YOU WORK AT A SUMMER CAMP?!

"Why would you ever want to spend your whole summer working with kids at camp?!"

Well, if you have worked at Pine Cove, maybe you’ve had your friends or family members ask you this question…OR, if you have never worked but are considering it maybe you are asking yourself this question now!

I can’t speak for everyone on this one, but I can give you a few of the reasons why I absolutely loved spending all four of my college summers working at Pine Cove.  In fact, I loved it so much that I am now working FULL TIME. That's right. Not just summer camp...but all year round camp. And here are just a few reasons why...I won’t take all of your time with the really long list that I could make, instead I will keep it short and give you my T5…

1. Dance parties…EVERY DAY…really. AND the more ridiculous your dance moves, the cooler you are to your campers.

2. The best snacks in the world: cookies the size of your face, fudge pops, ice cream sandwiches…just to name a few.

3. Getting to wear things you would NEVER wear in public without getting funny looks.

4. Standing in your chairs at meals is perfectly normal, and actually encouraged.

Last, but most certainly not least…the most important one actually, in my opinion…

5. You get PAID to hangout with campers and invest in the Kingdom of God! 

Now, the first four are pretty self explanatory…the dance parties are awesome, and if you think YOU look like a fool just look to your right and left and be comforted by knowing that everyone else is dancing just as ridiculously as you are. Face cookies, enough said. Camp apparel, it’s the coolest and the comfiest…wolf shirts, fun headbands, neon everything, patterned socks, cap sacks, nike high tops, the list goes on. I remember feeling like I was rebelling against my parents the first time I stood in my chair to cheer during meal times, especially when I found out you were supposed to dance and cheer too. Then it became second nature and weird to do anything else. So, number 5, there is a LOT to unpack there. This one continues to blow my mind…every day. Here at Pine Cove we say, time and time again, that our staff is our program. I didn’t realize just how true this was until I saw it fleshed out. I came into my first summer one person, and left a completely different one. I knew Pine Cove’s mission statement: Pine Cove exists to be used by God to transform the lives of people for His purposes and His glory! But I had no idea this transformation of lives included my very own. I expected to come to camp and get to invest in campers lives, and I was really excited about that; however, I didn’t realize that my life and relationship with the Lord would be completely rocked in the process! If you think about it though, it makes complete sense. Our job is to pour out our knowledge and wisdom of God into the lives of the people around us, but that can’t truly happen unless we are being poured into from a much bigger, richer, life giving source. Read Jeremiah 2 if you want to get a small view of where I was coming from going into my first summer. Here’s a snippet from verse 13 to give you the idea…

“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

    the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns,

    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Yep, that pretty much says it all. I don’t know where you are or where you were, but I know that when I first applied to work at camp this was me. I was a freshmen in college trying to figure out life on my own: which organizations to join, who to be friends with, what classes to take, what to do with my life, me, me, me. I was digging my own cisterns day after day. That summer at camp is when I realized that all of those cisterns I had been trying to build weren’t enough to sustain. I couldn’t pour out into my camper’s lives (or anyone else’s for that matter) because my cisterns were empty. So, I finally turned to the One cistern that would never run dry and I wasn’t disappointed. I learned what it meant to truly seek the Lord, pray expectantly, and live in community. I found a source of Living Water that I, four years later, have been able to continue to turn to time and time again. Not only that, but as my life was being transformed I was living out that transformation right in front of my campers eyes. As the Lord was molding, growing,  and shaping me He was doing the same in the lives of my campers. So, if anyone ever asks me, “Why camp?!”, I point them to Jeremiah 2 and tell them exactly why.

So, whether you have already worked at camp and are praying through whether or not to come back for another summer, you are considering Pine Cove for the first time, or you know someone who might be interesrted my hope is that you can see eternal value in spending a summer at Pine Cove…and it all starts with following this link:  http://www.pinecove.com/summerjobs/positions and clicking on the blue APPLY NOW box!