Guest Post written by Jonah Pit, Mission Staff for Eastern Ottawa Young Life
This summer I was blessed to be able to take 8 graduated seniors to Castaway Club to serve on work crew for a week.
Over their high school career, this group has been to multiple winter weekends, a few to summer camp, and most on a discipleship backpacking trip in the Grand Tetons. Last fall they expressed interest in a summer trip for 2024 and my goal was to have them serve others and experience being at a summer camp. I reached out to Deb Kohler at Castaway in December about the idea of coming to serve for a week and she was very open to it but we had to figure out exactly which week would be best given camp numbers and the housing situation at Castaway. Deb and I landed on a camp week and it was my responsibility to plan the travel and coordinate the costs for my group.
If other groups were to plan a trip like this in the future, I would highly recommend they take time for fun activities on both ends of the trip.
We were driving from Grand Rapids, Michigan which meant we had to stay overnight on the way there and back. We stayed in Minneapolis both times and the night before camp we did golf simulators, dinner, and hungout in the hotel. This gave us time to be together before serving but also to talk about the week, set expectations, and pray for the campers, leaders, and all people serving at camp. On the way home we went to the Mall of America, a Minnesota Twins game, and went on a tour of the Minnesota Vikings stadium. Depending on where areas are coming from, these were great activities to celebrate a week of hard work and service to camp.
At camp, our job for the week was to serve on the outdoor crew. We worked closely with Aaron, who is amazing, and completed different projects each day. Some of our projects included:
● Cleared out and cleaned up the beach by the doctors house
● Trimmed all of the bushes along the fence line at the road
● Completed a lot of mowing that hadn’t been done due to lack of
volunteers
● Complete update of the wiffle ball field including edging, laying down
new dirt, and cleaning up the field
● Carpet in two camper rooms were needing to be torn out so we took
down all of the bunk beds, moved them out, and then re-built them
when the new carpet was in
● Helped with camper arrival and night activities
Some of the feedback I received during the week included:
● “Your group is the hardest working group I have had serve”
● “We are so thankful you are here and helping serve. Your group is a huge
help this week”
● “I want to connect with you this fall to see how we can make a week long
trip like this possible for more groups”
● “ It will not be the same without your group here. They brought energy and
a sense of excitement to the work crew”
● “Can you bring back a group like this every year?!”
I share these quotes not out of arrogance, but with how proud I am of how hard the guys worked and that they took this week of service seriously. I do believe that week long work crew opportunities could be a huge benefit to our camps and a huge benefit to local areas. This is what I would love to discuss more if given the opportunity.
At camp we were able to have our own room which was great because it gave us our own space, allowed us to have more in-depth conversations, and stick to a schedule. We went through the same Bible studies & devotions as the summer staff, but decided to have our own small group time every night. The SS coordinator and I discussed whether it would be best for us to join in on their group time or do ours separately and we agreed that keeping the groups separate would be the best plan, and I would recommend that for any group doing this in the future. The 8 guys all have strong faith but I believe this trip gave them an opportunity to put it into action, dive deeper into the Word, experience what it is like to serve others, and grow closer as a group.
This is just a quick snapshot of the week and I would love to discuss this further with whoever would be open to it. It was a great week and an opportunity I think we should look into more with our YL areas.
