I had to leave for Crossroads MSM Summer Camp in three hours, and I still hadn’t finished packing yet. I rushed around my house for twenty minutes trying to find my swimsuit. After I found it shoved underneath a towel in the bathroom closet, I started to squish everything I wanted to bring into my suitcase. With all the stress that comes with packing, I didn’t even notice my mom standing in my doorway staring at me.

“Honey, are you okay?” I jumped at the sound of her voice. 

“Geese mom, knock much?!” I yelled. I knew that I was being mean, but I was too stressed out to care. She squatted down next to me and started to rub my back.

“Why don’t you take a break for a little bit.” She suggested.

“I can’t take a break mom. We have to leave in like three hours, and I still have to find my sunglasses, coverup, and waterproof camera.” I rolled my eyes at her like I expected her to know that. She respected what I said, and left.

This was the second time that I have ever been to an overnight camp. The first camp that I went to was Camp Kern, and I went with my school in 6th grade. In that camp, I had all of my best friends there to support me if I got homesick, and they did. 

Now I’m going to a camp that not only will I not have my friends by my side, but this is also a camp for my church. When I thought about me being all alone in a place that I thought expected me to be a perfect Christian girl, my thoughts started to become negative, my fingertips started to sweat, and I started to get light-headed. 

I was brought up in a Christian home, and since I did things like go to church every Sunday, read the Bible on Christmas, and pray before every meal, I automatically have always labeled myself as a real Christian. I’ve always thought of myself as a child of God, and that Christianity is my faith.

 When I first heard about this camp, I was so excited to go. I watched all of the videos from the past years and asked my parents to sign me up right away. But as the days until camp went down more and more, I started to worry if I was good enough to be going to this camp. I knew that my label was a Christian, but I also know that I don’t always do what the Bible says I should. I don’t always obey my parents, I’m not always loving, and I don’t always do the nicest things. When the one week before camp day hit, I started to freak out

After breakfast, my mom helped me look for the last three missing items, and we found two out of the three things I was looking for by the time we had to get in the car and leave. As we packed all of my things into our trunk, my suitcase, my pillow, my sleeping bag, I started thinking about how this week was going to go more and more. Finally, the stress of packing was over, but now I was stressing about if I’m good enough to be at this camp if I’m going to make any friends there, and if I was going to get homesick. 

On the drive to church, I asked my mom to play the Christian station on our radio. I wanted to listen to the lyrics and try to find my place as a follower of God before I had to get on the bus at church and head to camp. The song Fear Is A Liar came on, and it came on at the perfect time. Listening to the lyrics tell me that I can do anything and that I am worthy made me feel like it was true.

“We’re here.” I had drifted off, and my mom was turned around in her seat poking me. I woke up and knew automatically that it was time to say goodbye. My dad helped me take all of the things out of the trunk, and put everything in my arms. I gave my whole family a good squeeze before I headed in the direction of my church. When everybody was loaded into the travel buses, I decided to sit in the back by the big window. In the videos that I watched from the previous years at camp, they said that the campers didn’t get a lot of sleep because of the times we got up and went to bed. I thought it would be a good idea if I took a nap on the two-hour bus ride, so I would have some extra energy for this week.

The bus started to shake as we were driving down a rocky road. That woke me up right away. We were almost at camp, so I started to try and think positively. I didn’t want to be down the whole time. We turned around a corner and I got the first glimpse of the beautiful campus that I was going to be staying on.

There were huge mature trees everywhere, there were miscellaneous cabins all around the camp, there was a gigantic basketball court with a nine square and a gaga pit. There was a big shiny mess hall and a vast room where we would worship and hang out. Everything looked perfect.

For the rest of the week, everything continued to get better. Each day was a new worship party, a new group game, and each night there was always a speaker that by the end of his speech I was in tears. Every. Night. Each of the speakers had a different message with it. But, the one that spoke most to me, was this guy. He talked about how he had very bad addictions when he was young. He talked about how God brought him out of that, and he has helped him have a fruitful life today. He also talked about burdens and the different things that might be stressing us out. There were buckets of rocks in the back of the room, and he listed off different things that might be weighing us down. Stress, anxiety, depression, love problems, school problems, ex. As he listed them off, if those things were affecting you, you would go grab a tiny bucket and fill it up with rocks. 

After he finished his speech, we all went outside to a path lit with luminary candles, and it led to a huge bonfire where the band was set up and singing one of my favorite Christian songs ever. We sang, and at the end, the guy asked all of us to go up to the fire, and dump our buckets of rocks in the fire to let go of those things that we weighing us down. 

Ever since that night, I have done that every month to get rid of all the bad things in my life. On the way home from camp, I was thinking about everything that I did, all the people I met, and how much it affected me. Everything that I thought was going to happen, never did. I will never forget the experiences I had at this camp because they 100% brought me closer to my family and God, and it helped me make some life-long friends. I will forever be grateful for that experience of a lifetime.