Youth Stories - July 8th 2022

It occurs to me that not everyone has been to a summer camp as a Jr High leader. This can be a tough role and should you find yourself in this situation I thought I’d prepare a few helpful survival tips to get you through.

#1) Forget about sleep. You won’t get enough, your students won’t get enough, and that’s just the way it is. Chances are that someone in your room will snore loud enough to make you regret your life choices when it’s 3 am and you can feel the vibrations from their nasal cavity through the floorboards, but it won’t matter.

#2) Camp is not about you. It’s not about whatever baggage you bring, the mood you’re in, or how dumb you think the games are. It’s for the students and the quicker you are to realize that you need to be doing everything possible to make sure your students are having a good time, the faster you’ll actually be enjoying yourself. Make a fool out of yourself, lose your voice, and go down the slip-and-slide even when it’s too cold outside. Your students will love you for it and you will build memories that they’ll take home from camp.

#3) Be Jesus at all times even when that one kid makes you lose your cool. Affirm them, build them up, and never use unkind words. You have no idea what their home life is like and your job is to manifest Christ in your words, deeds, and actions. You are most likely the best example of a Christian they’ll ever meet.

#4) Push them right to the point of their discomfort but never past it. This takes getting to know the kids, but most are simply waiting for someone to believe in them and invite them to step into something unfamiliar and cheer them on. When you sense a kid is reaching their breaking point, back off and affirm how far they’ve come. Students will rarely remember specifics about things, but one thing they will remember forever is how you treated them during those moments of unease.

#5) Wear sunscreen and bug spray at all times. Like, seriously.

#6) Ask questions and be silent long enough to have someone one answer. This is a tendency of poor leaders to ask a question and then answer it themselves. Get comfortable with the idea of silence. Many students have brilliant thoughts but have been conditioned to keep quiet and eventually someone else will answer. This is especially important during one-on-one times. Ask hard questions and give the students space to thoughtfully answer. You have no idea how desperately these kids want to be heard. Believe in your core that the Gospel is better spread through actively listening then oversharing.

#7) Make memories. Camps are this unique opportunity to go over the top and do something amazing. Spend a night out under the stars. Buy one student too much candy and eat it with them. Play games at one in the morning. Do a belly flop to make them laugh. Spoil them. Take them on a hike and don’t talk the entire way there. Try to make them laugh when everyone is supposed to be quiet. Tell them scary stories with all of the lights out. Eat something disgusting and challenge them to do the same. And for the love of God, make sure you spend at least one hour of uninterrupted time with each student in your cabin once during the week. This will do more good than all of the other combined and you will get to know your student better in that hour then at any other time. Kids crave feeling special, do that for them.

#8) Be firm. Structure is important and students will try and push your boundaries. Know what’s important to be firm on like meetings times, meals, and games. Don’t let frivolous excuses like “I’m tired” stand. You will not be doing your students any favors if you allow them to not participate or slip through the cracks. Stand your ground. They will respect you all the more for that.


#9) I’m serious about the sunscreen and bug spray.

