Camp Utibaca

First, I must apologize for not posting in so long, here I have been back from Utah for almost a week and I have not yet posted. However, as they say, better late than never. So, in that spirit, I now shall here record a smattering of the events that occurred over the course of this summer at camp Utibaca (Utah Independent Baptist Camp). Realizing that I cannot retell my entire summer camp experience now, I will only go over the first segment of my trip. I hope to continue this story in a later post; therefore I have entitled this post Camp Utibaca pt1.
I departed for Utah on the 20th of June. Dad took me to the airport early in the morning and stuck around to ensure that everything went smoothly. This was a good idea because as it turns out, for some reason or another, my name was on the terrorist watch list. This made getting through safety a bit more of a hassle but lead to quite a few laughs later on. My flight left (thankfully with me on it) and I arrived in Utah a little earlier than expected. My ride picked me up and we had a great time seeing the sights in Provo for most of the day. When we returned to his apartment with his wife and his sister, we had a wonderful and greatly appreciated meal of barbequed hamburgers. I slept well that night, but I woke up too early. Because of the time change I woke up at 6:00 because it felt like 8:00. I occupied myself around the apartment for an hour or so, and then took a lovely walk around the small town of Delta. However when I returned, I found that I was locked out. I simply went around back to the deck and rested there until my host returned from his job at one of the many boys’ homes in that state.
The drive up to camp was enjoyable; there was great scenery, great music, and great conversation. I will say here that Utah and the American west in general looks like a completely different world. The mountains rise up far on the horizon and in front of them stretches miles and miles of dry sand and shrubs. The sky is perfectly blue, with only one or two clouds to be seen. Everything is extremely dry causing the vast majority of the landscape to be brown. It is very beautiful country.
When we arrived at the camp, those who had been on staff before were busy reviving old relationships and those who hadn’t were busy starting new ones. I believe I was the only one there who didn’t know anyone, but not for long. I was quickly involved in conversation and making friends with many new people. After the rest of the staff arrived we had staff orientation and played a few “get to know me” games. Then we headed out to the game field. One other very noticeable aspect of the camp is that the air there is very thin (it is after all 8000 feet above sea level). This led to a measurable deal of panting, taking-of-breaks, and pain.
The next few days were a blur. We immediately started in moving rocks, cleaning cabins, painting towers, scrubbing showers, sawing logs, building stairs, washing troughs, picking up trash, arranging tables, spreading mulch, operating on engines, digging holes, pouring concrete, construction outhouses, organizing equipment, and the list goes on. We did a lot of work during staff training week, and we all grew closer to each other as a staff and closer to God as Christians. There were three chapel meetings every day, every one more challenging than the previous. There was also much time given for personal devotions in the morning and fellowship in the afternoon. It was wonderful to talk to other Christians about what we were learning in Chapel and our personal devotions. The fellowship up at camp was marvelously rich. Without the distractions of the world around, everyone was very focused on what was truly important.
Now, all this does not mean that we didn’t have fun too, not at ALL! There were many hours spent sitting around, telling jokes or playing games. I finally learned the “cup game” (man, that’s a blast!) and I definitely picked up a more “random” sense of humor. Overall, staff training week was a wonderful!
That’s all I have time for now. I will post later.