It’s been five years since we last hosted Hope Camp in Pine Point.
What a joy to be back!
And what made it even better this past week was seeing so many former Hope Campers bring their own kids to camp. Some shared how much fun they had at camp when they were kids. (We always hoped you were having as much fun as we were!) Some shared how much they have missed camp. (So have we!) After all — just as we learned this week at Hope Camp and heard so many times from the community — we are all family. It’s good to be together.
Thanks to Hope Church for assembling a team of Hope Students and being so willing to listen, learn and love. Miigwech to Pine Point School for squeezing us into your calendar and beautiful building. And chi miigwech to the Pine Point Community Council for all your support.
Let’s do it again next summer!
Alaina Herzog of Hope Students shares her experience:
Eleven hours.
The ride from Springfield, Illinois, to Pine Point, Minnesota, was eleven hours.
I wasn’t prepared for the trip being that long as the most I had ridden in the church van previously was six hours. Plus, so many other things worried me about the trip. I only knew surface-level things about the people I was serving alongside. In addition to that, I had no clue how to teach kids. Sure, I served in preschool at my church for a few years, but this seemed like a whole new arena.
And, oh, it was. Once the journey was over, I finally saw what the reservation looked like. Picking up kids on the first day of Hope Camp, some of the housing looked beautiful. Some of the housing was covered in graffiti.
The kids coming out of those houses were so precious. They were shy at first, but as the week went by, they almost began to act like our younger siblings. I noticed the hard circumstances some of the kids came from, and all I wanted to do was help these kids find joy in Jesus.
I guess playing an evil banana in a skit can do the trick! Every morning of Hope Camp, we sang songs and then performed a skit for the kids, teaching them about Creator’s promises, and I got the grand honor of playing Evil Banana – a mischievous banana who somehow lives among humans, gets redeemed by Jesus and is renamed later as Banana Buddy. Just because I was wearing a banana costume, I could cause the children to laugh by sharing a silly side of myself I normally hide away.
While being a banana, I also was the craft station instructor. Helping the kids construct the crafts every day was surprisingly fun to me since my experience in such things was lacking. Seeing how the kids expressed their personalities through creativity inspired me a lot.
I hope I can go again this summer to see what God has next for my Pine Point family!
