Mackenzie Standing

Google defines the word community as “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.”  On television, community is often seen as a group of friends who can simple stroll through one another’s doors at just the right moment to provide comedic relief. In Acts 2, community is described as being a group of people who “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  At Moose River Outpost, community looks like throwing on life jackets and piling into a speed boat to watch the sunset.  It looks like music blasting in the coffee shop while you run frantically around a ping pong table, enthusiastically attempting to win a game of Polish.  Community looks like the small children who make birthday cards and baskets for those celebrating. It looks like co-workers who support one another when people are sick and hurting, stepping up to fill in holes even when the t

As of today, I’ve been at Moose River Outpost for a month. Like most of the times I’ve moved in my life, it simultaneously feels like I’ve been here far longer than four simple weeks and as if I pulled in only yesterday. It’s my day off today, which naturally makes me more contemplative (partially because I actually have time and space to think), but the completion of a month here dramatically increases my nostalgia levels. We’re one month in, one month to go, and I already don’t want to leave.  This is the hardest job I’ve ever had. I knew it would be tough when I took it, thought it a bit ironic even that they would put the introvert who always finagled her way out of camp games in charge of the camp program. In many ways, my fears have been confirmed. I am often tired and struggle to find time alone. I feel out of my element trying to explain to campers the rules of a game that I have never played myself. Most of the campers have already outdone my meager skills in any of the a