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Camp Tomah
Shinga is one of my favorite places on earth. I attended camp
as a camper every summer that I was eligible, from 3rd grade
until I was a freshman in high school. After my sophomore year,
my very first job was working as the Camp Lifeguard and I did
this for 2 summers. For the two summers after that, I had my
dream job working there as a counselor. And then for two more
summers after that, I served as the Camp Program Director. If
your kids attended camp anytime between 1994 and 2000, odds
are that I know them because I always made it a point to learn
every child’s name. Unfortunately, it has been a few years
since I’ve been out to camp because I went to seminary
in South Carolina and now I’m in the St. Louis area, which
is just a little too far away to drive for the weekend. And
I know that the camp has changed significantly in the last few
years, but regardless of the transformations and improvements
that have occurred, whenever I drive up that long gravel road
past Chapel of the Wind, past the ball field, and into the heart
of camp, I will always know that I’m entering holy ground.
You see,
I can’t say that out there I ever heard a burning bush
speak to me like Moses did, but we sure did burn a lot of bushes.
I can’t say that out there I ever saw a bright light and
was blinded for three days like Paul on the road to Damascus,
although plenty of campers blinded me by pointing their flashlights
at my eyes. And I can’t say that Jesus ever walked by
out there and told me to leave my boat and follow him, but as
a counselor I sure did tell a lot of the campers that if they
didn’t get out of their canoes right away and follow me
to lunch, I was going to leave them behind. But I can honestly
say however, that like Elijah on Mount Horeb, at Camp Tomah
Shinga I did hear the still, small voice of God calling me.
You see, I believe that God changes lives. And the reason I
believe so strongly in outdoor ministry in places like Camp
Tomah Shinga is because out there at camp, you get to experience
God in ways that you just can’t experience anywhere else.
I think
that experiencing God is a lot like looking at a diamond. If
you hold a diamond very still, it’s going to catch and
reflect the light in a very magnificent way. But if you tilt
the diamond just slightly, the same light will be reflected
by a different facet of the diamond… same light, same
diamond, different sparkle. God is like that. The same light
of Jesus Christ, the same source of the Holy Spirit, but how
God sparkles depends are where we are. Perhaps you experience
the brightest sparkles from God in worship or as you sing your
favorite hymns. Perhaps God sparkles in your life through a
small group or through an engaging Bible study. If you’ve
never been to camp or experienced God through an outdoor ministry
setting, I can honestly say that you are missing some of the
most radiant sparkles that God has to offer.
My first
week at camp was when I was in 3rd grade. I’ll never forget
that week. My counselor’s name was Philip and each little
family group of campers that year had car names. One group was
the Camaros and another, the Firebirds. We were hoping Philip
would let us be called something cool like the Lamborghinis
or the Ferraris, but alas, now this was the mid-80s mind you,
long before the fancy new Beetles came out, Philip called us
the Volkswagens. How lame. Anyway, I was one of the youngest
and probably smallest kids at camp, yet in my group was a guy
named Mike, a 6th grader who was the biggest and scariest kid
at camp. Somehow we became best friends on the first day and
we spent all week together. He was cool because he let me ride
on his back everywhere we went. The other cool thing about Mike
was that he loved hard rock music which my parents had never
really exposed me to. Mike even gave me his Judas Priest album
to remember him by as we left. Anyway, I had a great time at
camp because no one would mess with me because I had Mike. On
the second to the last day of camp, Mike and I were sitting
around when we started to talk about our families. It turns
out that Mike’s parents were going through a divorce and
that he was sent to camp while his parents sorted some things
out. I had never met anyone whose parents were splitting up
and he really opened my eyes to the hurts and the pains that
divorce can have on children. Big, burly Mike cried as he spoke
to me. I’d like to say that I said something comforting
or pastoral to him, but I think just I slapped him on the shoulder
and said, “Let’s go swimming!” Nonetheless,
God showed up that day through our conversation and relationship.
Mike found safety at camp where he could escape the pressures
of the real world and just be a kid again. I found a friend
in the greater church and realized that life wasn’t all
about me. At times like this, through Camp Tomah Shinga, I experienced
God through some incredible relationships.
My last
summer as a camper, I had just finished my freshmen year of
high school and in reality, I think I was a year too old to
be a camper, but I talked my folks into letting me go anyway.
