The Summer That Changed My Life | Why I Still Believe in Camp Ministry

This week I’m sharing why summer camp has always held such a special place in my heart ❤️

As a little girl, church camp was the highlight of my summer — swimming, crafts, chapel, camp songs, muddy obstacle courses, cabin laughs, and friendships I looked forward to all year long. What I didn’t realize then was that while I was busy having fun seeds of faith were being planted in my heart.

Years later, after drifting far from those childhood lessons, God used camp ministry to completely change the direction of my life.

And now, getting to come back years later and volunteer at Caton’s Island has felt so full circle for me.

In this episode I’m sharing:
✨ why camp mattered so much growing up
✨ how those childhood seeds stayed rooted deep down
✨ the summer that changed my faith forever
✨ why volunteering at camp means so much to me now
✨ and why I still believe camp ministry changes lives

You truly never know what seeds are being planted in a child’s life ❤️

If camp ministry has ever touched your life in some way, I would LOVE to hear your story. Share this episode, tag me on social media, or send me a message!  

You can find me over on Facebook and Instagram at Kate’s Creative Kitchen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey, I'm Kate, mom of seven, coffee lover, and believer in finding joy in every season of motherhood. This is Praise, Prayer, and Protein, where we talk faith, family, frugal living, and the real-life mom hacks that make it all work. Let's dive in. Hey friends, and welcome back to Praise, Prayer, and Protein. Today I'm going to share with you a little story that I got to share this weekend at Caton's Island Summer Camp. I was there this weekend speaking at a volunteer supper about why I chose to volunteer there and how much camp changed my life. So when I was a child, I grew up uh attending an Anglican church. And every single summer that church would send me to camp. And if you grew up in the 90s going to church camp, you know exactly what I mean when I say it became the highlight of my entire year. I counted down the days to camp and looked forward to them. I lived for camp, especially as an only child. What a great week I had with so many, so many other campers. It was a magical week where everything just felt really exciting, free, and joyful. There were swimming lessons, crafts, boating, obstacle course races, the mud pit, the camp food, the camp songs, the cabin life, and of course, all the fun 90s chapel songs. Like, who can remember Pharaoh Faro? And honestly, there was something just so special about it all. You get to go stay up late in the cabin with uh all your friends. I never had sisters before, so I just thought it was like sharing a room with the siblings. Uh, I got to be independent for the week. I got to have a ton of adventures. It was just a great feeling to go to summer camp. And of course, I got to take some friends with me every year as well. And as a kid, I didn't really fully understand what was happening spiritually, but seeds were definitely being planted uh inside of me, especially during the chapel we would have in the daytime, but also the evening chapels. Seeds of faith, seeds of truth, seeds of identity, and seeds of God's love. And even though at the time I was just mostly there for all the fun, I went to camp every summer until grade nine, which was the very last year of senior teen camp for me. And around that age, my life really started to change. I started to make some really not wise decisions. I got caught up in the party life, uh, wanting acceptance, wanting fun, wanting freedom. And slowly, camp became just a thing of my childhood. And honestly, I forgot all about it. And suddenly I was chasing fulfillment in all the wrong places. Fast forward to my first year of university. It was probably in the second semester, and I remember hearing some of my friends talking about working at summer camps. They were just talking about how much fun it was to spend the summer at a camp working. Uh, I thought that was a really fun idea. And then something woke up inside of me, and I started thinking about the camp I went to as a kid, the camp I loved so much as a little girl. And I started remembering just how safe it felt there, how joyful it was, how free I felt, just how different I felt there, how different the staff felt there, how different my counselors were there. And honestly, I think deep down in my soul, something inside of me was longing to feel that again. So, in one very, very late night, I'm talking the middle of the night, I applied to work at this camp. And to this day, I still have no idea how or why they hired me. Like honestly, I swear somebody else was answering any of those questions because I had really no idea or I had no clue on how I was answering some of these questions to get a staff position at this camp. But by the grace of God, I did, and I was headed to camp for the summer. So that summer, I was 19 years old and I was getting ready to head to camp. The weekend before I was supposed to leave, something absolutely devastated happened to our friend group. One of my friends on his way to go pick up his girlfriend had a motorcycle accident and was killed. It absolutely rocked our friend group. It was heartbreaking, shocking, confusing. Honestly, I didn't really know how to process any of that grief. None of us really did. All we knew how to do was go out, party, and numb the pain. I remember sitting there one night at the I remember sitting there that night at the bar after everything had happened, and it just hit me so deeply. Is this all there is to my life? Like, is this all my life is? We party when we're happy, we party when we're sad, and we distract ourselves when we're hurting. I remember just feeling so, so empty. Like something inside of me was just aching for more. I had no language for it, but I knew I just needed something different. I needed something more. Staff training had already started at camp, but because of the funeral, I needed to arrive late. I remember my mom driving me up there after the funeral, and I did not want to go. I remember saying to her, I don't want to spend my summer at this Bible camp without any of my friends. I was grieving. I felt so uncomfortable since I didn't know anybody there. And I remember my mom so graciously just saying, just go for the week, and if you hate it, I'll come and get you. When I showed up at camp, not knowing anyone, everybody was so, so kind. They all had known why I was late, so everyone was very welcoming, warm, and