A Sweet Moment

Today I dropped off my 8 year old Riker off at his very first week of camp at Beaver Creek Bible Camp. This is momentous enough but he is also staying in the very same cabin that I first stayed in when I first came to my first week of camp - how cool is that? Not to mention the fact that he was almost born at this camp (Jobina's water broke while we we were up at camp and he was born a few hours later after a terrifying drive to Winnipeg). I guess you could say that our family has a lot of history at this place.

Dropping him off today I tried to think about what it must have been like for my parents to drop me off to that very same cabin 26 years ago. Were they as excited for me as Jobina and I are for him? Were they nervous? I think about how that first camp experience changed my life - feeling the dedication and joy of not just my counselor but a whole camp staff dedicated to showing Christ's love. I remember the feelings of awe and mystery that surrounded me that first week of camp. Camp fires, exploring the bush, canoeing on the creek, listening to Bible stories before bed in my bunk. It was there that I first remember feeling a hunger to know and serve God. I had stayed as a camper in this cabin, then I was a counselor in it, later I was a camp director who walked by it and prayed for and occasionally disciplined those inside it, and now I was coming back to it again to drop off my eldest son. A sweet moment indeed. All these thoughts and memories ran through my mind as we walked up to "River Bend Pad" this morning. I felt like I was walking on holy ground.

Riker seems a lot more confident and a lot less shy then I was (I remember feeling so nervous that I almost wanted to throw up) but when I asked him how he slept the night before he told me "I woke up a few times worrying if the other kids would like me." Ah, my son, I know how you feel! My prayer for him is that he will be safe, have fun, and most off that God would get ahold of him in a powerful way. It is a bit of a harrowing thing to surrender your children to a camp for a week - even if you know the camp as intimately as I do. But I know he is in good hands.