And now it’s time for Terribly Poetry with Kodiak, the part of the show where Kodiak comes out and reads his terribly poetry:

‘Twas the week before lockdown and all through the land,
Not a child was stirring, no Christmas games planned.
Staying home with your loved ones is usually good,
But not when your family can’t enter the ‘hood.

Kids big and small looked up to the sky,
”I know,” they did say, “That Santa’s not the guy
Who’ll deliver the fun and help parents keep reason
’Cause Jesus is my true deliv’rer this season.”

“I miss the camp games, though it’s the wrong time of year,
I miss the Tuck Shop and wide games and cheer.
If only there was some special Advent way
To keep the doldrums of lockdown and COVID at bay.

This has been Terribly Poetry with Kodiak. Join us next time when Kodiak comes out and reads… more terribly poetry.

Is the meter off? Yes.
The rhymes terrible? Absolutely.

Is Kodiak writing poetry because he’s trying to think of a quirky way to share some exciting news with you?

DEFINITELY.

We know that this Christmas season is not going liked planned for so many families. We feel it ourselves - this will likely be the first year of our entire lives that Dash and Kodiak won’t be seeing a parent or sibling in person during the holidays (are we Zooming all the time? Yes we are.)

Still, as staff at Beacon, we feel we have a lot to celebrate. This year has been tough for us as a camp, but it could have been much worse. We have many people to be grateful for:

• amazing Beacon Unlimited campers, who showed up in large numbers for our amazing summer program

• volunteers who helped staff those camps and make them so special

• families who stuck with us when we realized that we were going to have to cancel our whole planned summer, and donated over $30,000 of their deposits to help us through a scary spring

• other donors who have kept us afloat at a time when lots of businesses and organizations have been closing

Dash and I looked at each other and started asking: how could we say “thank you" for all these amazing gifts of time, energy and encouragement?

We decided to do the best thing we know to do: create a camp program! We’re calling it “The 12 Days of Beacon Christmas”, and we’re so excited to bring a little fun and joy to your lives during this strange Advent season.

Starting on Saturday, December 19, we’ve got a digital camp activity packet for you every day of the Christmas holidays (except for December 24, 25, 26 and January 1, because those are like, actual holidays and who wants emails on those days ANYWAY?).

These emails will be full of fun activities, games, jokes, a family devotional to consider together and maybe if Dash can pull it off… our very first Beacon comic strip!

We did think long and hard about a Beacon Unlimited: Christmas Edition, but it’s not a time of year to be Zooming too much… and if you are spending time with people online… do it with your extended family!

The best part of all this? This program is absolutely, 100% FREE. Our camp has been blessed abundantly by our Beacon family during the last 12 months, and we can’t think of a better way to give back than to offer our best Christmas games and fun for you to enjoy without any cost.

This is a total opt-in program, so you’ll need to sign up on our website, which you can find here:

If you have questions or comments, feel free to connect with us (director@beaconbiblecamp.com) and we’ll get that started!