This past week, I had the incredible opportunity to return home. I spent the week at La Foret Camp and Conference Center in the Central Rocky Mountain Region. I spent the week at the camp I grew up at. It was such a blessing to be home.
I could tell the moment I drove onto those camp grounds that it was going to be a good week, a different week, a life changing week. And boy was I correct. When I first saw the camp director Rachel, who was also my youth group leader and camp director when I was in CYF, one of the first words out of her mouth were “Welcome Home.” It’s rare to exist in a moment and know all the way in your bones that you are exactly where you are meant to be, where you need to be. Driving onto La Foret’s grounds I had that kind of moment. I knew God was walking hand and hand with me, leading me to the place where I was called. God was with me and in me during my return home.
Throughout the week it was proven time and time again why I was exactly where I needed to be. I was able to have incredibly vulnerable and life changing small group conversations with the family group I facilitated, giving them space to share what was on their heart, and creating the trusted space to share my perspective as well. Creating this beautiful community with my family group was even more a blessing for me than it may have been for them. I was given a space where I felt seen and heard. My own confidence and ability to lead and mentor in a small group context was reinvigorated. I was once again personally connected to my call and to the community of future change-makers in a way I didn’t know I needed. My family group showed so clearly why I was meant to be at camp this week. I had extremely difficult conversations that took me out of my comfort zone, took me out of my realm of feeling safe and comfortable, that once again instilled in me the knowledge that I was exactly where I needed to be. I have always had a difficult time with confrontation, with conflict, with existing in places of contention and disagreement. But it is in these spaces where growth, where change, where peace and justice truly happen. It was in those conversations where I could feel the justice work Jesus so clearly modeled for me happening. It was in those hard conversations at La Foret that the change my identity as a Christian calls me to create was happening. I was challenged to be brave, to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, and through that work I was given the conviction and confidence to not only create inclusion, peace, and justice in that community, but in the world outside camp as well. It was such a blessing to be home.
It was a great week, a hard week, and a week where I felt the Spirit of God undoubtedly moving all around me. Something about camp worship just hits different. I don’t think there will ever be a physical worship or church space outside of camp where I feel God’s presence as directly. We worshipped as a community at the labyrinth at sunset; walking as one trail of footsteps, singing as once voice, praying as one spirit in that labyrinth, it was almost impossible not to see, feel, and hear God in the campers around me. We worshipped in Inglis Hall when it was storming outside; seeing our communion table draped in rainbow scarves, having our Jesus figure one night draped in a pride flag, hearing Crowded Table sung as a bold welcome to all to God’s table showed how God’s inclusive and loving heart was on display so clearly in the ways we worshipped together. We worshipped together at the campfire; my small group came together and modeled community and reparation during our worship on the last night and brought the spirit of the Table to life for me. God was moving in so many different ways through so many different voices and people this week at camp, and it was so remarkable to see and feel that all around me. It was such a blessing to be home.
I laughed harder than I had in a while this week. I saw genuine joy on the faces of so many youth. I saw the campers creating spaces of love and acceptance for each other, wanting to bring the spirit of the table into camp, into their space, into their lives. It was such a beautiful week that embodied what it means to be the different parts of the whole body of Christ. We were and are one community, united in our identity as beloved children of God. It was such a blessing to be home.
One idea that keeps coming to me over and over again this summer is that God truly knows me by name. God’s spirit of inclusion and belonging has always called to me, has always been a dimension of God that I relate to, live through, most. The realization time and time again while at La Foret that God sees me, God knows me, God loves me intimately and vulnerably, enough so to know me individually by name, was such a special moment of the week. The campers made me feel like a missing puzzle piece to their community, like someone who was meant to be there and truly belonged. From the moment I stepped out of the car I knew I was unapologetically welcomed into that community, and there was rarely a moment where that welcome, where that inclusion, where that belonging was questioned. It felt so good, so cup filling, to be welcomed exactly as I was. It was such a blessing to be home.
It was a week I wouldn’t trade for any other. Thank you La Foret. It was such a blessing to be home.
