Heart of Worship

Things I absolutely love about Kootenay Covenant Bible Camp:

• The location. I'm not always much for the outdoors, but even I never want to go inside when I'm here.

Seriously- I don't think it's possible to get much prettier than this.

• Canada has all these tiny cultural differences that make my heart warm and jealous. Here's to runners, felts, and washrooms; the weird pronunciation of "sorry," "tomorrow," and "out;" grade four vs. fourth grade; and excessive and copious uses of the letter "u."

• Canadian candy. If America sold Caramilks, Aero bars, or Coffee Crisps I would never have any spending money.

• The kids. Holy cow, these were some great kids. I hope I loved them well. I honestly started tearing up at chapel on Saturday, because I think they are so special and I hope they know how much God loves them. I love that they get into flour fights and refuse to take showers after:

Who says you can't have a snowball fight in July?

I love that they can beat me by an embarrassing amount of points in box hockey:

Hey, I won like two games. All week. Against seven-year-olds. 

I love that they take goofy pictures with me:

Sometimes they're into it...

And sometimes they just think I'm crazy.

I love that they are so undeniably kids. They ran around shouting loudly and not listening to directions and crying when they got stung by a bee. They smiled and laughed and oozed happiness. They played "I Spy" the entire way to Pebble Beach, making us guess for ten minutes until we could discover that the "I spy something brown" was, in fact, a twig, not a stick. They woke up early and never wanted to go to sleep. They spent all our meals breaking into "Sing a Song" and spilling juice everywhere. They are simple yet complex, innocent and all too mature, full of their own stories of heartache and yet pouring out joy. I love them.

And I love that, since they're kids, they experiment. I turned my back once all the cabins had made their signs, only to find two little boys smearing all the handprints of the second "C" together. It was hard to be mad when they looked at me proudly and said, "Look, Mackenzie, we made brown!"

More than anything, though, I love their hearts. I love that they would give up their free time to roll old sheets into bandages for hospitals in the Congo. I love that they watched out for the little kids and (sometimes) tried to include them in games. I love the way they would come stand by me when I led worship or squeeze in behind the neck of my guitar when we were around the campfire. I love that they worried about their friends with bee allergies. I love that we went on a prayer walk and that their favorite part was when they could write a letter to God confessing their sins and burn it in the fire. I love that they were thankful for family and pets and dirt and Jesus' love and sunshine and food.

• Sharing camp. I so loved having Hannah up there with me. In some ways, it was confusing to have my camp world collide with my Wenatchee world, but in many other ways it was oh so nice to have someone there that understands here, and someone here that understands there.

• Some fellow staff call me 'Zie, as both an abbreviation of my name and a shout-out to the tell-tale way my American citizenship has me pronounce the last letter of the alphabet.

• The staff. From the friendships that have spanned over seven years, to those only seven days; from the ones I talk to weekly to those who I only catch up with in July, so many of the staff are people who have hearts I so admire and personalities I'm drawn to. I'm thankful for all the sleep we lost, staying up way too late talking on that rock. I'm thankful for games of Pit and Bananagrams (and that I won!). I'm thankful for all the ways they challenge me to be a better leader and to love like Jesus and to keep hold of some of my inner goofiness as well. I'm thankful for Facebook and emails and letters, but most of all I'm thankful that we could spend a week having actual, face-to-face, I can see your expressions and hear your tone and reply to that quip immediately conversations. Now if only I could convince them to move closer...

With friends like these, who needs other friends?
(Just kidding. I still need other friends--though mostly because these friends live in Canada.)

• Jesus. I love Jesus. I love that Kootenay Covenant Bible Camp can bring me closer to Jesus in ways that no other environment can. I love getting to spend a week intentionally being His ambassadors to children that need Him just as desperately as I do. I love that I get to spend a week showing His love both to the kids and to my peers. I love the ways that He works there- that God works in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of well-intentioned plans that were not as well executed, in the midst of broken leaders and broken kids. I love how He reaches out and touches my heart. I spent one evening praying on the beach where I first met Christ seven years ago. It was so amazing to see all the ways that He's worked in my life since that moment. And it was so, so refreshing to enter right back in to the roots of my faith, especially while sitting in the literal place where my faith started growing. I am thankful this week for the ways that KCBC brought me back to the heart of worship. 

The list could be longer. Truth be told, though, I just absolutely love Kootenay Covenant Bible Camp.

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know what next summer holds. I don't know where God's going to call me or who I'll be with. Part of that is very hard for me. I was walking back to the lodge at 1 am on Friday night with friends, discussing how difficult Saturday always is for me at camp, since I never know when I'll be back again. I'm thankful for one's wise response, though, as he basically reminded me to not worry about things that I have no control over. 

And so, I won't sit here and worry. I will sit here and pour out my appreciation, though. I cannot help but praise God for all the ways that He's worked in me through KCBC every year since I was thirteen. Whether or not I'm back again next year, next decade, or never again, I can tell you one thing: Camp lives on in my heart.