As I walked through the parking lot into our office this morning the smell of bacon and eggs was strong enough to make the strongest diet crash. 

I took a deep, long breath to enjoy the scent and my mind immediately went back to the days of summer camp.

From the age of 8-years-old, all of the way through my high school and some of my college years (as a counselor), I attended Living Waters Baptist Youth Camp in Hayden. The last week of July, every summer, we would load up our church van (or any vehicles we could find) with overly excited kids and head out for our week-long adventure.

This camp wasn’t like other summer camps. The rules were strict and many people didn’t know how to take them. The girls and boys had to wear shorts/culottes that went down to their knees, dresses on the dress-up night, no radios, no televisions, no phones… no contact with the outside world. It was just you, the counselors, other campers and God. Doesn’t really sound like it would be enticing to today’s society. But we were kids and we knew how much fun awaited us when we turned down that dirt road.

Now, back to the smells of breakfast from this morning… One of the biggest differences between this camp and any other camp I had ever heard of was the food. Miss Debbie would prepare made-from-scratch bread every week. And every breakfast consisted of bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, eggs and gravy. It was so good you would dream about the food throughout the year. For dinner each night Miss Debbie would have homemade deliciousness including barbecue, fried chicken and taco salads. My mouth waters just thinking about it. 

One of the worse parts about summer camp was the wake up call. We had to get up early in the morning to have morning prayer and to pledge to the flag. It felt like we were getting up at 3 a.m. I think in reality it was more like 6:30 a.m. But when you are a kid on summer break it was pure torture. 

But even worse than the wake up calls was the shower situation. The plumbing at the camp, back 25 years ago, was a little sketchy. And with no air conditioning in the Alabama summer sun, we needed those showers. One year the older girls figured out that when you spit your toothpaste into the sink, it would come out in the shower floor. So you can imagine what we would do to the poor girls who were showering at the same time we were brushing our teeth. I feel like I need to stop right now and apologize to the director, Uncle Mike, for some of the hilarious, but awful things I did at summer camp. But enough about that.

We always played fun games and laughed the whole week through. But the absolute best part of summer camp was the nightly services. We had church services every night of summer camp and although we were kids and you’d think we would be dreading it, we actually looked forward to these services. They lasted for hours sometimes, but it was because we were being changed from the inside out. 

I can remember watching as my friends and family members wept with each other, praying with one another and believing for miracles. We saw some amazing things happen during summer camp but the most amazing moments happened in the altars, usually on Thursday nights. We spent all week having fun and getting to know each other, but we all knew that Thursday night was when the rubber met the road. We made life-changing decisions in those altars and in those metal folding chairs, even at those early ages.

I recently paid a visit to the camp for a ladies meeting they do at the first of October every year. I try my best to make it, if for nothing more than having all of those memories rush back to my mind. 

I?wouldn’t trade anything for those weeks that we spent at summer camp. We grew up a lot those weeks and we learned more those weeks than we did at any other time in the summer. 

People were pouring their time and their hearts into a bunch of wild, smelly kids and it paid off. Most of the kids that went to summer camp with us turned out to be really great adults. I can’t help but to think that the influences that they got at camp helped to make them the people they are today.