This past Friday I picked up my Grandson Shawn from a week long sleep over camp up in Manchester, Maryland. When Shawn’s Dad Shea gave me directions to the camp, he noted “It’s way up in the woods. You’ll think you’re in Blair Witch country.”
Shea wasn’t exaggerating any either as the River Valley Ranch Camp was located way up in the woods of Northern Maryland just south of the Pennsylvania line.
After retrieving him, we asked Shawn how it went. His first statements about what the camp experience was like had to do with the fact that it was a Christian Based Camp. “We prayed a lot and talked every night in groups about our life experiences that were tough to get thru.” I asked him how he managed with all that to which Shawn noted “It was ok, but I just wasn’t expecting all that religion talk at a camp.”
I thought to follow up and ask him what life experiences he relayed but I held off doing so because I didn’t want to ask him too much about it. From past experiences I have learned that when kids want to talk, they will, but when you press them to do so they won’t.
Shawn did discuss one of his co-camper’s story about being held hostage at gunpoint in some bizarre story that sounded like a terrorist-related event. My first reaction to the story was that the kid may have had an active imagination and made it up. However, again I kept quiet and let Shawn continue to tell us how his week went. Even with all the religious talk, it seemed that he enjoyed it and got alot out of it.
Here is a video of what it was like:
