Actually it was more of a shove.
Shout out to SpringHill Camps, this is about you!
To start, I grew up in a Christian household, you know, mom and dad bringing me to church every Sunday in my best Sunday clothes. So it’s not like I didn’t know God, I just decided other things were more important than the one love that’s forever unchangeable.
Fast forward to the end of my sophomore year of college (don’t worry I’ll go back and explain more of my life events in future posts), when summer was fast approaching and needing a summer job. The previous summers I just worked as a host at a restaurant in my home town, so simply I just emailed and called them asking to come back during the summer of 2013. However, I never received an email back and every time I called, a manager seemed to be unavailable.
I didn’t realize it then but that was God first calling me back to him.
Summer seemed to be approaching faster when I realized I didn’t have a job. I frantically asked friends from high school if they knew any jobs that were looking for summer help, and my friend Austin just texted me back one word, SpringHill.
So I applied the next day, now it was already April so it was pretty late in the game to be applying for a summer camp position. But only three days later I got the job as a counselor!
Hanging out with kids all day during the week, what could be better than that? But wait, I realized I had to be teaching kids about the Gospel, and I couldn’t even remember when I picked up my bible last.
But this was God giving me the chance to get to know him again, to have him become part of my everyday life, and not just the God I heard about when I went to church.
The first day of training at SpringHill was overwhelming, all of my co-workers seemed to be in tune with God’s word, and here I was with a brand new bible. However, at the same time, I never felt more like I finally made it home. There is just something about 500 college kids my age worshiping God’s word under the same roof that just really opened my eyes.
This was what I was missing in my life, God was what I was missing.
I worked at SpringHill for two summers, diving into the word with my co-workers and my campers everyday from June to August. This not only opened my heart to God, it opened my heart to forgiveness. Sure, there were plenty of tough times, but those will be summers that I will never forget.
I had campers touch my heart those two summers, many that changed my life more than I changed theirs. I spent the weekends with the best brothers and sisters in Christ. So many memories I just wouldn’t have the time to share.
My boss became a mentor, my co-workers became my best friends and God became my path for my life. So thank you SpringHill for changing my life and thank you God for giving me that shove I needed.
Every Wednesday during camp we would have a Salvation night where the counselors would stay back at the camp fire and talk to the campers who had questions or wanted to accept Christ into their heart. Over the two summers I had five campers accept Jesus into their hearts and many more learned just how much God truly loves them. One salvation night I was sitting back with a camper and she was looking up at the sky and said “I just know God is real, because look at the sky, God made those stars.” How true is that?
