Pyoca 2021 Recap

This is a question I get a lot and I wanted to take a moment and write out how camp was for me. Overall, the camp was fantastic. Leading into camp, I was stressed and anxious about how it was going to go. We had a lot of changes come our way and I'm not a strong planner. So, I was really worried about how the camp was going to unfold. However this year was a good reminder for me that I can trust God and that God is faithful and is good.

Despite my shortcomings, I saw God on display at camp this year. There are a few things that we did differently that I was worried about. One of those was devotions. We changed the way we did our morning devotions this year.

The goal was to get students to practice engaging with scripture. We kind of set up the "study" the same way each day. We went through six different Psalms about God's presence and the feedback I got was very encouraging to me.

One of the main goals of youth ministry is to help students take ownership of their faith and equip them to carry that on throughout life and that's what I felt we accomplished with these devotions.

One of the other things that were different this year was that I was a little bit more involved in the worship side of camp. I helped with practicing and background support.

Worship was great because of Tim Grimes', Shelby Thein's, and Nicki Mueller's leadership. I was thankful for them and enjoyed being involved in that process.

One of the things I try to do at camp is to have other people speak and teach than myself. I believe it's important to get a variety of points of view from different people from different walks of life and all the speakers we had this week were fantastic.

The different teaching styles and nuances that they brought out of God's word were impactful for both the students and me.

An inviting and encouraging community is one of the things we value very highly here at Southport Pres and that can be a tricky atmosphere to create, not to mention with a Covid dynamic that forced some separation and distance. We were concerned about how these kids that are stuck in their different cabins are going to come together as a whole camp community.

God moved and it was really exciting to see just how into camp all the students were. We had a bunch of rain, we had different eating dynamics, we had to meet in different locations than we would normally do, so there were just a lot of opportunities for a diminished community atmosphere.

This camp was probably one of the strongest camp communities that I've seen and it was because students were ready to jump in, have fun, and learn about the Lord. It was a great week to be a part of.

I went to camp feeling very overwhelmed and very discouraged and I came out of camp feeling refreshed and super excited to see what God's continuing to do here at Southport Pres.