Each summer we rely heavily on people coming alongside us to help get the work done. Our summer staff are obviously critical to the work we do, but we are already tell you all about them on our Awesomeness Takes the Stage! (you should go read about them if you’ve been missing out!)
The other set of people that are pretty critical to our work here, especially in the summer, are our week-long volunteers! In fact, we call them our superheroes because most people are giving up vacation time, family time or rearranging a whole slew of things just to make it possible to be here helping out! We are continually blown away by our volunteers! So this post is about telling you all about our June volunteers!
Well, let’s back it up to May when people helped us get ready for summer to begin!
Craig and Weston drove looooooonngg hours to come and clean. COME.AND.CLEAN. What?! (Hold on while we try to pull ourselves together real quick.) We felt so blessed by their hearts to serve us in this way because here at Whisper Mountain Camp the few do it all! (phew. Okay. we’re okay.)
A lovely couple, Richard and Tina, spent their time with us beautifying spaces, building more sets of corn hole boards for our campers (which they have loved BTW), folding a bazillion t-shirts for our camp store, forming the new sidewalk that was put in just before summer, among many other things! Their mark is all over the place!
The Harkness family came alongside us in many ways as well. Shoveling gravel (among other manual labor that young men excel at!), fixing vehicles, helping in the kitchen, etc. Seeing a family serve together is always a beautiful thing, especially when they have a strong work ethic already in place! Such a gift!
Kathy is a woman who mentors and works with college kids at Columbia International University! We met her through Sam, and were delighted she was willing to come and use her skills and know-how in the kitchen to help Patti cook all the food! We were thankful for her thoughtfulness and encouragement while she served!
I’m not sure how it happened at around the same time, but we had a week where we got to have a few past staff come and serve! Whatever ways they could be involved or helpful, they were! Returning during summer can be weird for past summer staff because they see how things are different than when they were here, but their time is also refreshing as they get away, remember how God has been working in their lives, and see how He is working in campers and current staff’s lives. We are thankful for the time we got with Anna, Megan and Kyle!
What a surprise to get Foster and Virginia back again this summer! When we said goodbye last year, we thought it was the last time they’d be back to serve with us! Imagine how sad we were because they are the greatest! Virginia keeps us laughing in the kitchen with her sass and Foster finds so many small things we’ve let go too long to help out with. They are both such an encouragement and help! We love them to pieces!
Dennis and Corrie have been serving with us for years! Dennis, all the things with Marty plus serving on the food line and cleaning dishes! Corrie, all the heavy cooking in the kitchen. We are always thankful for the ways they encourage us and help us when they come! Well, mostly thankful! Dennis can be a real stinker! But we love him and are thankful for the fun he adds to life! We’d keep ’em both around forever if we could!
We are completely thankful for all these who have given their time, energy and talents to work alongside us as we strive to reach teens for Jesus! It takes a team effort to keep all the balls moving! Every minor or major part each of these played while with us has been seen by our God. When we serve with a heart of worship, no matter how big or small the task, we bring Him the greatest glory! May we each be encouraged to continue (or start) serving with a willingness in whatever capacity is made available to us! To God Be the Glory!
Author + Photography | Cassi
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