Camp, not just for the kids.

This year marks year five for me.
Year five as a volunteer for March Break Camp, that is.

For those of you who don't know, March Break Camp is a camp run here in Brantford over the course of march break - appropriately named, right? Starting on the 10th of March this year, we will be celebrating reaching a decade! So for the last 9 years, cumulatively over 21 churches have come together to host a day camp for Brantford's at risk child population - always looking for another way to bless family after family. 

We play games.
We sing songs.
We dance.
We learn. 
We laugh, lots. 
We have fun.

At MBC, we teach kids 5 simple lessons: who God is, that they're created,  forgiven, priceless, and loved. Now, as a camp counselor, workshop leader, workshop helper, photographer, wide game leader, one would think that those would be simple lessons for you to understand as well.. however, that bold one there on the end wasn't for me. 

That simple lesson, more specifically, that I was lovable, was one of the hardest I myself have ever had to learn. I would conveniently be busy for the first 3 years of my camp life, and would 'miss' the lesson that we would teach these kids that they, in all their imperfection, are perfectly lovable. 
But, you see the thing is, working in a camp, where all you get to do for 5 days is show love to kids who may not otherwise know what that word is even supposed to mean, it makes you think about what it means to you. 

For what seemed like eternity, I would try to expel the words from my lips but they gagged me like a rope tied far too tightly by a well-seasoned boy scout leader. I would open my mouth, time after time, trying to prove that I could speak those three simple words. "I" rolled off my tongue like it would as a precursor to any other statement; I like ice cream but I prefer mint chocolate chip. The "am" would sometimes come out almost just a smoothly, however the threat of the power from the word that came next impeded it like a gun to a hostage's escape. The next and final word unlike the first would stay hidden in the depths of my vocabulary unless it was being applied to those very kids I was working with, and puppies, and cheesecake, and just about everyone and everything else on earth but me. 
To save some time from this story, know that now, I can say it. If you want to know what happened in the in between, ask me some other time - I'd love to explain.

The point of this all is to tell you that MBC, it's not just another camp. It's not just about being a place kids get to be kids and experience a bunch of things that they otherwise wouldn't get to: It's not just about a movie. Or a trip to Moose Winooski's. It's not even about the stuff they learn in the workshops. Or the fun songs we get to sing and dance to.
It's about love. And it's about changing lives... and not just the campers', it'll change yours too if you let it.

Trust me, I know.
-Indigo.