Summer camp has become a highlight of the year for many families in the Church. Like God’s Holy Days, camp provides a time to gather, fellowship, and enjoy activities. And, like God’s commanded assemblies, the camp experience includes education—opportunities to learn more about God’s ways.
This summer, God really blessed the Texas Teen Camp with good weather! Knowing how hot it could have been, we especially appreciated the reasonably mild temperatures—especially mild for July in Texas. Even so, we still carried out two all-camp emergency drills, so we’d be prepared in the event of severe weather. A new grounds-wide public address system installed by the camp worked well, along with new handheld radios for our supervisors and counselors. Thunderstorms did roll through on a couple of occasions, though, and we did lose electrical power for seven or eight hours one evening. Thankfully, power was restored before we began our next day of activities.
It was a healthy camp overall. Our camp nurse cared for several campers and staff with bumps, bug bites, and bruises, as was expected, but there were no serious injuries. It does seem typical, though, that a handful of our staff and campers come down with colds or the flu every year—and this year was no exception.
On another health-related note, campers had the opportunity to learn basic first aid in one of our classes, which was taught by a staff member who coordinates safety training for a large company. Most campers completed the Health & Safety Institute program and qualified for a certificate.
A special activity we initiated this year involved the lost art of letter writing! Before camp, we encouraged parents to take the time to write a letter to their campers. We had created a special LYC postcard, and we encouraged campers to use it to take a few minutes to write home on the Sabbath. Of course, we heard the occasional Why do that when I can just text? This gave counselors a “teachable moment” to talk about the value of thinking about words to handwrite on a physical piece of paper to send to a loved one far away. It was definitely a “retro” moment for many. But what was particularly encouraging was that we received more than 50 letters addressed to campers from their parents, which they were thrilled to read. There is nothing like a piece of paper, with words lovingly recorded, to hold in our hands and savor.
Each camper was sent home with a photo booklet containing dozens of pictures documenting LYC 2026. For more photos, we pointed them toward our online photo album with more than 1,800 photos of camp. Our hope is that this will fulfill parents’, campers’, and staff members’ desire for access to pictures of camp. In our social media-driven world, the ease of sharing photos of everyone and everything for the world to see can include awkward photos, unflattering photos, photos that include someone in the background who would rather not be in the picture, and more. Many parents recognize the increasing dangers of posting pictures of their children online, including identity theft, A.I.-generated fakes, and cyberbullying. We certainly do not want to contribute to this, so we’ve created a private online photo album with a password-protected login.
Sadly, this still leaves us with the reality that on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms, individuals can carelessly post pictures without exercising good wisdom and discernment. We hope all our members will join us in exercising care and consideration regarding pictures they post online.
Camp is a great time to break away from the “vicarious” living that dominates the lives of so many, especially our younger people. It is real fun, with real friends, learning real godly principles for life!