Monday, June 29, 2026 Summer Camp

After all these years, I’m finally at summer camp. This was an experience denied to me in my youth so naturally I romanticized it as a place of wonder where you went from one amazing thing to another. Even after watching The Parent Trap, I still thought it must be a place that birthed lifelong friendships and created the best memories. Maybe you could even find your long-lost identical twin there. I would have been delighted to find out that I had a long-lost identical twin, by the way.

My older sister became a Girl Scout and I believe she had a summer camp experience once. By the time I came around, I only made it as far as the Brownies. We did one pitiful day camp that was so far from meeting my expectations that I left the memory of it smoldering on the inadequate campfire we sat around, where it remains to this day.

My husband and I are volunteering at a Christian boys’ camp this week. It’s the same camp he brought most of our sons to for a week every summer as they were growing up. He would stay up there, too, as a lay counselor. When they came home from camp, I’d hear about hocker games, archery and other skills learned, horseback riding, carpet ball, swimming, singing silly camp songs around the campfire, Bible devotionals and prayer times, and buying things like Charleston Chews at the camp store.

We only have one daughter out of our six children (we always called her our “rose among the thorns”). While the menfolk were up at camp, she and I had “Girl Week.” We planned it in advance with different featured activities each day. One day we’d have an extravagant tea party. Another day would be “Downtown Day,” where we’d go downtown with a certain amount of money to spend at the shops. We’d also have a day where we’d do take-out food and a movie. And of course we’d have a craft day, too, working on some artsy project together. Oh, such fun! Looking back, I think that the way we spent that week was better than any summer camp experience could have been.

I’m not sure yet how our week at summer camp will go. I had expected to help in the kitchen, but upon arriving here we discovered that they already have four cooks/kitchen helpers, all young guys. The head cook is 17 years old. He told me they might not need my help much, so I will probably see if I can tag around after my husband, helping with grounds work. I am praying that the Lord will show me how to be useful here.

The memory of this post will be left smoldering in a campfire in the morning.