SMT, Part 8= Camp Morrow- Back to the Past

This weekend is the Ecola Reunion back in Cannon Beach. Sadly, since I'm in Grand Rapids with no money or time, there was NO WAY I could have ever gotten back there to participate. But being there with everyone or not, I'm still feeling nostalgic towards the past year, especially with SMT. It snowed this week, so therefore I miss summer, and because I miss summer, I miss camp ministry A TON. Though I'll be making movies this summer at school, I won't be doing any camp ministry (At least, as far as I can tell. God can get me somewhere if He wants me somewhere at some point.). So I've been going through Facebook pictures since last night, reliving the camp experiences and confronting some of the ghosts I've previously mentioned.

So getting back to this brief story of my summer, we took off from Five Mile Lake in Federal Way, WA and made our way south down I-5 towards Oregon. When we crossed the WA/OR border, we were ecstatic! It was the first time I had been in Oregon in a month, the longest I had ever been out of the state before that point. We were so happy to the the Portland city scape from a distance. There is just something so magical about Oregon... It really is my first love. We made our way east towards Matt and Katie's house again in Redmond, and continued on to Bend, where we visited their Grandfather, who was coming to his last days, which is why we went out of way to go there. We had been praying for his salvation for months up to this point and it was that day that we received some amazing news: He had accepted Christ! That was so amazing for Matt and Katie to come home to. :)

And so we made our way to Camp Morrow in Wamic, OR. This camp was extremely cool for Katie, Matt, and I because it's the camp we all have been previously appart of. Katie and Matt were staff during previous summers (in fact, it was there that Matt had rededicated his life to the Lord). And though I never went to Morrow itself, my high school camp, Columbia River Bible Camp, used the grounds the week after Morrow was done for the summer (which was the next week after ours which Kylie Marble, a girl I'd attended the camp with, and the other SMT got to go to). So it was really cool to go back and be in a place that had changed my life so much.

First off, the theme of the camp was really cool. It was army themed, and our shirts and name tags were awesome! Anywho, my cabin's name was 'Corinth', a cabin I had been in during my senior year of high school with an Ecola grad as my counselor, so felt really cool and grown up. I had a cabin of 6 boys: Nathan, Orville, Alex, Chance, Hayden, and Orlando, and my co-counselor was Norm. It was a great group of boys, who I believe were 4th-6th grade if I remember right. These boys were amazing! At first I was worried, as some seemed too out of control for me, but when we got to know each other, they soon learned to respect me and my rule of law. These boys asked the most amazing questions about the Bible, questions which blew away the other counselors during the morning meetings. I found myself in a cabin who once again were all Christians already, so it was my job to help grow them as much as I was able. And they were so hungry! It made my life so happy :)

My biggest challenge, yet blessing was Orlando. He had ADHD, and not the fake label type. It was legit. Chapel was the craziest, as he didn't have the capacity to sit still or not talk. So during worship, he would do parkure and during speaker time, he would yell out things like, "Jesus!" or "Bob 4!" or (my personal favorite "Bob 1 and Bob 4 have moved in together!" At first, I thought he would be the torment of my soul. But as time went on, I loved him more and more. It started out being "No... he's not my camper..." to "YA! That's my kid!"

The single most impactful thing that Orlando did for me was on the very last day. The kids had packed up and the parents had arrived. We were in the final chapel time and Orlando was going crazy during the worship time. When the speaker got up to speak, I reigned Orlando in and forced him into my lap. He was looking around and he spotted his parents. He looked up at me and said, "My mommy and daddy are here!" I told him to pay attention for just a little longer and he curled up in my lap. In that single moment, I knew I wanted to be a dad. Before that point, it had just been an expected option, but right there in that moment, I knew I wanted to be a dad.

This was a camp that I met a ton of people and got to know them really well. A lot of camps I got to know people here and there, but at Morrow, we are instantly part of the family. From doing games out in the field, to being in charge of boats in the afternoon, to doing Bible memory time (which the camp executed BEAUTIFULLY) with Melanie, to frisbee golf with my campers, this camp will forever be in my heart. Also, this was the week that Brian Chan, my RA at Ecola, and his then fiance Joanna came to visit, which was so great and just what I needed that week! :)

This one was really hard to say goodbye to. But we did. We packed up and hit the road toward our final camp in Montana. Then we realized that I had forgotten our Ecola board in the chapel and we had to go back and grab it.

Then we continued onward.