I know I keep pushing back Doctor Wednesday; I just haven’t had 40 minutes to sit down and watch it yet. Part of the reason I didn’t have time to watch Doctor Who yet is that I drove to San Diego yesterday to visit our high school students at summer camp. Last year Alycia and I visited camp because she was still volunteering in the ministry. This year I was able to visit as part of my job so that I could get video and pics of our group at camp.
For the past nine years our group has been going to Hume San Diego on the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University. I was around for the first seven years and have visited the past two. One of the best parts about spending a week at the same camp year after year is seeing the same people.
I would make friends at camp when I was a student, but those friendships would last for a week or maybe two weeks of camp at the most. I’ve now had camp friends for almost 10 years. For the most part I see these friends one week out of the year, but we’re able to catch right up without missing a beat. These friends have spoken truth into my life and have supported me when I needed it most, and hopefully I’ve been able to do the same for them.
We may not see each other that often and we live a few hundred miles away, but we have common ground in Jesus and wanting to see God’s kingdom expanded. I’ve been all over the world and have spent time with followers of Jesus from different countries. We may not come from the same culture and we may not even speak the same language, but we have common ground in Jesus. The same is true for my camp friends. We may only see each other once a year, but we all love Jesus and trust in him for everything, which makes catching up fun and uplifting.
I loved camp as a student, but I loved it even more as youth pastor. Now that I’m not a youth pastor, though, I’m happy that my camp friendships have persisted.
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