This February 18-20 we hosted our first ever Young Adult Retreat here at Camp Challenge. The weekend was filled with fellowship, Bible Study, and of course Oreo Bomb! Mandy Baldwin led our Young Adult campers through Psalm 23 to discover what that scripture says about God’s Character and our ability to care for our souls. Thank you to everyone who made this weekend a success. We are already looking forward to our next Young Adult Retreat!
You are a piece of the Camp Challenge puzzle!
In my two years of working at Camp Challenge, I have noticed a few things that we have to have if we want to have a successful week at camp. The basics include well-maintained cabins for campers to stay in, good food, fun activities to engage the campers, and of course, an excellent environment for the campers to grow spiritually. These things are absolutely essential to the structure of our camp week. However, there is an important piece of the puzzle that we need to make sure all of these essentials are taken care of: staff and volunteers!
We cannot run successfully without the help of the local church body. We cannot run successfully without you! We are starting to recruit staff and volunteers for this summer, and we need a variety of volunteers. There is a place for everyone to serve at Camp Challenge, so read along to see how you can help!
Every week we need volunteers to help with registration on check-in days; this is a 4-5 hour time commitment. You would be helping get campers checked into camp and connected with their counselor.
We also need week-long volunteers. We need a full kitchen staff to help feed our hungry campers with all of our camps. In this position, you will work with our Food Service Manager, Jay. He plans the meals, and you would be there to help him prep and serve the food! It’s hard work, but it is a lot of fun; Jay always keeps things interesting in the kitchen! We also need a week-long volunteer to be our camp nurse. We look for people who have some level of health training who can help distribute daily medication and assist campers as needed. In addition to these volunteers, we also need specifically worship leaders who can come and lead worship for our camps! We have a brand new outdoor worship center, and we need gifted worship leaders to come help fill it with praise!
The last week-long volunteer position is perhaps the most important. We need counselors! We need adults who are passionate about the Lord to help guide and mentor our students. We are looking for spiritually mature adults, maybe parents or grandparents, that can come alongside our campers and younger volunteers and provide a perspective that they might not get in their everyday life. These campers need to see someone who has experience following Christ in the ups and downs of life and has seen more of this world than they have. Your worldview is valuable, and our campers need it! Please consider taking some time out of your summer and sharing what God has taught you to the younger generation. We need you!
And last but not least, we are also hiring full-time summer staff! We are looking for spiritually mature young adults who have a passion for outdoor ministry!
All of these positions come with training! There is a free Staff and Volunteer Retreat here at camp May 13-14 that will provide training and an opportunity to get to know the other staff and volunteers before you arrive here for the week!
If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up as soon as possible at www.gocampchallenge.com/jobs and apply online today! You can also email me with any questions at emily@gocampchallenge.com.
We truly couldn’t do it without you! I look forward to seeing many of you here this summer!
-Emily
Greetings from Camp Challenge! This past year was a very good year as we started to recover from the impact covid had on our operations. We are so much looking forward to 2022 and returning to pre-pandemic camper numbers and facility usage. In 2021 we had 446 campers and we are thankful. We also compare that number to 2019 when we had 564 campers. We have some work to do in order to get back to that number.
The big addition to the camp in 2021 was the outdoor worship center. It is a simple 60’ X 100’ building but the impact it had on the 2021 camping season was huge. The outdoor worship center gave us a space to be outside in an uncrowded area and the view from the worship center is amazing. The outdoor worship center will be a great space for worship and other activities for years to come.
I would also like to let you know about some challenges we are facing. Because camper numbers are down our registration revenue is also down. Our facility rental revenue has not returned to 2019 levels either. Those two things are having a big impact on our operating revenue. At the same time, we are feeling the effects of increased prices on just about everything we purchase. Food prices, building material prices, and especially utility prices are all having an impact on our outflow of money. What we really need are individuals and families that agree that Camp Challenge is a great place to experience God through His creation. We need those that have experienced growth and have met Jesus at Camp Challenge. If you consider yourself included in one of those categories I would ask you to financially support the camp on a monthly basis. We have a “fire circle” opportunity where individuals and families can sign up to donate monthly to the camp. Your donation of $25, $50, $100, or really any amount, makes a difference to Camp Challenge. Please go to gocampchallenge.com/give to start giving monthly today!
– Brian