This summer held both my favorite weeks and most difficult weeks that I had ever faced. The first week, I was assigned to the Explorers camp (ages 8-9). It soon became clear that I had the cabin missing father figures. One mother told me that a camper had lost his father that year and been bullied at school. Another mother …..
My journey with Camp Hebron started in a blink of an eye when I met Ralph Swartzentruber at a college camp fair. He was standing by a display that had an actual running waterfall! Up to that point I had no idea of how my summer would work out but during the next class I leaned over to my friend Kevin and said, “Let’s go and serve at Camp Hebron next summer”, and so we did. That was the summer of 1987. What started in a blink lasted four summers and turned into…..
In 1983 our family moved from the Philadelphia area to Mechanicsburg. At the end of that school year our older daughter attended the school’s, “Outdoor Education Program” at Camp Hebron. Since she enjoyed the experience so much and had learned about all the kinds of summer programs offered at camp for kids, she wanted to return to Camp Hebron.
Although at that time we knew very little about the camp….
Close your eyes and picture a place you’ve visited in which you had, at once, felt a sense of awe, peace, and wonder. Now sit in that space. Ruminate on it. Take note of the way the light hits the earth, how the air feels as you breathe deeply, notice the ground resting beneath you, and remember that there are countless places like this around the globe. Spaces nestled in the earth where there is just a little extra something shimmering in its wake. It’s as if God left a little something more in those spaces. Camp Hebron is one of those spaces and that’s why I am interning at camp today.
I found Camp Hebron - or I should say God kind of slammed me into Camp Hebron- two years ago. I was reeling from a bitterly disappointing loss at a chance to study abroad in Ireland. I had been planning and dreaming for this opportunity for almost a year now - really 10 years if you consider that it had been a childhood dream- and it had been ripped from me due to finances. The loss was real and severe; I likened the pain I experienced to that of a breakup with a deeply loved but distant partner. Dramatic I’m aware. What can I say, I’m an artist at heart.
I needed to do something, go somewhere, find that thing that would help me move on. So, I scrolled through my school’s job website looking for an opportunity to learn, to grow, to do something worthwhile; when I found the job listing for a summer camp photographer at Camp Hebron. The rest, as they say, is history. That summer was filled with more growth than I ever would have experienced in Ireland. More importantly, the spiritual wounds I had been carrying were slowly and gently mended back together. In the way that only God can, I was shown not only my worth; but the beauty, value and worth of the Divine’s creation - including you, your friends, your family, your neighbor.
Eventually I decided to - or really the big peeps at Camp Hebron decided to let me - come back as SIT Leader for a second summer. Shortly after that decision, I was offered the opportunity to intern at camp for a year. For a long and short list of reasons, I accepted and none of the reasons I decided to come matter nearly as much as the fact that God brought me here and I could not be more grateful.
This is a shimmering space. A place of presence, connection and communion.