I went out there with two other guys from our church and we
were part of the first camp of the summer that year. My counselor
that year was Kelly Cocklin and it was her first week of being
a counselor. Luckily for her, she had the three of us boys in
her group and we were camp veterans. We talked her into going
canoeing the first day and knowing exactly what to do, we promptly
canoed down stream. This was all well and good until we tried
to canoe back home for lunch. As macho as we boys were, the
current was too strong for us…the year was 1993 and although
it hadn’t flooded yet, the water was moving pretty swiftly.
We ended up having to beach our canoes, carry them up a huge
nettles & thorns infested ravine and then carry our canoes
back to camp. Poor Kelly was afraid she’d be fired. We
loved it because although we were all cut up and stinging from
the nettles, we got to tell all the girls that we carried our
canoes all the way back to camp. Through that small experience,
I got just a taste of the power of God. And through hundreds
of other experiences and quiet moments at Camp Tomah Shinga,
I got to experience God through creation as he intended. He
truly became for me a God of wonders.
The following
summer, I was sixteen and needed a job. So Darren Gunderson,
the Camp Director at the time hired me as the lifeguard. The
program director that year was none other than Kelly Cocklin,
my former counselor and we had some great conversations while
she prepared for campfire devotions and I cleaned the pool.
One day I asked her how someone got to be Program Director and
she told me that they always like to hire someone who is thinking
about ministry as a career. Pfft. There went that dream of mine
because I knew there was no way I was going into the ministry
and therefore I could never become program director. Throughout
the summer, Kelly and I talked a lot about faith and she asked
me questions that no one had ever asked me before about why
I believed what I said I believed. She challenged me and became
one of my first mentors in the faith. We worked together the
next summer as well. She got married to Tim the maintenance
guy and I’m not sure whatever happened to her. But she
planted some seeds and helped me to see that working at camp
is a ministry, even if you’re just a lifeguard. Her words
also challenged me because I wanted nothing more than to be
program director…which meant that I had to begin thinking
about going into the ministry. As a camp staff member, I got
to experience God in a different way – through serving
and ministering to others.
I could
tell camp stories for hours because, like I said, I served on
staff there for 6 summers and used to know all 800 and some
odd acres like the back of my hand. I met tons of great friends
there, many of whom I still see regularly, and I even met the
Bishop there before he was Bishop. God’s gifts of relationships
were never more powerful to me than when I was at camp. I fell
in love with the outdoors at camp and got to experience frog
infestations, swing on vines, rappel off walls, swim in cold
springs, sleep under the stars, feel the warmth of campfires,
tell scary stories, roast marshmallows, take mud baths, get
poison ivy, and hike for hours on end with no particular destination
in mind. God’s gifts of nature and creation were never
more real to me than when I was at camp. I got to learn how
minister and take care of people at camp, whether it was comforting
a homesick camper or learning patience with a child with ADD
or helping a child know how special they were to God even when
their real family was falling apart. God’s loving presence
in and through ministry was never more evident than when I was
at camp. I love that place and it means a lot to me because
it truly is holy ground.
One final
story…One of my favorite things to do with campers each
night on the way to campfire was to stare in wonder at the sunset
and talk with them about how God is so great because he created
such a beautiful thing for us to enjoy. As when any major event
or time in your life comes to a close, you always kind of look
back and wonder, “Was it all worth it? Did I make a difference?”
I was really wondering about this my last few weeks of serving
on staff and while I did have a lot of fun, I honestly questioned
if camp was just about me having fun or if I happened to make
a difference to anyone. True story: as I was driving away from
camp for the last time as a counselor, I decided to check the
mail and there just happened to be a letter in there for me.
I opened
it up and it contained a beautiful picture of a sunset taken
from Tomah Shinga’s campfire circle. It read:
Dear
Chad,
Remember our talk about the sunset. You really know that God
must really be real to create something so wonderful.
From Sarah Vail
I found
out recently that Sarah lives in Washington DC and is studying
to be lawyer, but the little girl I remember who came to camp
with a broken arm, wrote the words of God to me that afternoon.
God used her and my entire Camp Tomah Shinga experience to change
my life, and I know I wouldn’t be a pastor today were
it not for the way that God spoke to me through my time out
there. If you’ve never had a chance to experience God
through this marvelous jewel in our synod, I encourage you to
make the trip out there. I guarantee you’ll experience
a radiance of God that you just can’t find anywhere else.
Rev. Chad
Langdon
Hope Lutheran Church
St. Charles, MO
March 10, 2008
“Ask
the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air,
and they will tell you.” Job 12:7 (NSRV)
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