It’s the third week of July; you know what that means. It’s time for the best week of summer – or maybe even the whole year – for the campers and staff of Run Home Camp. Beds are made, bags are packed, and the grass is cut. Everything is ready for the seventeen camp boys of 2019 to arrive tomorrow morning.
As the staff reunited today for training and preparation, a lot of things were the same. Many of the coaches and other volunteers are returners. We met at the same place, drove over to the same camp together, and ate dinner at the same location as last year. For those of us that have been here for several years, it feels like a normal thing, an annual tradition.
The eleven returning campers probably feel the same way. I can imagine them excitedly recounting stories of past camps as they searched for their baseball gloves today or wondering if they’ll be on the blue team again or be switched to red this year. Many of them are probably eager to reunite with camp friends and coaches that they only see once or twice a year. It’s exciting, but it’s not new.
At the same time those eleven are looking forward to their favorite time of the year, six new boys are wondering what camp will be like. This is most likely a very different experience than any they’ve ever had before. Most of them have probably never been to a camp. Some may have never even picked up a baseball. Whether they’re nervous or excited, these boys realize that this week will be radically different than any they’ve ever had before.
It seems simple when I lay it out like this. Returners, whether kid or adult, are looking forward to something the same; rookies, to something different. Life, however, is never quite that simple. At dinner tonight, I was thinking back to what we discussed a year ago as I sat in the same seat and came to the realization that so much has changed in my life in the past year. This is true for many of the staff. We’ve changed jobs, graduated from schools, moved houses. Even though it’s mostly the same people, we’re different than we used to be.
The same is true for the camp kids. We have no idea what they have experienced in the past year, whether good or bad. Maybe they moved to a new foster home they really like, or maybe they had to leave behind friends at a school when they transferred. Whatever it is, we can’t expect to only have six new campers this year. All seventeen boys are coming back changed in some way. If we expect Run Home Camp to be the same from year to year, we’re missing the point. Each camp is different because each camp family is different. Sure, we’re going to do many of the same activities. There will still be a lot of baseball playing. But if we don’t meet the boys where they’re at and love the 2019 versions of them, we’re not going to make the sort of impact that we’ve made in the past, and that is one part of camp that should never change.
