Staff Training

By Kelsey June 17, 2014

This past weekend we wrapped up our staff training with “All-Staff Weekend.’’ The training this weekend was focused on important safety procedures, community life, and camp operations. While the training sessions were long the staff maintained a positive attitude and had a great weekend. They took advantage of being at camp together and the beautiful weather!

The weekend started on Friday morning with a session on “Camper Delight.” Our goal every summer is to relentlessly pursue camper delight. This concept umbrellas everything that is done at camp, from maintenance to horsemanship. We want every camper to have a great time at camp, but a primary goal is to lead campers to Christ. A camper accepting Christ as their savior is going to bring that child eternal delight. Thus, everything we do is in pursuit of bringing campers to Christ and to learn how to delight in Him.

We also trained our staff on child safety. This training is necessary in order to protect campers from potential abuse. We have a system in place that provides 360 degree supervision, proper reporting and clear procedures. We take child abuse very seriously.

On Friday night we ended with a session about community life. This was not only encouraging and helpful but essential to having a united staff. Being in a community of believers is very important to our healthy Christian walk. We want every member of staff to know that they are an important and vital member of our community. This will only happen when we take advantage of every opportunity to show love to each other through forgiveness, humility, and service. Ultimately, loving others is one of the best ways to communicate God’s love for us. Furthermore, we do not want internal problems to distract us from our ministry this summer.

On Saturday we were able to spend a bit of time outside while doing emergency drills. We had a fire drill, tornado drill, and missing camper drill. We also discussed active shooter scenarios and the actions that we will need to take if that ever happens at camp. While we pray that nothing catastrophic will happen this summer, we prepare the staff for all emergency events.

Sunday morning was the official end to All-Staff Weekend. Instead of visiting a local church, we had our own service at camp for the staff and the First Presbyterian counselors, who had come for their church camp.The men’s RA, Nathan, preached and we had a few staff members lead us in worship.

Now that training is over we have two weeks of rental camps before our camp sessions start. These weeks are a lot of fun! Please pray for us as we start camp this week!

Although the staff had to sit through many hours of training, they still had some fun! Check out these pictures that highlight some of the goofy moments from training!