"Letting go is a repetitive theme at camp. You receive a group on Sunday and wave goodbye on Friday.  The surfaces of the girls sometimes seem barely scratched, but somehow a unity emerges. Through silly games, 5 minute life stories and discussions about love over ice cream, personalities start to emerge. The person unfolds, leaving their shell and melding into one another as a distinct group.  Then on friday morning, when talking with each other has become the most natural thing in the world, suitcases are loaded into cars and we say goodbye. Sunday we do it all over again."
      The above were some scribbles I took down in the back of lecture about a month ago. I've had a total of   18 small groups, 3 staff teams, and an indeterminable amount of goodbyes. At times it seems impossible to partake in such a rapid exchange of lives. God brought us together- whether staff to student or staff to each other- for the purpose of the Gospel. C.S. Lewis speaks of us as eternal souls, pushing one another to the glories of Heaven or the depths of Hell. We are eternal creatures with eternal impact.
      The thought of eternal impact seems almost laughable as I perform some of the same tasks for the umpteenth time.  Only when I consider it as an action for the furtherance of the Gospel do I start to glimpse the eternalness of it.  Take, for instance, a cafeteria lunch with a student. Cafeteria lunches hold no special significance, and neither do the people partaking of them. Ordinary people sharing a mundane meal.  However, in light of the fact that we truly are immortal souls, this lunch is one shared between 2 eternal beings pushing each other towards glory. Nothing about that is laughable, because it is the Gospel.
      Francis Schaeffer writes, "...man projects the wonder of his personality- his thoughts, his emotions, and the determinations of his will- into a historic, space-time world through the use of his body, and especially his hands." Last night, Dell Cook expressed a similar thought as he charged the students to manifest in their flesh  the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Gospel. In other words, live the Gospel. Walking to lecture, eating lunch, organizing lists, filling schedules-  as Dell says- "Every moment is an opportunity to teach how to love."  What I do at camp, what the staff and directors and faculty do, is live the Gospel in front of students. Yes, we speak it with our tongues, but we also let it come from our fingertips as a frisbee is tossed or hair is braided.  They are experiencing Christ's love through us, and, hopefully, being pushed further into eternal glory.
      There are days when camp is hard. Days when you cry more than once. Last night I gave one of the faculty kids, Lauren, her good-bye hug. I reminded her of something I told her at the end of last summer, that  these tears only come because of the incredible friendships that have been forged. And I told her never, ever, to think that the cost of painful goodbyes was greater than the gift of these relationships. This morning on the way to staff meeting, I realized that I had the privilege of saying goodbye to Lauren 3 times. I've made memories with the Cook family, and said goodbyes, 3 times over. I can't ever ask for more than that. I'm crying again as I write this because it has become so clear to me over the past few weeks how our lives need to be be lived for the sake of the Gospel. How our relationships and interactions and steps need to be driven by God's glory. How wet goodbyes are only reminders of adventures further up and further in.