Earlier this spring, I started asking around our camp family. Former Leadership Training campers. Board members. Former staff.

"Do you want to go on a pilot trip?"

Eight said yes, which is not surprising when you know what kind of place Johnsonburg is and what kind of people it draws.

Here is what they said yes to. A five-day trip to El Salvador, followed by three days at camp. A partner most of them have never heard of. A timeline that gave them about two months to pack.

We are calling it Confluence.

The partner is Living Waters for the World. We have been working with them for years. Johnsonburg is the Northeast training center for water teams from churches all over the USA. The teams train here and then fly t various international partners to teach communities how to build sustainable water purification systems that outlast the visit.

What we have not done, until now, is send our own people alongside them.

That changes today.

Four 18-19 year olds are going. Some have been campers, some have completed the Leadership Training Program, and all are going to college this fall. This is a chance to think about the next step of their journey.

Four adults are going with them. Anne Gordon, a previous board member from the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury. Tim Brendler, a current board member who served as a Johnsonbrug chaplain years ago. Eka Tawe, who came through our gap year program during the pandemic, has been on staff in various roles for years, and now serves at the youth director at the Pleasantville Presbyterian Church in upstate NY. And me.

Eight yeses from the Johnsonburg circle because that is how Johnsonburg people show up.

A board member asked me years ago whether Johnsonburg was a local, regional or national organization. It was a fair question and felt hard to answer at the time.

But now, our campers come from Boston, Virginia, Texas, and Philadelphia in addition to New Jersey. Our staff come from Egypt and Scotland and Jamaica and Mexico. Our water partners land in San Salvador with our name on the paperwork.

I think we are a local and regional camp striving for a global impact.

We are going to hike a volcano and see a cathedral and eat food that is not ours and speak Spanish that is not ours. We are going to walk alongside people building water systems in their own communities. We are going to learn from them. And we are going to come home different than we left.

"People go on trips like this thinking they are going to give. Almost always, they come home having received."

That is Tim's line. He said it during one of our pre-trip meetings in Easton.

I put a bag of foam squish balls on the floor and told each person to pick up one that spoke to what we thought this trip would be. Tim picked a little yellow guy with its arms wide open. He said, "I am excited because I am going to receive something on this trip that I do not even know I am going to receive yet."

We come back next Monday, July 27. Then we spend two and a half days at camp working with the group on how to tell you what happened!

I will be in touch when we return.

For now, thank you for being the kind of community where people say yes.

P.S. Want to know more about Confluence? CLICK HERE