Abide Through the Changes
As the month of August begins, so do a lot of transitions! For some, it may be that the summer months and vacations are coming to a close as we head into another fall season. Maybe for you, a new school year is starting, whether you yourself attend, your children, or someone close to you. For us here at Echo Ranch, August is also a time of major change. At the beginning of the month, we finished our final week of summer camp with our Senior High campers (ages 14-18)! With over 100 campers here from all around southeast Alaska, it was a very fun week with a lot of days packed full of activities. But right after the camp ended, our summer staff jumped into something very different. Their last few days here each summer consist of an end-of-summer debrief – which we often jokingly refer to as ”disorientation,” since the summer starts out with “orientation.”
Debrief/disorientation is a time for our summer staff to prepare themselves for heading back home. During the summer, each counselor is assigned one of our full-time staff members to meet with each week as their mentor, and during debrief, mentors and mentees meet one-on-one to talk through everything the summer involved - different things they learned, their worries about going home, and how to process all that God did in them and through them. Our staff also lead a couple of sessions to talk through what transitioning back home from camp can look like and how it can be difficult at times, so that the summer staff aren’t being sent back “blind”. It can be a lot to think through after living at camp all summer and experiencing hands-on ministry every single day. Each year, debrief flies by, and the next thing we know, the summer staff are all heading to town for their last day in Juneau and being shuttled to the airport for their flights. Camp gets a little quieter for a while as our full-time staff prepare for our fall retreat season.
Transitions and change can be trying in a lot of ways, particularly for our summer staff. It can be hard because for some of them – if not all of them – this has been a huge summer of growth, especially as the long weeks of camp pushed them to learn to rely on the Lord for strength and wisdom and endurance. They also built a lot of strong friendships and community while they were here, and then had to say goodbye and fly to separate states. I remember my experience of being on the mission field and then going home for the first time; life at home could feel overwhelming at times, and sometimes I didn’t even know why. But through the changes, I grew as I relied on the Lord. This verse in John 15 comes to mind as I reflect on this summer, as well as times of change I’ve experienced.
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)
Echo Ranch’s ministry only produces fruit because of the Lord. At the end of each week of camp, we have a camp highlight video recapping the week that we show the campers before they leave, and I always get emotional watching it because I know that the Lord was at work all week in ways we often can’t even see. As we trust and abide in the Lord, He works for His glory, and we can do no good apart from Him. As our camp staff transitions to the next season of ministry, as our summer staff transitions home, and as you go through the next transition to whatever’s changing in your life, we can all abide in the vinedresser and be reminded that all that took place this summer and all that we do in life is for the sake of the Gospel, and we cannot do any of it without Him.