The Summer Being Zeal.

So to set the scene for the following posts, I thought I would describe a bit of what camp life in general looks like, since it’s such a different world to the rest of the year.

Firstly, Pioneer uses camp names for all their staff... like a nick name but usually from something stupid or funny they did or something about their personality or history...the campers call them by this name, and usually real names are a bit of a secret that the staff will share at the end of camp with their girls.

For the past two months my name has been Zeal. Partly because I am from NZ and also because zeal means passionate and that is something that I want to see in my own life.

Camp names can’t be chosen by you, you have to be given it, and at first I never thought I would get used to it, I just wanted to use my real name... But over the weeks, I came to love it and now it’s completely natural for me to answer to that.

I think that I assumed that since we were there for so long, the pace of camp would be slightly less than it is at home, but I was wrong...we went to bed at 11 and got up at 6 the next morning almost every day and never stopped moving between getting up and going to bed...brutal. But over time your body gets used to it and because you know it wont be forever, somehow this becomes possible.

During the days I would teach activities that I had been trained in during pre camp, which was great because I got to interact with a lot of different camper other than my own. For most of the summer this meant going on a bus and teaching horsemanship for most of the day, but I also did wilderness, first aid and crafts for a while, which was a nice break.

There is a team of 5 people solely dedicated to programme, so for each session they had a different theme which they would centre games, skits, decorations, trips etc around...honestly some of the funniest people at camp and they always created such a fun, joyful community through it. From watching them I have been given a lot of ideas which I will take home and hopefully be able to see some of this come to life back at Teapot Valley too.

Every day we would have worship and bible study in the morning which was always one of my favourite parts of the day. The worship was more alive in that dining hall than I have seen in many churches...girls dancing and singing and lifting their hands or on their knees...so beautiful. We also had time each day in our chalets to do devos together... a time where we would discuss things in the bible and how it looks like in our lives. Sometimes this went better than other times, but the majority of the girls were hungry to know more and wanted to have more of Jesus in their lives back home which I loved seeing.

All summer I lived in the Pioneer section, which is the 15/16 year old girls and I am so incredibly grateful for this! Firstly, because that age group is so on the edge of discovering who they are and what they want their life to look like so they are usually so engaged and want to talk about things a lot. But also because living with the same staff for two months allowed me to be part of such a tight small community and they made my time at camp so rich.

There is no way I can sum up everything that went on, but hopefully that is a tiny glimpse of the crazy wonder I threw myself into.