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| The scenery on a colorful fall day at Lake Myers Campground in Byron. |
For the Rev. Jeremy Peters camp is “where it all started.”
It was “definitely in camp” where Amy Mayo-Moyle began her journey to being an associate pastor.
And for first-year University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Nathan Karnemaat, United Methodist Camp “truly changed his life” during his most pivotal years.
There are 10 United Methodist camps around the state with dozens of different programs for youth and young adults to immerse themselves in, but it’s one common thread that ties them all together— the ability to combine personal exploration, foundations of faith and recreation into one unforgettable experience.
A place to explore
A 2009 study by the International Bible Society found that 83 percent of Christians make their personal faith commitment between the ages of 4 and 14.
Peters, an associate pastor at Fenton UMC, said a place like Camp Michigamme in the Upper Peninsula is the perfect place to build on the foundations of the local church by letting young people explore their faith and character.
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| Rev. Jeremy Peters supervises a soccer match amongst campers. |
“The first thing he does is he takes them away from their day-to-day lives and put them in a different environment or goes out to the country side or up the mountaintop or into the wilderness,” Peters said. “There’s something about putting aside all the distractions and tasks and stress of our ‘ordinary lives’ and moving into a space that’s been sort of sanctified or set aside for the purpose of meeting God.”
He believes so strongly in UMC camp that he started counseling at Michigamme in high school and spent six years as a dean of Bay Shore Camp in Sebewaing.
He said late elementary and junior high youth need strong Christian mentors as they flesh out their own worldviews.
“If you can catch them at that age and introduce them to God and get them familiar with the Gospel there’s a good chance they’re going to make a decision that impacts the rest of their lives,” he said. “I think kids really need some good news at that age.”
That good news is precisely what prompted Karnemaat to write one of his first college papers on the impact Lake Louise camp had on him during his adolescent years.
“The first thing you must understand about Lake Louise is that no matter where you come from, what you look like, or how you act, you are welcome with open arms,” he wrote.
He explained his camp counselors were always telling people to “come as they are” and they made a difference by building honest, open relationships that continued with letters, e-mails and contact throughout the year.
“(One camper, Emily Hazel) said, ‘New campers and staff members tag along with the already developed attitude and keep it abound throughout the campground,’” Karnemaat said.
His experience lines right up with what Mayo-Moyle recalls of her own Lake Louise adventures.
The associate pastor at Clarkston UMC was a junior high camp counselor and eventually the dean of the camp.
“When I was a camp dean what was really important to me was that each kid felt like a star and I really feel like that came out of my experience,” she said. “I thought everyone at camp felt like they were valued and it was important they were there because the camp staff made us feel this way.”
She stressed that camp is a place that she “felt safe to have a deeper spiritual connection” when she was young because of the intense amount of time it allowed her to spend in a faith-building community.
A place to find
Every explorer sets out with hopes of finding something.
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| At the Lake Huron Retreat Center. |
“I started to feel my call when I was in high school and a lot of it was due to the camping ministry…and people I met through camping who posed that question to all who were present or to me individually,” Mayo-Moyle said. “It was definitely in camp that I began to wonder if I was being called to ministry.”
She said that because of the significant role camping played in her call to ministry she incorporated UMC camping into her youth group curriculum as a leader.
It’s no surprise that the Timothy Project she heads in the Detroit Conference stems from some of her camping experiences.
The Timothy Project is an annual undertaking that strives to give young men and women of the conference an opportunity to think theologically as they discern a possible call into ordained ministry.
Originally the Timothy Project was going to have two weeks of camp associated with it, but that fell through because it didn’t jive with everyone’s schedule.
“Especially when (they’re younger), that’s such an important age and I think often kids will start to feel a call, but then because they’re not at things like camp that reinforce it, they just kind of forget it and come back to it later,” Mayo-Moyle said.
Karnemaat may not be heading into a career in ministry at this point, but he said he found his place in the family of God at camp.
“There have been many occasions that I am down and just need someone to talk to and help me through whatever is going on in my life, and the first people I go to for this are the members of the Lake Louise community,” he said. “I know that they will be there for me in any way possible, and I would be there for them if they need anything as well.”
He said connecting with people with God as the centerpiece helped transform his life.
Peters is now in the business of helping transform disciples in the name of Christ, in part thanks to those memorable weeks spent away from home.
“We often hear they were raised in the church and it was a chore or a burden that they were made to do until they had a significant experience of God’s presence at camp that woke something up in then,” he said.
“When I got to college and started exploring careers, I think simply because I had been steeped in that environment I was open to a calling to ministry. Because of what happened to me at camp I took some leadership positions in my local church…”
He said that leadership eventually lead to him being invited to annual conference, where he felt convicted to pursue a life in ministry at the Celebration of Ministry Service led by Bishop Don Ott.
“When a church sends a kid off to camp and they come back fired up for Christ, the argument for camping kind of makes itself,” he said.
A place for fun
As Peters puts it, UMC camps not only allow youth to find strong footing in the promises of a life lived in relationship with God, it is a chance for them to see “that Christians are fun and following Jesus builds a tremendously interesting community that can sustain you and make you laugh.”
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| Dune buggies are all the rage at Wesley Woods. |
“Those were really a highlight of the week because often the counselors would write some sort of goofy song, they would tell jokes, they would let us see them having fun and be relaxed,” he said. “Whereas much of the week we saw them as spiritual leaders and as people who were role models.”
The camps take recreation quite seriously actually — evident by their accreditation by national organizations like the American Camp Association and the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds.
UMC camps offer everything from high ropes courses to canoeing to sports competitions and a wide variety of drama and arts initiatives.
Mayo-Moyle vividly remembers “silly things like the talent show” and said camp dance was “a big deal, of course.”
“The friends I made, I had a lot of fun just hanging out together,” she said. “Because you have that extended amount of time you really just got to know each other very well.”
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