I get to work with 13-16 year old girls who could be very wealthy or very poor. I work with girls who hate themselves and girls who have way too much confidence in themselves. I work with girls who say they can't until I or anther counselor shows them that they can. I work with sand and dirt, water temp that changes every other day sometimes. I work in gloomy mornings hot afternoons and cold nights. I work with men and women from all over the world, mainly Australia and the US. I work with camp food. I work with the sun, a lot, we have become great friends. I work with the unknown. I work with surface talk. I work with fear and the conquering fears. I work with pain, physically and emotionally.
I think one of the scariest things I have worked with so far is not having the support system I have at school and home. This is not a Christian camp, that many people put to YMCA, actually they are not about Jesus at all. They have similar values, but no one talked about it at all. I have had a lot of trouble finding the comfort from the Lord, and being challenged by sisters of Christ. It has been very hard to even see God and all His beauty when no one else really see's it. It has been difficult to find His identity and not the approval from my girls or co-counselors. Not going to church is also very weird, not because it's church but because you have people around you that have the same core. When two or more are gathered He is there.
Without these things I am lost. I am depressed and not all there. My joy is missing. My compassion for others is careless. My mind things of things it shouldn't. I'm distracted. I feel alone. I feel not looked after. My heart has way too much room to run around and I have lost motivation to search for Him.
A community is important. Not having even one other person that you can go to with how your heart is doing and someone to keep you accountable with things is hard. Why do we even need people, He is everywhere and He is watching and can keep us accountable, so why would we need people to help us do these things. We are created to be social and to have a community to cry and laugh with us. The spirit is strong when two or more are gathered. A community is safe. Camp is safe but it is not really a community. A community is open. Camp is really not that open. A community is fun. Camp is fun but it is not joyful.
How do we find these people? When we are unsafe and insecure, well that's when we sometimes feel the Holy Spirit the most, because He is the only one who will keep us safe. So do we go out and ask people or do we slip it into a conversation? Sometimes its harder to find or create these conversations , merely because YMCA Camp Surf can not get too deep, and so everything is surface, and small talk. I think we all like to go deep but when someone or something is telling us how to act and think and speak it is hard to find the inner being of others and we loose own inner being.
A community is important to have real talks, joy, understanding, love, goofiness, selflessness, compassion, support, etc. These are the things we have to create sometimes if we can not find it.
