Summer Camp “Firsts”
I love summer camp ministry! A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to be the director of one of our camps for five years. I believe those were the most meaningful years of my ministry journey.
It is hard to explain the dynamics that take place when our young people come together in a camp setting. For many campers, it is their first experience away from home. For many, it will also be the first opportunity for them to ride a horse, or to ski behind a boat. Most importantly, for many, it will be the first time they will have been invited to make Jesus their personal Savior and become a disciple of His.
Research shows that camp is the number one place where young people decide that they will join God’s team. Summer camp ministry deserves and needs our support. Let us pray together for our summer camps as the 2026 season unfolds.
—Gary Thurber, president, Mid-America Union Conference
One Hundred and Counting
This year we are celebrating 100 years of camp ministry in North America. According to Tracy Wood, youth ministries director for the North America Division, Adventist camps began in 1925 in Australia, with the second recorded camp held a year later in Michigan. What started as a few boys camping beside a lake and learning about nature has grown into an annual global ministry.
Here in the Mid-America Union, Pastor Hubert Cisneros, Pastor Roger Wade and I have had the privilege of being associated with—and consecutively providing support to—our eight camps over the past 16 years.
“Summer camp isn’t a break from real life — it’s where real life begins. We’re not just building memories around a campfire; we’re building faith that lasts a lifetime,” says Wade.
“There’s something magical that happens around the campfire,” adds Cisneros. “Kids make eternal choices there. They connect with the God of nature. And it’s often where kids choose to stay with the church. They see that the church is doing something special just for them.”
Cisneros says that camp ministry has been, without a doubt, the most influential experience in his own life and ministry. He was a staff member at Glacier View Ranch in Colorado throughout college, starting out as a counselor and a lifeguard.
He remembers that many young people from the inner city of Denver attended camp through sponsorship from Adventist Community Services. The camp was packed with kids, and a number of them came with significant behavioral challenges.
A life changing moment
One day during lunch, a kid from Cisnero’s cabin started a food fight in the cafeteria. “There was more food on the ceiling than on their plates,” he recalls. “I took the camper who started the food fight and led him out behind the cafeteria to calm him down—to talk with him and pray with him.”
Through tears, the camper told Cisneros that his mother had left the family, his father was in prison, and his stepmother hated him. She sent him to live with his grandmother, who couldn’t handle him and had sent him to camp hoping it would make a difference in his life.
“He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I don’t know why I act the way I do.’ I said, ‘Let’s walk up to those trees and pray to God for help—that the next time you feel like losing your temper, He will help you.’”
After they had prayed together, Cisneros remembers thinking to himself, I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to work with children.
“It was at camp that I decided to become a minister of the gospel,” says Cisneros. “It was there that I chose to go into youth ministry. That journey eventually led me to serve as a conference and union youth director.”
Celebrating God’s blessings
Miracles are still happening every summer at camps across the Mid-America Union and throughout the country. Countless young lives are being changed and transformed. Boys and girls are making decisions to serve in ministry and dedicate their lives to working for God through the church.
We praise God for how He has led over the past 100 years—and for the ways He will continue to guide and bless camp ministry in the years to come.
—Tyrone Douglas is church ministries director for the Mid-America Union Conference.
