My 11 -year-old twins’ first year at overnight church camp

Yesterday I sent my twins, 11, off to junior high church camp with Rolling Hills Community Church. They are incoming 6th graders and this is the first over night church camp they have gone to. I so wanted to be there as a leader but I am speaking at a writers conference this week, and I was a bit nervous sending them off for some reason. My boys are outgoing and make friends easily but I was still apprehensive. Will they feel a sense of belonging, will they make new friends, will they find friends they can pal around with, will they grow closer to God, will they feel comfortable, will they like it?

The leaders of the junior high are all so nice and they really have been encouraging about having my boys go and I am so happy about that. The twins got involved in the junior high program right away this summer going to the weekly Sunday night Bible study Roots and the movie nights and Guts, the outreach.

And, they really wanted to go to camp, so much so that they began earning money to go. All summer, doing chores for me. That excitement was really sweet to watch. Everyday, Wesley would say how much money I owed him for the chores he did the day before and he’d ask, what can I do today to earn money and he set up a canning jar in his bedroom, the quart wide mouthed kind and he put his money in there and he counted it every day and it was so cute and so innocent.

Maybe that is why it was so hard to let them go, I wanted to be a part of it, to see them participate. I am the kind of mom that likes to be a part of every part of my children’s lives and I hate to miss anything, but with a family of 7 it is hard to do it all, plus I work from home. The church set up a blog for parents to check out how things are going and I saw that blog today-what fun! it helped me feel connected and a part of the camp, though miles away.

Here is the website:
www.678live.wordpress.com

for more photographs see http://writermommusings.blogspot.com/2009/08/sending-kids-off-to-over-night-church.html