Mary Chase Breedlove served as Production Leader for CK2 2011 at Georgetown College.
It’s hard to believe that almost two months ago I was at camp serving as a Production Leader for CK2. Camp holds an enormous place in my heart, and I feel like the things I’ve learned from two summers with CentriKid will benefit me for the rest of my life. Here are some of the things that I learned at camp:
God works when “stuff” doesn’t. For the first few weeks of the summer, things would go wrong that were out of my control and I stressed. I bit my nails. I’d have one of those moments where I put my glasses on my head, ran my fingers though my hair, sighed loudly and smacked my head against the wall. And for what? What good was that? Sure, I was frustrated that our projector went out during the middle of a program, or that our live feed connection seemed to have it out for me, but you know what? None of that mattered. The Lord works regardless. Children made decisions to follow Christ. I’m certainly not saying that programming doesn’t matter. Excellence at camp is incredibly important. However, it took a few weeks of working myself up for no reason to realize that when things are out of my control, they are NOT out of God’s.
Camp relationships are some of the best friendships I will have. I can’t begin to describe it. It’s true love. Seeing my friends from last summer at training week is what I think heaven will be like. I made the same kind of friendships this summer with CK2. There really is nothing like it. These people invest in my life. They care about my interests, my struggles, my joys, and my sorrows. They encourage me and build me up. They tell me what I need to know, not what I want to hear. It’s genuine love.
Make every minute of your day count. I’m sure many of you, like me, are around people all the time. We’re intentional with people 24/7 at camp…why shouldn’t we be in real life? Instead of having the same, “hey, how are you? good,” conversations that I have with 70% of the people I come in contact with, why don’t I take two minutes to ask them something not quite so shallow?