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Reflections on the Seven Foundations for Camp & Retreat Ministries 

Foundation 1: "Provide Sacred Places Apart"

A Perspective from Suttle Lake Camp

by Jen Petke, Director of Suttle Lake Camp

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.   - John Muir

 
"The mountains are calling and I must go." John Muir knew the powerful lessons accessible in finding a sacred place apart, in seeking quiet, a break from the daily routine, and in opening oneself to the Holy. There is the gift of deeper understanding and a centering peace to be had. Once experienced, it has a strong pull on one's heart.
 
Our world is longing for places and times apart, but they are often difficult to find at home amidst the bustle of daily living, so it is a true gift to offer holy ground.  At Suttle Lake Camp we see ourselves as "a place a part to be together."  We seek to create a space where the stress of everyday living is left behind, a new rhythm can be found, and one can open themselves to God's spirit either in time alone for reflection or by immersing oneself in the experience and intention of being in community.  The beauty of nature amplifies the sacredness of this experience and invites all to seek the Creator.
 
I take delight in watching guests first arrive, observing as they often step out of their car and take a deep breath.  Breathing in the scent of pine and clean mountain air.  I pray that the camp experience will be filled with opportunities to breathe, to take in the God's renewing presence.  I pray that each guest may find joy in quiet times filled with peace, as well as the strength and comfort of a loving community.   I pray that these experiences sustain and empower each guest as they return home with a deeper connection to the sacred. 
 
The mountains are calling.  Will you go?


Check out the Employment Opportunities at Camp!

Resident Counselor - Camp Latgawa - Camp Magruder -  Suttle Lake Camp (Team works at all three sites!)

An opportunity to counsel on a weekly basis at three of our beautiful sites: Magruder, Suttle Lake, and Latgawa. This is also a great chance for younger counselors to gain valuable experience while seeking to someday work on paid summer staff. Our Counselor Training Week is scheduled for at Camp Magruder. Ages 16

Resource Staff - Camp Latgawa

Support the camping ministry of Camp Latgawa by providing Christian hospitality through helping prepare meals and assisting with camp activities, including basic maintenance, housekeeping, program areas, and office tasks.

Resource Staff - Camp Magruder

Activity leaders from early June through early September, inviting summer campers and retreat guests to grow in their faith with hospitality, awesome activities, meaningful spiritual experiences, or helping maintain the camp. Dates of Employment: June 8 through September 4

Summer Staff - Suttle Lake Camp

Suttle Lake Camp is now accepting applications for the 2018 summer season for the following positions: lead cook, kitchen assistant, resource staff (preference given to certified lifeguards).


Christian Camp and Conference Association Article:

"Rx for 'The Overprotected Kid': Good-Old Fashioned Camp."

by Gregg Hunter

Gregg is the President/CEO of Christian Camp and Conference Association (of which, Camp and Retreat Ministries is a member), an organization that serves more than 800 camps across the U.S. who welcome almost six million campers and guests a year. Hunter went to summer camp as a 17-year-old because of the kindness of a woman in his hometown who paid his way.?

Cave exploration offered at Suttle Lake Camp

I was intrigued by the recent Atlantic Monthly article “The Overprotected Kid” warning of a lack of independent, creative play for today’s children, and hailing the emergence of “adventure playgrounds.” I was hardly surprised when it provoked a strong response and went viral.

But I was also struck by how long this problem has been in the making. As far back as 1978, in a book provocatively titled Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander gave one of the most eloquent and prescient warnings ever ignored by the American public.

Our environment no longer grows on its own, by its own design, in its own time. The environment in which we live has been totally reconstructed solely by human intentions and creation. We find ourselves living inside a kind of nationwide room. We look around and see only our own creations. We go through life believing we are experiencing the world when actually our experiences are confined within entirely human conceptions. Our world has been thought up… We ask the child to understand nature and care about it, to know the difference between what humans create and what the planet does, but how can the child know these things? The child lives with us in a room inside a room inside another room.

Thirty-five years later, Mander’s “room inside a room inside another room” is a reality with consequences. A 2006 book entitled Last Child in the Woods wrote of modern children suffering from “nature-deficit disorder”––an actual trend involving the far-reaching effects our culture’s retreat into our own creations and away from natural contact has on us, especially on our youth. It speaks of Bill McKibben’s term, “The End of Nature,” not as a doomsday scenario but, in our children’s lives, a practical reality.

Click here to download the article in its entirety and to see camp-as-solution, offered by Hunter.


UPCOMING EVENTS

Title Dates
Magruder Choir Camp 2/16/2018 - 2/19/2018
Winter Youth Retreat II (Suttle Lake) 2/17/2018 - 2/19/2018
Leadership & Counselor Training (Magruder)  4/6/2018 - 4/8/2018
Confirmation Retreat (Suttle Lake) 4/20/2018 - 4/22/2018
Spring Quilts, Craft & More Weekend (Suttle Lake)  4/26/2018 - 4/29/2018
 

View All Events 


 

 

Go Camping E-News is a publication of Camp and Retreat Ministries, a collaboration of the OR-ID Conference of the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon.

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