genuine. There was just something so kind about them that it really felt different. Even getting out of the car and stepping onto the grounds again after not being there for so many years, I felt it all come back. I felt the feelings of joy, the feelings of safety, the feeling of familiarity as I walked onto those campgrounds. That night it was time to go to Staff Chapel, uh, where we would hear a message and they would have some worship. Now remember, I grew up in a very, very traditional church setting. I'm talking about hymn books, the organ music. It was very structured, 50 minutes in and out. So when I walked into this chapel uh and people began to worship to contemporary music, raising their hands and actually engaging, it was very emotional for me. I had never experienced that before in my life. I had never seen other people worship like that before. I remember just sitting on the floor, I was so overwhelmed with just this heartache and grief. And this song came on, I Could Sing of Your Love Forever by Sonic Flood. And I can still picture it and I can still feel it. The presence of God filling that room. And it was like every wall around my heart just came crashing down. And the moment happened, I encountered God's love and like I had never before. Honestly, it's so hard to explain unless you get to experience it. But it felt like everything I had spent my whole life searching for, I had found in him. Every emptiness, every ache, every longing, every question. Suddenly I just felt whole. I felt complete, loved, seen, filled. And I remember thinking, this is what I have spent years looking for. It was not the parties, the approval, the attention, the temporary highs. It was Jesus that I really was looking for. It was him and only him that could satisfy the aching of my heart. And from there, because I was stuck at Bible camp, I spent the next six weeks just digging into his word. And honestly, my life changed completely. That was 24 years ago, this June, that my life was changed forever. I learned in those six weeks of being at Bible camp what it looked like to follow Jesus, to live differently, to pursue him, to worship, to pray, to live in a kingdom community. And one of the biggest impacts on me that summer was actually the camp cook. She was incredible. She loved us teenagers so well. She served with such joy and she poured into us. And I ended up spending three summers at that camp with her, watching her plant seeds in others just like me. I remember thinking someday I want to do this for someone else. I want to create a space where people feel loved, welcomed, and cared for. I want to help create that kind of environment where someone could encounter Jesus the way I did. Then life happened, marriage, babies, more babies, and more babies. And honestly, for a long time, volunteering at camp or even serving in a camp ministry was just not in just not in the season we were in. We were in the I was in the thick of motherhood. But camp still mattered deeply to our family. We started going to family camp at Caton's Island. Then our kids started working there. And every single summer I could see those same seeds being planted in them. The friendships, the worship, the leadership, the fun, the mentorship, the memories. And then last summer, my friend Jen asked me to come and volunteer in the kitchen for a week as she was putting together a volunteer schedule and looking for adults that would come and serve in the kitchen just the way I had always wanted to. I knew immediately, absolutely, this is my turn. This is the season I can actually do this in. And honestly, I loved every second of it. The chaos, the singing in the kitchen, the dance parties in the kitchen, the serving, the hard work, the community. It filled my cup in a way I didn't expect. And what's funny is from the outside, volunteering looks like giving, like you're sacrificing your time. But truly, I left feeling like I received more than I gave. Because camp ministry, it changes lives. And the thing about camp is you never know what seeds you're planting. You never know which kid is going to remember chapel 20 years later. You never know which teenager is going to encounter Jesus for the first time. You never know who's silently hurting, who's grieving, who's searching, who's empty. You just keep showing up, you keep serving, and you keep loving even the really hard ones. And God does the rest. Honestly, I'm pretty sure if any of my camp counselors from that summer camp knew what would happen to me, they would probably have fallen over from the type of camper I was. I think in today's world, especially, camp matters more than ever. Our kids are growing up in such a noisy, loud culture. Everything is fighting for their attention, their identity, and their worth. Camp creates a space to unplug from all of that, to laugh, to worship, to build friendship, to experience the 90s summer we did, to experience God in nature and to encounter truth. And honestly, I'm so grateful my parents sent me to that camp all those years ago. Because even when I drifted, those seeds were still there. They were just waiting. And when the time came, God used camp ministry to call me back to him. So if you volunteer at camp, thank you. If you donate to any camp ministry, thank you. If you send your kids to camp, thank you. You truly have no idea what God might do through one single week. And maybe today you're listening and you feel a little bit like that 19-year-old me, searching, tired, empty, wondering if there's more to life than the cycle you're stuck in. Friend, there is. Thank you so much, friends, for hanging out with me today. I think next week will be my very last episode uh for this season one of Praise, Prayer, and Protein. It has been so much fun hanging out with y'all. I'm so sorry that uh this one didn't drop exactly when it should have on Monday. It's gonna be a little bit later, but life just seems to get so, so busy as the nicer weather is here. So next week will be a wrap-up. We'll talk all about summer schedules, uh, things that I am not doing and am doing uh this summer to make our life a little bit less chaotic and more joyful. So make sure you come back next week for the last episode before summer break. I would love if you could share this episode with someone you know who loves camp ministry, maybe someone you went to camp with, or maybe someone who needs a little bit of encouragement today. And if camp has impacted your life in some way, please message me, tag me on your social media because I would absolutely love to hear your stories. You guys all rock. Have a great week. Bye.