Spending six weeks of every year at Baptist Park summer camp in northern Maine is unlike anything else I've ever experienced in my years of working and ministering.  For 10 years we came up here (300 miles north from where we live) as speakers.  This is the conclusion of my ninth summer as director... although I continue to take a turn as speaker at each year.  In fact, I realized this year that I have done more shows (services, or whatever you want to call them) in our tabernacle than in any other venue anywhere.  By far. Our kids have literally grown up here and have made life long friends.  The memories here are many and rich.  We've lost pets, had daughters fall in (and out of) love; we played, prayed, worked, and lived communally.  Out in the field between the cabin areas I once hit a home run off of former major leaguer Bernie Carbo (OK, it was slow pitch softball, and the fielders were all 10 year olds, but I can technically say I hit a home run off of a former major league star.)  We've had family, friends, coworkers and students follow us up here to serve in one capacity or another.

At this time in the summer, we are always amazed at how quickly the time passes, and in some oxymoronic way, it also seems like we've been here forever and home is a distant dream-like memory.  We're always amazed that we can get so close to people who are a fraction of our age, and that friends we see only in the summer are some of the closest people in our lives.  

This was the summer of new security policies (staff uniforms, visitor sign in, etc.),a mock One Direction concert by our male CITs, a camp carnival, hysterical cabin inspection videos each night, a moose peeking in the boys' cabin early one morning, two 'city boys' on staff (from Manhattan & Newark by way on Nyack College), the first year one of our family wasn't present, some of our best improv comedy shows ever ("Rejected names for the seven dwarfs" will be laughed about  for years to come) and it was the first time ever we had fireworks at camp.  Most importantly, nine young people dedicated their lives to following Jesus, and several have begun to explore pursuing ministry in their futures.  Many others, particularly older ones, began wrestling with some of the hard questions in life, and many of the younger campers experienced the love and friendship of some really amazing teens and young adult counselors.  

So as summer camp 2013 comes to an end, these memories will be filed away with almost 20 years of others.  We'll be home soon and roles will be reversed.  Camp will seem like a wonderful dreamland in the past, and we'll be thinking again about mowing our lawn, buying groceries, and preparing for our upcoming school years.  Life is truly good.