Church Camp

I've run out of meaningful things to talk about on this blog so I figure I'll talk about my experiences. Many summers of my life I spent time at church camp. As someone with religious parents, I’ve been to a variety of different types of church camp. The one I went to for most of my younger years was the outdoorsy, “connecting the Word of God with the World of God” type. Later years were focused less on team building and nature-y things and more on moral discussions and pop/rock church music. I never made that many friends because I was pretty shy most of my life but that just gave me a better position from which to watch all of the summer unfold. And I feel it’s only right to share the lessons I learned.

In elementary school one summer we did a rock climbing thing. There were these kids who for our purposes we will refer to as George and Elroy. We all went on a trip to some cliffs in Wisconsin after spending time learning how to climb safely and correctly. George and Elroy were competing for the affections of a gal named Jane, because what is summer camp without romance and drama? Jane had made it clear that she was only interested in George but Elroy wouldn’t back off. Everything George did, Elroy tried to best him. In Wisconsin, we were climbing one day casually with George and Elroy in a race to the top. They seemed to be neck and neck until suddenly George and several others started jumping back down. Elroy laughed and continued and it was almost cartoonish the way things played out. He dragged himself all the way up and pulled himself right into a hornet's nest. So if your friends all jump off a cliff, you should probably jump too.

In 9th grade, I went to a little weekend retreat where I had so many great experiences that I was just rearing to go the next year. We were put into small groups for Bible-related activities and discussions about leadership and listened to religious seminars. One day, we had a nice Christian sex-ed talk. We joined with a couple small groups and filed into a small lecture hall. As we were all sitting down, each of us was handed a bookmark. The one I received had a picture of a smiling young gal and said “I can make people happy without taking my clothes off.” As a young impressionable girl whose mind is filled only with sex as an attempt to please others, this changed my world. I felt so enlightened every time I looked at that bookmark.  We spent a lot of time doing role plays. How to tell your boyfriend that you don’t want to have sex. How to tell your mother when you walk in on your dad sleeping with the neighbor. We did a fun little voting game about when it’s okay to have sex or not. I learned a lot that day, like there aren’t that many different ways to say “no sex is safe sex” and church leaders don't like to acknowledge that gay sex exists. But the takeaway they made sure we left with was: If you think you’re a STUD, you’ll lose the U and you’ll just have STD.

There’s lots to learn at church camp about all different things and I think whether or not I enjoyed all those years of camp, I certainly grew from them. These are just two stories that I happened to think of but that have no real connection to each other. They’re just some of the great things I learned in my youth. (If anyone's interested I have many more stories and lessons available to those who ask including but not limited to things around solicitation, frogs, and the scientific method.)