Brackenhurst Ministries: Amanda Goes to Camp

The Big Top

We at Camp BlueSky have always wanted to expand our programming from only summer camp for kids to some kind of family camp program. We have tried several times, but haven't yet found that wildly successful program we're looking for. We are not discouraged. We are passionate about families and long to see them knowing Christ. So we'll keep trying.

While I was stateside last month I made the 5-hour drive (from Rome, GA) way down south where the Spanish moss grows thick on the oak trees, the tea is extra sweet, and the hospitality is rich to Camp Grace in Mobile, Alabama. I only knew a few people whom I'd met when Outback came to Kenya at Thanksgiving, but I was welcomed warmly. I wasn't truly a camper or completely a volunteer; I was there to soak up the experience from every angle. I quickly became a part of the outback team as I donned my "staff" t-shirt and welcomed guest on Friday afternoon. After this initial responsibility as a volunteer, I was a participant in the evening worship and "talk" as they call it. Campers and volunteers together met with God under the "Big Top" where Ronnie Freeman (with a great local band) led worship and Travis Crim was the speaker. Throughout the weekend Travis talked about life purpose, dating, marriage, and salvation during morning and evening sessions under the big top where everyone sat in lawn chairs. After each talk families were broken up into "huddle groups," where daughters met with other daughters, mothers with other mothers, dads with other dads, and so on to discuss the talks on a deeper personal level.

The families that attended Outback attended in couples (mother-daughter, husband-wife, etc). This was a novel idea to me and I think it’s great. That way one relationship can be worked on and the family can come to camp more than just once. The quality of the band and relevance of the messages are things that would also be appreciated by our international families here in Nairobi.

On Saturday afternoon I helped out with the low ropes course. They were stoked to learn I was trained at low and high ropes (thank you BlueSky Adventures and WinShape Wilderness). I facilitated trust falls with mother-daughter couples. This was beautifully stretching for these mothers and daughter who hadn’t ever done anything like this together before. It was interesting to see how they responded to the challenge while their mother or daughter was watching them. We talked about things like trusting God and God's plan for our lives and trusting each other. Good stuff. Again, I got a little vision of the bonding that could happen and the barriers that could be broken down in some of the families in our International community here.

Overall I was really struck by two things: the amount of prayer that goes into a weekend like this and the number of volunteers. Outback is covered in prayer, and prayer like I haven't seen very much. They pray for each family very specifically leading up to camp. And all of the volunteers meet each morning at like 6 a.m. to pray before everything gets started. There was also a 24-hour prayer tent where there were volunteers all weekend to pray with people. The number of volunteers and how hard they worked also impressed me. There were almost as many volunteers there as there were campers and they served so hard all weekend, waking up very early and staying up late. It speaks volumes of the quality of the program if all of the nearly 150 volunteers were just that: volunteers who have full time jobs and worked all week.

Well, I'm not sure when and I'm not exactly sure how, but Camp BlueSky will one day (hopefully soon) try some kind of family program again. And now I have a little bit better idea of what it might look like.