The heat reminded me of family camp. One summer when I was 11 or 12 my family spent a few nights as a Christian summer camp. I'd never been to any sort of camp before and was wary of the experience. Unlike many kids I enjoyed spending time with my parents and had a bone-deep dislike of structured group activities.
Public school was constricting enough - why would anyone want to give up a precious week or two of summer freedom away from home with strange adults who told you when to eat and sleep and how to have fun?
Family camp was interesting, though. After a night or so I grew used to falling asleep with a portable fan turned on to help circulate the humidity. The white noise the fan made was peaceful, though. And I loved being surrounded by trees and bushes whenever we walked outside.
At one point I was able to ride go-karts with some of the kids I'd recently befriended at our new church. Each group of kids rode their go-karts around the track several times. It felt like an eternity passed before I reached the front of the line. The ride went well but as I was turning into the section of the track where the next group of kids were waiting for their turn I realized that the brakes didn't work very well on my kart. I tried to steer it away from the crowd but the man who was supervising us stepped in front of me and a sharp corner of the kart cut his leg. It happened too fast for me to tell him what was going on. All I could do was pump the brake and try to get it to stop.
Even though it was an accident I felt horrible for hurting him for years. I'd tried so hard to avoid hurting anyone as soon as I realized that the brakes were faulty.
Only one other memory of family camp remains. Each night everyone gathered in the chapel for a revival meeting of sorts. We sang, listened to a sermon and then the pastor tried to make the offering a competition. He had two buckets at the front of the church, one for the girls and one for the boys. The gender who gave the biggest offering was promised something amazing. A pizza party, maybe?
My first thought: "what about the kids who have little or no spending money for this week?" Some kids attended that camp only because their home churches could afford to pay part or all of their fees. If there was going to be a competition it seemed to me that it should be something like memorizing bible verses or doing good deeds. Once again, I was quietly opinionated about something that I knew was wrong but wasn't quite sure how to fix. ;)
(Photo credit).
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5 comments:
I vividly remember that camp. At the time, the structured activities didn't bother me. Now though I STRONGLY dislike any structured activity unless it actually has a point. (Teaching structure is not a valid point.) One thing that really bothers me especially now (not sure if it did back then)is the almost abusive pressure that I remember from the heads of that camp for the kids to give money to them. I don't remember how much they charged per camper per week, but from what I remember, it was a fairly sizeable amount for a camp to charge. For god sakes, let the kids have fun and buy candy and pop with the few dollars that they brought. Don't weasle their spending money out of them too for the sake of 'the kingdom.' What would God do with the money anyway...if he really needed the money, I'm sure he would just throw a lightning bolt and out would poof a chest of benjamins....Anyway, those are my negative memories of that camp. I do have plenty of good ones though too. I loved the go karts although I never had any life and death experiences like you did. I also liked the bi-level pool that they had where we spent alot of time.
Jesse
"For god sakes, let the kids have fun and buy candy and pop with the few dollars that they brought"
Exactly.
"I also liked the bi-level pool that they had where we spent alot of time."
I don't remember that! It sounds really cool, though.
Reminds me of VBS!:(:(
that pool was fun. there was a wayer fall between the upper and lower pools.
that was a very hot week. the building where the evening meetings were held was the only air conditioned place there, so at least we had a few hours of coolness! that is my main memory - how ungodly hot it was that week! and how excited we were to move into our house a week after we returned from camp. we had to wait almost a month to get into our house after moving from Wyoming to Ohio, and we were ready to get settled.
Wow, I really wish I remembered that pool. It sounds amazing.
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