My Home Away From Home
by Camille Baba (Jun. ’01)
The phrase "camp is my home away from home" is a phrase I have heard many times. Well, after so many years of hearing about camp, I thought I should try it out myself to see why so many people are making such a big deal about it. The camp I'm referring to is not your ordinary summer camp. It's something much, much more!
For twelve days out of the year, kids from all over the country and even the world, come to a place to find more than 200 kids that are roughly the same ages who eat, sleep, pray, learn and play together. In my opinion, the best part about all of this is that everyone shares the same faith. I think that's pretty cool!
The Antiochian Village Camp takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania. There are four sessions (each lasting twelve days) in the months of June, July and August. For the past few years, including this year, the Village has been overflowing with kids. If you're one of those people who are on the waiting list to go or on the list of campers who have not gone, then you must know what I mean. If God wills it to be, there will be more Orthodox camps for campers to go to rather than just the Antiochian Village. I don't mean to take anything away from the Village by saying that; I think it's a wonderful place. I just think we should have more than just one amazing place so that more campers can share that same wonderful experience.
Well, what is camp about? This camp is about a place isolated from the world we live in today. I believe that the Village is a place that is very peaceful. The peace that I’m talking about though is probably quite different from what you might think. Imagine taking a ten-hour road trip when someone finally turns off the radio in the ninth hour. That's a lot of noise to be listening to for a long time! If I had to choose one word to describe the feeling, I'd have to say relief. I think relief is a good word because sometimes we get caught up with what this society has to offer us. We all need a place to feel relaxed and free from what we do on a daily basis. Somewhere we can still have a good time but without all the sin that comes with it. I'm guilty of it myself if not the most guilty. I LOVE to do things like eat out and watch the latest movies, and when I don't have to wake up for school, I especially LOVE to sleep in. Let me watch what I say because I don't think that going to the movies or eating out is bad. So why should I go to a camp, especially when I don't get to sleep in? My best guess would be to take a break away from a break. My other guess would be to make new friends and to see old friends as well.
Campers come for many different reasons. Some will tell you that camp is a place where they can be themselves. There are people who go to camp who will tell you while they are at home they have this “certain type of friends” and while they're at camp, they have another “certain type of friends.” I can see how that happens, and I'm sure many of you can relate to this even if you've never been to camp. We all have friends from school and we also have friends from church so it's almost the same idea. I think the main difference would be that the friends you make at camp won't live in the same town that you live in.
Some kids come for more specific reasons, such as going on the overnight or maybe even the challenge/ropes course. To me, the overnight program is a very special one. I like to call this event a "retreat from a retreat." It's a really great time to get to know the people you live with for the two weeks you're there. Some of my greatest experiences at camp have been on the overnight. I never have to build a fire. Seriously, when it gets cold in my home, I walk to the thermostat and turn the heat on, and when it comes time to eat, except for when I wait for my mom to tell me that dinner's ready, I walk to the kitchen to prepare a meal and start cooking over a heated stove. I don't go searching for wood to build a fire and neither do I gather leaves to help start the fire. I think it's so much fun to do all these things because it's not every day that a group of twenty people go out in the woods to gather wood and cook dinner they later have to eat. The challenge/ropes course can be lots of fun, too! It all depends on what you make of it, though. There are many different elements that you could do; it's not all just a bunch of ropes flying across the air, so don't be intimidated. However, there are some high elements on the course. They like to call it "challenge by choice" because if you don't feel up to challenging yourself to walk across a wire 50 feet in the air, then you choose not to do so which is perfectly fine. By the way, you couldn't fall off even if you tried.
Another reason campers go to camp may be that their parents force them to go. I like this reason! These campers are the coolest because they realize what they would have missed by the end of their time at camp. They become very thankful to their parents who forced them to go. I have an older cousin who's 27, and he has never been to camp. His parents even tried forcing him, but he still managed to do what he could not to go. If you ask him today, he will tell you that one of his regrets is that he never went to camp.
On a different note, some will come to build their spirituality and some to even start a spiritual life they've never had before. I came for that reason. I hardly ever went to church and I had absolutely no prayer life. There were times when I'd go to church, but that was normally for Christmas and Easter. I didn't think that camp was going to guarantee me a ticket to Heaven; but through going to camp and going to church more, I've somewhat learned what it takes to get there. The first time I ever went to camp was during the College Conference and that was an extremely enlightening experience (which I encourage all of you to attend when you start college).
I've been fortunate to go to camp these past couple of summers and during the winter to the College Conference. If you ever get the chance to go, don't even think twice about it. GO! If I could go back in time, I would make sure that two weeks out of all my summers were spent at camp. I'm sure they would have been weeks well spent. If you hear people at home who say "camp is my home away from home," I think it's safe to say that I'm one of them. Hopefully, there will be more people who can say the same.