Time for Camp

I'll be gone until July 25th, working with my wife at a small camp deep in the middle of a Kansas wheatfield. I love camps. Once in high school, I attended 9 camps in one summer. But Silver Maple Camp has always been my favorite. Nowadays I only have time for one camp, and while there are many I could work at, this is where I'll always return. There's a sense in which I grew up there: my father directing one session, and me following him around as the resident "camp brat." There's a sense in which my faith started there: introducing me to many of the most inspiring Christians I've ever known, introducing me to God outside rigid church structure. As I recently told someone, if I had to choose what I learned about faith and God at SMC and what I learned earning a ministry degree, I'd have to choose camp. There's a sense in which my life as an adult started there: I met a girl there when we were children, and we began a camp romance as teenagers. I asked her to marry me standing on the dock overlooking the camp's tiny lake. And five years ago we said our vows in the camp's beat up old chapel, standing in the exact same spot where I'd first met her years before, too young to know our paths would lead us together, give us two beautiful daughters, and embark us on an intense/confusing/exciting journey that we've really only begun.

I'm about to go enjoy the best week of my year. See you guys later. God bless.