Behind the Scenes
I’ve been going to camp since I was 5 years old. Portage Lake is hands down the most important and significant place in my life to date. I’ve been lucky enough to come back every summer since I was little and I’ve even been on staff for the past several years which makes camp even more of an important place to me. It’s the kind of significance that I can’t really explain, but when I try to tell people about camp, I always end up just saying, “It’s something you just have to experience for yourself.”
Last summer I was hired to be the Office Assistant and this summer I am doing that exact same job. One of my favorite things about being in the office is that it is my job to go through all of the Kids Camp evaluations after each camp and tally and record comments to keep in mind so that we can always be working on making camp even more of a significant place to everyone who comes here.
It’s such an amazing privilege to be able to see how God works in all of these kid’s lives and sometimes reading kid’s comments brings me to tears (happy tears of course) because there are just so many things that God is doing and it is always a reminder that God is SO good.
Year after year, Senior High camp is one of the highlights of the year for staff and campers alike, and this year was no different. God is alive here at camp and when we are worshipping in chapel, no one can say any different. It is just so blatantly obvious.
One comment that I saw on a lot of the evals was very simple. They were answering the question, “What is something that you learned about yourself this week?” Several people wrote, “I am loved.” How cool is it that my co-workers, who happen to be my closest friends, have the opportunity to show God’s love to so many people for our job?? Our daily expectation is to make sure that campers are safe, are cared for, and know that they are loved by us and more importantly their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I can’t think of a better job. A lot of these comments had other things before or after them including, “I’ve never felt loved before and this week I know that I was.” or “God loves me no matter what and I am so thankful for that.”
Another thing we are blessed with on staff are amazing counselors. Sometimes I just wish I could be younger so I could have the counselors that we have this summer! They are absolutely incredible and the kids think it too.
“Even though my counselor was a new counselor this year, he demonstrated an amazing ability to help me with my relationship with Christ and I thank this camp for hiring such 
dedicated staff.”
“It was my counselor’s first time and he did a phenomenal job, I will never forget this year.”
“This year was the most connecting week, I made new friends and had a blast with all these loving campers and staff, I don’t want to leave but I know I will use the things God and SGT has taught me. I honestly don’t know what I would do without camp. Thank you so much!”
Camp is good. God is good. I can’t wait to see what else God is doing in kid’s lives the rest of the summer! What a blessing it is to be part of such an amazing ministry.
-Melissa Bezara, Office/Nurse’s Assistant
