My first year of bible camp, Adrian was too young to come too. So it was just
me. There were girl cabins and boy cabins. There were miles of woods on all
sides, except for the ocean. We swam. We played orienteering games. At night we
played manhunt. It was a two week long party. Church three times a day, but
whatever. My mom never took me to church. Fifteen minutes sitting on a wooden
bench singing old pop songs with the words all changed around wasn't so bad. Who
doesn't like to sing?
The second year was even better, because Adrian
came too. Every day, we would spend our daily allowance at the tuck shop and sit
on the beach eating candy. Adrian and I have always agreed about candy. We ate
lunch together in the cafeteria. We were in different cabins, of course. But we
played on the same teams for team games. At home we fought more and more at that
age, but at camp we were brothers.
Year three, they took everyone in my
cabin into the main building and sat us all down. "There's cake next door for
everyone who has accepted Jesus into their hearts," they told us. "If you can't
find Jesus in your heart, we just want to sit down and talk to you." I couldn't
tell. How do you know if Jesus is in your heart? I wanted him to be. I wanted to
follow my friends next door. But I couldn't find him. I stayed and talked. My
mother, an atheist, was going to hell. They said a lot of other things, but
that's what made the impression. That's what I blurted out, a month later, when
my mother found me crying in my bedroom, hugging my bible. I had been sleeping
with it under my pillow.
You have never seen a woman as angry as my
mother that night.
That was Adrian's last year at bible camp, too, but
for a different reason. A few days later, one of those counselors threw a jelly
fish on his back down at the beach. And, maybe that isn't so different. They
seemed like adults to us, but those counselors were teenagers. They were just
kids, too.
Thank you for the story.
