Over the summer I decided to go to a teen missions camp at Camp Findley. I was a little nervous going in to it because I was so busy at the time. I had both cheer and dance practices. I also had to go to dance nationals the next week. I spent the whole week before packing my bag excessively and talking with my friend Leah about it because we signed up for it together. I had previously gone to Camp Findley two years before, but Leah had never gone before, so I helped her plan what to take.
The first day, we got there and set up our room. Our friend Bella was also going, but she got roomed with a stranger. The girl seemed very nice and approachable. Then, my friend Liv came in and we ran and gave each other a hug. Liv is my friend from Findley Lake. I usually never get to see her very often and I was looking forward to seeing her again the whole week before. There were also a lot of girls from the last time I went to camp that I got to reconnect with. After everyone was all set up we went to the dining hall for dinner. It was so nice to see all my friends that I haven’t seen in forever. We had a somewhat small group of girls so it was really nice because there wasn’t any cliques. We combined all the girl tables together so we could all eat together.
One of my favorite memories from camp is pushing Leah and my beds together and inviting a bunch of girls to hangout in the room. Most nights we had big sleepovers in our tiny room. A group of us girls bought a bunch of candy for a candy salad and went back to the room to put it together and eat it. We all ended up loving Bella’s roommate Lyla. She was so funny and outgoing.
For one of our missions me, Liv, Lyla, Mattie, Noah, and Johan went to weed a garden for a community center place that they have in Findley. That was one of the best days because we had a whole dance/singing party and we walked to Noah’s house to see his goats. They were so cute!!
So much happened with Johan at camp. We all thought he was so funny and everything he did was crazy. He would always just walk up to the staff freezer and take whatever ice cream or popsicle he wanted. He just did it like he didn’t know he was wrong. He was a little clueless but in the best, most entertaining way. The same day we went to the garden Johan went missing and we had to go all around the building looking for him. Turns out the whole time he was just hiding in a slide. After the garden, we went to Krasa’s Kove for ice cream. We were all just sitting outside and enjoying our ice cream, when all of a sudden I see something dripping out of Johan’s pocket. I ask him what was going on and he goes, “Oh yeah!” He grabs a melted Popsicle out of his pocket and starts munching of that and his ice cream at the same time. We had no idea how to react, but it was so funny.
The best thing about camp was how much it helped me in my faith, and helped me grow my relationship with God. We had chapel every night, but one night stood out by far. I call it cry night. We all get off of our chairs and sit on the floor in a circle. We then light up candles and turn off the lights. When you have a candle, you pick someone in the circle to pray for and give them the candle. They then do the same thing for someone else. At this moment you can just feel the presence of God and it just feels so powerful. Another thing we do is put a chair in the middle of the circle and let anyone sit there that wants to be prayed for. This is also such a moving moment because you start to see some people, especially the boys, that usually don’t take anything very seriously start to get emotional, and take it seriously.
Usually after chapel we had a late night snack and had a camp fire. The sunsets were so beautiful at this time. We might have had a couple night swims as well. This was a very fun time to just all talk and socialize. During the daytime swim time, my favorite thing to do was to hangout in the hammocks. One day Lyla and Bella were messing around in one of the hammocks and broke it, but we blamed it on Matt.
I loved having my sister as a councilor because I got to hangout with her a lot of the time. One night we even convinced another councilor to prank some of the girls and search their room with a flashlight. Near the end of camp we had a color wars game of capture the flag. The very last day everyone packed up all their stuff to leave. A lot of people got pretty emotional because of all the close bonds made in such little time.
If you are interested in signing up for the teen missions camp at Findley, go to: www.thecampatfindley.com
