This summer, we’re turning the blog over to Emily “Heaps” Shields, who is serving on our camp crew as our office support staff and all around amazing helper. She’s got a ton of skills, and one of them is telling THE best stories. What better person to tell you the little beautiful details about what camp is like during the summer? We’re calling this summer of Emily “A Heap of Fun”… enjoy!

This past week, we hosted our second family camp: Forest Glade Family Camp.

During the morning sessions, you could find Matthew ‘Logic’ Lewis and myself cleaning the Lighthouse washrooms while sharing tidbits about our life, and chatting about our opinions on a variety of spiritual matters. [Editors Note: our cleaning procedures are very intense this year because of COVID-19 regulations - so we’ve got all our staff on deck cleaning at all times of day!] As we worked away, we could hear the campers singing along to the catchy, Rocky Railway themed songs, and some classics like ‘How Great Thou Art’. One time, as I heard the words being sung to the latter, it suddenly dawned on me that all of the family camps (and the recently announced canoe camp) this summer got their name from that song’s lyrics! How cool is that?!

In poetic form, here are the two verses from that song which inspired all the camp names for this summer:

O Lord my God
When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds
Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars,
I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout
the universe displayed.

When through the woods,
and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds
sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down,
from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook,
and feel the gentle breeze.

I super like the name ‘Rolling Thunder’ (although, maybe it was a bit too ominous--we all had to hunker down for a few hours during a tornado warning that week). Which one is your favourite?

BONUS: Check out this great video made by Aidan “Coho” Beagley of the whole great week of fun!