FredCamp
This is an excerpt from the sermon on August 19th by Larry Lenow. It concerns a Youth Workcamp in the Fredericksburg area called FredCamp. Larry’s comments capture the essence of FredCamp so beautifully.
Earlier this summer, Won and I dropped in and paid a visit on FredCamp. Now as most of you know, FredCamp is one of our youth mission opportunities in the summer. It’s the local one. The kids go and make their base camp at Fredericksburg Christian Academy and then go out and repair homes of the needy in the area. And so we popped in late in the week around dinner time. Dinner time is a great time to go visit because the work teams have come back, they’ve had a chance to clean up, they’re having dinner, it’s a wonderful time. So we dropped in briefly, there were lots of smiles, there were lots of hugs. Clearly the crew was having a good week.
And as we were getting ready to start heading out, I went around a corner and suddenly, Hunter Steadman walked out. He was filthy. Completely wet, drenched in sweat. And he had a tired dog look on his face. His work crew had worked late at the house that they were working on. And he had literally just walked into the building. And he came up to me and he said “I would give you a hug but I haven’t showered yet.” And I said “oh, that doesn’t matter.” Big mistake, very big mistake.
But then I said “so how’s your week”, and it was like flipping a switch. Suddenly it all came gushing out in great detail what they were doing on this house that they were repairing and how they were coping with the heat (this was in the middle of one of the terrible heat waves we had in the summer) and how fantastic the speaker was at the program in the evening and then what was going on at the camp...which we will not speak of ever.
And as he was going on and on and on, I thought to myself, you’re filthy you’re wet you’re dead tired...you have no right to be so euphoric.
Many of our FUMC youth and adults have attended FredCamp over the years. On the surface, it's a mission opportunity for service in the Fredericksburg area. But at its core, it goes much, much deeper. Our youth and adults are profoundly changed by this experience, and others like it at FUMC. It's one of the many ways our programs guide our Youth in their walk with Christ.