#10) Be available at all times. When a student is stripped of their comforts, their routine, and their distractions they can sometimes erupt. You never know when they might need you to be available to them. It might be that you’re playing a night game and one student is bulling another student and so you try and get that student to calm down and deescalate the situation, but maybe both you and he are suffering from too little sleep and maybe he’s been getting on your nerves and it could be the fact that you’re tired of trying the same nonsense and nothing really seems to be changing in your relationship, also you might know a lot about this student and you know that his home life is awful and you’re done with dancing around the issue that you know is truly driving his anger, so maybe instead of trying for the twenty second time to calm him down you do something that you’ve never done in fifteen years of youth ministry and you just start yelling at him in the middle of a game because the time for soft words have come and gone and it’s now time for hard truths and so you tell everyone else to leave while you crank your frustration up to eleven because he will not accept responsibility for his actions and every time you ask him why he’s being so mean he deflects and has a ready excuse for his poor behavior, but you’re not going to let him get away from it this time so you tell him that you don’t believe his lies about how he’s being a bully because he has a rash on his arm and instead tell him that it has nothing to do with a rash and everything to do with a deep anger inside of him and he’ll stand there and angrily cry at you, all the meanwhile you’re getting eaten alive by mosquitos which isn’t really helping anyone’s mood, when finally you’ve pushed him just far enough that all of his anger gets directed at you and he starts screaming obscenities at you and instead of being upset you’re actually happy because finally you’re having an honest moment and when he finally runs out of anger and all that’s left is a broken child who’s been hurt by adults that should know better and you look at him though eyes that are starting to get a little teary yourself and tell him that it’s good that he’s finally accepted responsibility but that he should also know that much of his anger is not his fault because his mother abandoned him and left him feeling responsible, to this he’ll of course tell you to stop talking about this because it hurts too much, but you’ve come this far and you need to rip that bandage all the way off so you continue and tell him that it’s not his fault that his mom left him and that he's loved, he’ll interrupt you saying that if only he was a better son she’d love him more and want to spend time with him at which point you’ll refute this and say that adults who should know better have treated him poorly and that he is deeply loved and he’ll scream back at you that that’s not true, so naturally you’ll tell him that you love him and this breaks him all the way down and for the first time in two years of knowing him you’ll step towards him and give him a hug affirming that you do in fact love and so does God and although that may not seem enough for now this simple truth will eventually be the only thing that will ever make him whole. That last part might be very specific, but I promise you it can happen.

#11) Last reminder about the bug spray.

Camp this year was hard. My heart broke daily for the kids as their stories came leaking out through the cracks. The above situation was on the first day of camp. Each day I sat with my kids and did my best to listen to them and share Christ’s love. Each day as I got to know them better, I hurt a bit much more for them. One student lost his mother in February this year. Another moved from Alaska because his dad died two years ago, and his mom is now in jail for drug charges. One of my students was sexually molested by a peer within the last year. I was the first person she told and had to walk through the process of contacting DHS. Two student who are twins haven’t heard from their dad since he moved to the east coast to start a new family. One student saw her father for the first time in years a few months ago because he just got out of jail for raping her older sister. One student and I sat out in the cold until 12:30 in the morning on the last day of camp because he finally broke down. He told me that he was an unwanted child and the only reason his mother didn’t abort him is because his grandparents convinced her to give birth and that they would raise her child. He told me that he loves his father and doesn’t get to see him much because he works all the time and that if he was a better son his dad would spend more time with him. These kids blame themselves first and foremost for the sins of their parents and guardians. Before you think that these kids are the outliers, you should know that I brought nine students to camp. Only nine. Every one of them is going through something hard. Every one of them just wanted to connect with an adult who would show them love. Medford is a hard place.

Lest you hear all of this and walk away feeling sad and heavy hearted you should know that for every hard conversation a type of catharsis occurred. These students were listened to and loved, and for just a brief week they got to be a kid. Even though their problems followed them to camp we sat and had meals together, prayed together, and they heard the Gospel again and again. I am grateful that I have an odd sort of comfort with heartache. Although each story is unique, I’ve learned that when kids are sharing their life story what they need most is love and affirmation. I know that I am never to make it about me or to grieve on their behalf. I may grieve in private, but never in front of them. What they need to know and believe is that it can and will be OK. That they are not broken or flawed but cherished and loved. They need to believe that the power of the scripture can actually change things for the better. They need to know that their identity is found in the perfect love of Christ. For every lost hour of sleep, for every special moment of silence, for every meal spent around a table, the Gospel was advanced. I have come to understand that these moments can never be truly evaluated in the hours, days, or weeks after camp. It’s only in the years that follow that we’ll ever know just how and when God spoke. I’m just glad for the few glimpses I get into the process.