YW Camp: A Mysterious Recipe

Midnight Popsicle Party with my YCL friend, Alyssa. Yeah-don't count the wrappers. It had been a rough night.

Saturday I returned home from camp after my third year as stake YW camp director. I have not fully recovered yet. I'm still having camp dreams every night, and there's this nagging feeling that there is something I should be planning, fixing, arranging, or apologizing for. I'm having a hard time talking coherently about the array of emotions and experiences that I have just had. So instead, I'm reverting to "list form" to relate the wonderful, incredible, inexplicable whirlwind of Young Women's Camp.

Our theme this year was "To the Rescue!" and there were so many unexpected implementations of it throughout the week. Here are the ingredients that were found in this year's recipe for the spiritual growth that somehow always seems to come from the camp week:

• Emergency room visits and ambulance rides
• Clogged toilets
• Communication difficulties
• Extreme heat and humidity
• Late-night devotionals
• Baby birds to be rescued
• A midnight popsicle party
• A long string of camp-policy surprises
• Celebration of 100 years of YW camp--putting together 100 mother-and-baby rescue packets for women in the Congo
• Severe storm forecast for outdoor testimony meeting
• Dedicated young women and leaders

When all this had been magically blended, this was the result:

• faith-filled prayers, and the answers to those prayers
• new-born testimonies
• increased patience
• anonymous acts of service
• deeper bonds of love

It's a mystery to me how the sour and bitter ingredients can blend with the sweet things and bake something so delicious to the soul, but it works year after year. For leaders as well as girls. And I thank the Lord that I get to be a part of it.