Why I love my job

Sitting down with the LTs [Leadership Training Program participants] each summer are some of my favorite hours in the six weeks we run camp.

Usually we know each other in some capacity. They are long-time campers or familiar faces. These meetings start with a warm-up question.

"If you had $100 to spend right now on anything for camp, what would you do?"

Somebody invariably says something like, "Elise, that's not very much."

Which is true and also not true at the same time.

One of the first answers I got to this question, this past summer, remains among my favorites. An LT said, "100% I would put it towards scholarships for campers to come to camp."

I almost fell off my chair. What better compliment to a place than to spend theoretical money to make sure more people got to that place.

Beyond that answer, the ones I hear every year differ, though follow similar themes.

Shower curtains they think need to be replaced or stools in the High Point bathrooms. Seating so counselors and staff can be present in those areas.

Honestly, at the $100 mark, most of it revolves around the bathrooms. 🙂

Then the number increases and I ask, if you had $10,000 to spend at Johnsonburg, what would you do?

That gets them going. Generators, so we would not have to cancel a week of camp. Better walls in the bathhouses. A big playground for little kids. More fun stuff in the lake. More seating at the Butterfly Garden so we could do longer nature activities there. Put the Johnsonburg logo more around camp. Smooth out the rocks on Cardiac Hill. A JBL speaker on the bus, so it builds community.

If you notice something about this list, it's this:

Almost every answer serves to benefit some future person (not them) who will enjoy it at camp for years to come.

No one ever says "Get a soda machine." or "More ice cream parties."

Their answers run parallel with improving a place so generations can take part in an even better version of camp than they already live for weeks and summers.

I hold that session because I want them to know they have a voice. So often, especially with teenagers, anybody seventeen and down can feel unheard. And that is one of the magical pieces of the people development part of camp. Here, everyone is actively listening and thinking about others.

That is why I love this job and love this work.

Good leaders come from being heard. Kids who are listened to over the years become the kind of people who answer "scholarships" when you ask them what to do with a hundred dollars.

This is the hard work of working alongside people to help them answer that age-old question of "who are you?" Helping them to discern who God has made them to be and what God is calling them to do.

It is the active listening, the conversation, the patient questioning, the offering of advice, and the hands-on experiences.

Some come in the form of leading small groups of children in discussion. Some in the form of washing dishes or cutting up logs in the woods. Some in the form of hooking guest after guest onto the zipline to take that Leap of Faith. And some in asking how they would spend $100 for camp.

It is no coincidence that the American Camp Association calls summer camp counselors Youth Development Specialists. We use that term here. It fits, because it is what we do. And it fits because it speaks to how they as now-and-future leaders think.

Which is to say, they think about others.