Camp Fireside was amazing.
A week-long summer camp filled with children, pre-teens, and adults of all ages where we lived together in (separate boy and girl) cabins, attended chapel every morning and evening, played games, and participated in so many fun camp sports and activities - all while learning more about the Christian faith. It wasn't just a protestant camp either; children from all denominations of Christianity were welcome. We were children, though, so differences in how we worshiped back home weren't nearly as important to us as the fact that we all did.
At this point in my life I didn't know much about Catholicism. My father's side of the family was Catholic, but I can't remember them talking about it very much - about God, yes, but not about the differences in our churches.
As for Camp Fireside, I know what you must be thinking - church twice a day? How could that possibly have been the basis of a camp that groups of children enjoyed attending? But church at Camp Fireside was unlike any of the churches around at the time. It was music, and fun, and laughter, and joy. Their building itself was only an un-insulated wooden structure with screens stapled to the windows, wooden benches for pews, a small raised platform at the front, and an overhead projector that had seen many a better day in the past. The music was played by an entire band at the front of the room, set up on the raised platform - a guitar, a drum set, singers, and even the occasional ukulele! The songs were upbeat and interactive, and all about our Savior and the stories within the bible.
It was fun, but it wasn't even really about the fun. The entire camp was filled with Christians, and everyone was gathered into this chapel twice a day, everyone was excited and happy to be there - and ecstatic to be worshiping God. There was a life in this place, a strength of Spirit that I had never experienced outside of Camp Fireside. It was a fire, the sort of fire that you always hear those big TV preachers talking about to the audience that's falling to their knees in tears. It was a feeling that, once I had outgrown the camp, I continued to search for in every church I attended as I went through the next years of my life.
And it was at this Camp Fireside that I had one of the most memorable moments of my own Christian journey.
You see, every week at the camp the chapel services were set up in a pattern. There was usually a sort of 'guest speaker' for the week, some pastor or preacher that was there for some time during the summer, they always had a plan to help the campers really understand what it meant to accept Jesus as your Savior, and it always came together for one particularly emotional service every Thursday evening.
This camp was still in my childhood, so I unfortunately do not have very detailed memories to share with you of all the sermons that I heard, but I do remember one week in particular that really struck something in my heart. All week long, this guest speaker had been focusing on inviting people up to the front to share their stories of salvation, the story of how they came to find God. Each evening chapel he would end with sharing a story that he'd been told in the past that was particularly strong, and then he would invite others to come share theirs. Then, on Thursday, he shared his own.
I don't remember his entire story, but I vividly remember how it came to an end - because the emotions it held sounded exactly like my own every summer during Vacation Bible School. He said that each year he would attend a summer program, and would go up to the front to accept Jesus as his Savior, and each year he felt no different. He explained how it felt when, as a young teen, he finally realized it was because he hadn't felt the acceptance, he'd said the words but hadn't truly meant it - not because he didn't truly believe, but because he hadn't yet grown enough or had enough experience to understand the importance of the moment. He went on to explain how he had locked himself in his bedroom that night, and had sat on his bed alone to do it again; his eyes glossed over with tears as he described to us the feeling that each person going up that week had shared as well, the rush and the feeling of love and power that came over them as they reached out to Jesus with their hearts and spirits.
This had not been my first year at Camp Fireside by any means; in fact, I believe it was one of my last. I had been through Thursday chapel before, and I had never found myself in tears until this evening. The guest speaker went on to invite a few others up to share their story, and then invited anyone who wanted to, to come up to the front to pray with him and accept Jesus as their Savior. I didn't go up, but as everyone dipped their heads to pray along with the speaker, I closed my eyes, dropped my head, and sent out a silent prayer of my own.
"I'm sorry," I cried, silently, to the Lord as the room followed the guest speaker's prayer around me. I knew logically that I didn't have to apologize for not having been 'truthful' all the times before, but the apology repeated itself through my mind a few more times before I could go further. I apologized, and I confessed my love for our God, and I asked Jesus to come into my heart "for real this time, forever." True to how the man at the front had explained in his own story, I felt in that moment a rush of love and power unlike anything I had experience before. I hadn't known that anything could feel stronger than the life and energy that encompassed the chapel at Camp Fireside during service, but I knew there was nothing that could feel more powerful, or amazing, than the rush that I felt in that moment - at least not in this world, not without meeting Him face to face.
From that day forward I was completely convinced that I understood what the teachings in the Protestant church meant each time I'd been told Once you've accepted Jesus into your heart, you're saved - forever. I was confident that I could not be torn from this path I had found myself on, no matter what questions I was asked to try and falter my faith, no matter what hardships I faced in my life, no matter what church I attended -
or...didn't attend.
The downside to this amazing experience, after my years at Camp Fireside were over, was that the church I attended with my mother came no-where near the level of life and energy I felt at the camp. It felt...empty. I had no reason to think that the people attending the church didn't believe, but I didn't feel...any spirit during the services there. So when I was old enough to choose for myself, I found a way to get out of attending by volunteering at a local animal shelter on Sundays. My mother was upset at first, but eventually life became busy enough that she found herself elsewhere on Sundays as well.
There was nothing in my heart that doubted my faith in Christ, I knew I was on the right path to follow Him in life and in spirit. I just...had to figure out where that path was now going to lead me.
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