By Chad Hershberger
On Friday, we ended our 2024 summer camping season. It’s always bittersweet. After nine weeks of intense days, physically I am ready for a break. But it’s also an adjustment not to see the smiling faces of campers and staff every day. There is always next year, though!
We had 337 campers during our six-weeks of program, both on-site and at off-site programs. Add to that our two and a half weeks of training and you have the body of our ministry during this season. It seems so long ago that Bishop Miller installed us at the Upper Susquehanna Synod Assembly. He prayed this for us:
O God of Wisdom, in your goodness you provided faithful servants for your Church, including its camps. By your Holy Spirit give all the staff of Camp Mount Luther insight into your Word. Help them to live holy lives as examples for the campers to follow. Graciously give them the strength to perform all their tasks. Fill them with wisdom, patience, love, and faithfulness to your Word, that with gladness they may teach, comfort, counsel, and guide your people in Christ Jesus, your Son, and our Lord. Amen.
And we did that! God guided us through these two months. We did crafts, swam, played games, camped out, hiked, canoed, sang, prayed, read scripture. We were creative with covering each group with staff and our summer staff and volunteers did a great job being flexible and going above and beyond what they were asked to do.
We also learned about being “Created to Be.” We explored how God gives us freedom to be our authentic selves and what it means to be siblings in Christ—humans who are brave enough to encourage and stand up for each other, sharing burdens as well as joys. We can use that bravery to go out and serve God in the world. Through our method of studying the Bible, called “GROW Time,” staff helped campers Gather and Reflect On the Word throughout their day, culminating in an evening worship service which tied together all the things they learned during the day. I particularly enjoyed our closing worship each Friday, where we got to write our fears on Goliath and knock him over!
It was refreshing to have so many SALT (Servant and Leadership Training) campers this year. I’m hopeful they will make up the foundations for our future summer staffs. They all were conscientious young people who have gifts to do this ministry! The future looks bright for all of them.
Probably my favorite week of the summer was Christmas in July. It’s always a treat to celebrate Jesus’ birth at a different time of year. And I could dust off my Christmas music and listen to it in the office and in the car. Seeing the kids at the Christmas Eve worship with their battery-operated candles singing, “Silent Night” was awesome.
I will soon not forget Summer 2024. It takes a lot of people and their tireless efforts to make camp go. I’m grateful to all of them for the work they did this summer to make Christ known to our campers. I am grateful for another year to continue to do outdoor ministry in this place. Thanks be to God for Camp Mount Luther!