We Love Our Job But It Isn’t Always Fun!

People think that working for a camp like SpringHill is all campfires, singing songs, hearing inspiring stories, riding horses, working with dedicated people and eating smores.

But the reality is when you serve 14,000 campers a summer from all over the world and every walk of life there will be sad stories to hear and situations we become involved with.

This week we have 2000 campers plus 700 summer staff in our camps.  Enough people to be a small city. And like a small city, there is hurt, heartache and brokenness.

Yesterday I spoke to some of our leaders from around the ministry and heard a few of the camper situations from this week.  I share them with you to give you an idea of what we become involved in and also so you can pray more effectively for us and our campers.

We received a call from a mother who just found out her husband and the father of her two kids died suddenly in an accident.  Our staff facilitated this mother coming to camp and breaking the news to her two boys. Then our staff followed-up with their cabin mates to help them through their own sadness for their new friends.

One of our campers shared with her counselor that she has missed her cycle and believes she maybe pregnant.  Now we are working through all the implications of this potential situation so we can help her make the right decisions.

Another camper we decided, after working with him for 3 days to adjust to camp, needed to go home. It was obvious from his behavior that camp was not the best place.

Finally there is a young woman who has been sexually abused by a trusted adult.

Every week we become involved with stories like this.  It is a part of our work.  We don’t like it and it’s certainly not fun. But we count it a privilege to be available to help these campers find the greatest Hope and Healer in the world – Jesus Christ.

On a different note here are a few photo’s from my visit to our Indiana camp.