By Korey Breutzmann, Director of Programs
One of my favorite things about fall at camp is the programmed youth retreats that we provide.
Our Youth Programs Specialist, Laura, does a great job at planning and executing exciting day or weekend retreats for youth to come to and continue their faith journey at camp.
The other great thing about these retreats, is that they bring some of our summer staff back to camp to continue to grow and develop in their leadership skills.
Recently, I came out to camp during our Explore! Day and got to reconnect with some summer staff I hadn’t seen in months.
While sitting down for lunch, one previous summer staff member was struggling with whether she wanted to return to camp for another summer of employment.
As she weighed the pros and cons of coming back, she just kept saying how much she loved camp and how much it meant to her.
She loved the community of the staff that she was a part of. She loved getting to know the campers each week and helping them in their faith journey and walking alongside them in self-discovery. She loved the support she felt from our year-round team and how we encouraged her to keep looking to be her authentic self.
She even told me of the fake business she had to create for one of her classes and how she named it “Faith Alive” because of NLOM’s mission statement.
I encouraged her to think about what she just said and maybe that would help her with her decision. In this season, let us to look together to see where God might be encouraging us in our faith journey and in our walk of life.
Maybe that is God sending a friend to encourage you to come back to a place you love. Maybe that is God teaching us to be patient as we face some of life’s tougher decisions. Maybe that is God calling us to do work to take care of people who need our help during tough times.
God is working in our midst and walks with us each and every step that we take.
Dear friends, let us take a lesson from our beloved summer staff and continue to encourage and build up all of God’s people around us. You never know the impact that your words of encouragement might have.
