck, small groups, lunch, free time, rest hour, activities, workshops or seminars, worship, small group, dinner, chapel, fellowship, devotions, lights out. However everyday was completely different. Worship varied from one on one time seriously praising our creator; to jumping literally full of joy of all of the wonderful things he has given us. Meals were family style. You were assigned a table with one counselor and eight students from different areas, and the food was already on the table. Prayer was our quite time in the mornings, for about forty five minutes where we were given the time to walk away from every thing and everyone else to talk to Jesus one on one. Wreck and free time were times for group activities, mainly consisting of nine square competitions. Small group was a time to get into a group of peers and share the things that we struggled with most in our journey to live through The Lord. Activities were things such as a ropes course and other things that would help an individual to build their trust in each other and in Jesus. Workshops and seminars were exactly as they sounded, times where we gathered in rooms and learned of new ways that we could tell others of the word of Jesus Christ. But camp always seemed to have an emphasis on reuniting with old friends and having a good time rather than learning about our creator and committing to abide by his word.

Camp served as a private get away for me. A place to run to hide, and to think, camp was my home away from homes. The one place where in a single week I kept the whole world out, and only let one Person in. Somewhere where every night I floated into a dream world where everything and everyone who followed Christ was accepted, and every morning I could wake up and that dream was real. It was the only place that once the week was over I felt like a five year old grabbing onto there Fathers leg because they didn’t want to be sent to kindergarten, except my kindergarten was the “nations.” Camp was a place that as soon as the doors on the church bus came to a close at the end of the week, so did the part of my mind that let Him in.

This summer I couldn’t go to camp, my mom’s job transferred her to Georgia and trying to arrange a trip back to Florida for camp was just not in my budget. I was devastated, more so than the times I had to leave camp. However I didn’t seem to be upset that I wasn’t getting to spend a week worshiping Jesus, but that I was missing out on something that all of my old friends were experiencing. Little did I know at the time that I wasn’t going to miss the experience, just one that had previously served as a social activity.

I was invited to a camp closer and more affordable, but I had lost all of the excitement I once had for camp. It wasn’t going to be the same; nothing could ever be the same as the fellowship I experienced at my old camp. Going into this new camp I was nervous and judgmental, and ready to make up a list to send to my old friends back in Florida about how much better camp there was than this new one.

We loaded all of our suitcases onto the church bus, just like we would have at my old camp. But when we arrived we didn’t get cabin assignments, we stayed in beach houses. This was a new concept to me because the camp I had gone to for years was on a lake and you could see the neighboring camp grounds directly across the lake. But here it was just the ocean, you can’t see across the ocean. Meals were different; we ate together as a church and not with new people. This was a major difference a main focus of my old camp was to meet new people that share the same beliefs you do, but here we were expected to grow closer to the people in our own youth group. Worship, small groups, workshops and seminars, wreck and activities, and devotionals seemed to be the same or close to the way we did it at Warren Willis camp. (old camp)

But there was another key difference, at Warren Willis we were expected to gain a deeper relationship with God, here at Super Wow we were not only expected to gain this deeper relationship with Jesus, but to learn ways that we could keep this bond once we left camp and emerged back into the real world. We were told that it wouldn’t be easy, but we would make it because we had formed a support group by becoming close to the people in our own church. We were also taught ways that we could spread the word of Jesus. I had always noticed the sort of camp high feeling I got while I was at camp, and how it always seemed to wilt faster than it was formed, but it had never occurred to me before at camp that I was supposed to take what I learned and share it with all the nations of the world.

On the last day of this camp, I took a walk down the beach to watch the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. As I was walking, watching the sunset I saw how He did it. I saw that His creation of the sun is a reflection of Him and how He asks us to live. The sun’s arms reach out and shine on every inch of the world just as His love does. Its light never burns out exactly like His love. And the sun comes back to us every morning, just like Jesus does even when we have sinned and don’t deserve it. In that moment, walking down the beach just as it turned to dusk; I was amazed by the amount of His love that glides across each beam of sunlight to touch all of the nations. I began to shiver as the waves gently crashed against my feet, and the cool summer breeze began to blow. But I was immediately warmed again by the melting away of the sky. Watching the sun sink into the ocean, and the sky change from blue to pink, purple, and orange, a new desire, and purpose in this life became clear to me, I wanted His light to shine through me to touch other people of this world. So I began to float away, away from this world of corruption, treachery, and fear, into a world which lives only for Him, a world that I will now continue to float forever.