Our First Homeschool Camp

A Church of Christ Homeschool Camp.  We were initially very excited to find this camp.  But for whatever reason as time went on, Hubby and I started to have some reservations about the camp.  We were going in to an unknown and didn't know what to expect.  We decided about a week before we left that we needed to have a more positive attitude about going, but we still weren't super excited about it.  We were going for the kids and that was about it.

Boy were we wrong!  It didn't take more than a few hours at the camp to realize that not only were our kids going to have a great week, but we were going to be blessed as well.

First, everyone was unbelievably friendly.  I don't have a problem meeting new people, but it is helpful when you go in to a new place and every single person you see introduces themselves and has a genuine interest in meeting you.  There were a lot of people who knew each other from previous camps, but also a lot of new people.  We met a lot of people that we are going to enjoy staying in contact with, even though we don't live close to each other.

The facilities were fantastic.   Hubby did have to stay in a different cabin even though it was a family camp.  But we knew that going in.  However, the girls and I were able to stay in a cabin with our friends from Houston.  We were also very close to the bathroom.  That was a huge deal!  They did that for us since we had two little kids.  I'm going to beg each year to be that close to the bathroom.  It made my life a million times easier since I was completely in charge of bathroom/shower duty for all four girls.  And we had heat/ac in the cabins as well.  Good thing since the first night got down to freezing!

The only picture I took all week!

The teenagers who were there were exactly the role models we want for our girls.  I am fully aware that no child is perfect, but Hubby and I were extremely impressed with the older kids who were at this camp.  We sat behind a couple rows of them in the worship services and they were actively engaged in singing, praying, and taking notes during the lessons.  Hubby overheard a couple of girls saying that even though they hadn't actually studied for the Bible Bowl activities that they might as well do it since they were there.  These are the kind of girls that we want our girls to look up to.  And eventually these are the young men we want our daughters to look to for future mates.  It was refreshing to be reminded that all hope is not lost for the future generations!

There was a time for the moms to get together to encourage one another.  Not only was I encouraged talking to other homeschool Moms, I found out some great resources for our school.  I love talking with other homeschool Moms.  They have a wealth of information just waiting to be tapped.  Hopefully I was also able to encourage and help some of the other Moms as well.

The worship.  I know this idea is foreign to people who aren't a part of the Church of Christ, and even a lot of people who grew up in the church disagree with me, but acapella music is awesome.  Give me 200 Christians sitting shoulder to shoulder singing with just their voices instead of having a praise band.  Every.  Time.  I got chills the first time we sang together.  I had pretty much lost my voice by the end of the camp, but it didn't matter because you couldn't really hear yourself singing anyway.  They recorded the singing this year and we are really looking forward to getting the CD.  Listening to it will help remind us of how awesome the worship was.

All of those things were definite pluses of the camp.  But if I had to choose what the best thing about the camp was, I would say that it was being able to be completely open with everyone who was there.  Because when you homeschool, and you're the only one who homeschools in your congregation, you have to be on guard to make sure that you don't offend those who don't homeschool.  I am in no way ashamed that we homeschool, but there are a lot of people that when I say, "We homeschool" they hear, "We homeschool and think that the public schools are evil and that if your children attend public school we think you are terrible parents."  Hubby and I don't feel that way.  We don't judge people for the decisions they make for their children.  But when we walk in to a new congregation who doesn't know us, they don't know that about us.  And honestly, most of them don't bother to find out more about why we homeschool so they continue with their pre-conceived ideas about us and our thoughts on homeschooling.  Which means that we have to watch what we say about homeschooling so that we don't offend anyone.

On the flip side, when we are with people in our homeschool group, I don't talk about church stuff.  We're a part of the homeschool groups for social reasons, not to talk religion.  So when we're with other homeschoolers we have to be on guard about not saying something that might cause conflict with others. 

At the camp we were there with other Church of Christ homeschoolers.  Our two worlds were finally combined and we didn't have to think about everything we said.  No one was judging us for homeschooling and no one was judging us for our religious beliefs.  We could be completely open with everyone we talked to without fear of offending them.  That was more freeing than I ever thought it would be.

We are definitely making plans to go back next year and as many years as we possibly can.  I can already tell this is going to be our new camp to look forward to every year.