i am FINALLY buckling down and filling out my camp application(jenna won our bet). and this question gets me every year. first of all because it makes me laugh; asking why i want to come back to camp is like asking the sky why it will be blue tomorrow: it's just the way things should be. i belong at camp. camp is home.
and second of all, because it should be the easiest part of the whole form. but i have trouble knowing where to start, and how to keep myself from writing three pages. how do i fit a good enough explanation in a paragraph?(i did it, but it was hard)
so, since i have no limitations here, i'm gonna list every reason i can think of.
WHAT I WANTED TO WRITE ON MY APPLICATION:
i want to come back to camp because...
1. i miss my girls. so much. now and then i wake up in the middle of the night and for a split second i think to go check on them, but sadly, i don't have any. or i start to walk out my door and(i did this the other day actually) i turn around to start counting to 12. i miss their off the wall thoughts, i miss their questions in Bible study(both the profound-beyond-their-years kind and the kind that make me laugh until i cry), i miss them fighting over who gets to hold my hand next, i even miss the homesick ones. i miss letting them know how special and wonderful they are, especially the ones who don't hear that at home. i just miss getting to love on them every day.
2. i miss my friends. i miss encouraging them, i miss getting hugs, and i miss telling all our stories on fridays. i miss weekends where we have near death experiences on the way to columbia, or tori steals my teddy bear in the middle of the night, or we spend a sunday in the admin eating my sour patch kids and watching youtube and dancing in the parking lot in the rain.
3. i love being in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone, no facebook, no twitter.
4. camp is God's summer home. i don't miss Him much during the year now that i found where He is when it isn't summer(ciu, if you couldn't tell), but i still feel a different kind of closeness out there.
5. it's the most beautiful place in the world, rain or shine, and i want to wake up every morning and walk through spider webs and hear birds and smell pine trees everywhere.
6. i don't want to live at home and get a real job. i don't care if it would make me two or three times as much money(and i doubt if i'm even exaggerating much), i'd rather do something that makes a difference than make pizzas all day.(daniel could get me a job at domino's right this minute if i asked him)
7. i love missions, and i love missionaries. i love their stories and their kids and i wait all year long to hear from them and hang out with them every day for ten weeks.
8. i laugh a lot at camp, and the more you laugh the longer you live, and i like being alive. so basically, i'll come to camp again because i don't want to die yet. hehe.
9. i like mail, and i get lots of it at camp. i also like sending it, so i'm sure my friends would appreciate me being there because that means they get letters, and i write awesome letters.
10. every year i wonder what God can possibly teach me about Him, myself, or life in general, and every year He shows up and serves up a new lesson about all three. i am bouncing off the walls waiting to see what He'll think up this year.
11. i'm happier at camp than i am anywhere else.
12. i really like having a walkie in my bedroom. i wish we had those at school. wouldn't that be awesome? imagine at 1 am: "lauren, switch to 2" "i'm here" "go make the girls in the bathroom shut up" "ok, back to 1"
you know it'd be cool.
13. i miss flory and miss minnie's cooking, a lot. i wish they ran the cafeteria here.
14. i don't have a low ropes course in my backyard.
15. or a pool. and i wouldn't have little kids to play in it with if i did.
16. i don't get a flag or bragging rights for cleaning my room at home, all i get is a list of things i still need to fix.
17. worship every night. nuff said.
18. there is no other place where random singing is completely acceptable and strongly encouraged. do you know what kind of looks i would get if i busted out in the beaver song in the middle of walmart?(tori, let's do that this summer. winnsboro could use a little excitement.)
19. shower races!
20. i like to walk. we do that a lot there.
21. we don't compost at my house. shameful.
22. i learn more from my girls than i do from my friends at home.
23. i love hugs, and they're a big thing around there.
24. i am having SERIOUS slushie withdrawals.
25. it's my calling and my purpose and my passion. like that runner dude in chariots of fire, i "feel God's pleasure" when i'm there. i'm playing a part in something eternal, something bigger than just me. i'm serving God the way i was made to, and that's the most exciting feeling in the world. i haven't found that anywhere else yet.
26. i just plain love it. and that's enough reason right there.
