To my dear Royal Family;

What a week.

I’m going to honest; there were so moments over the course of the last year of my life that I didn’t think I was going to get to do camp with you guys this year. Sitting in hospital beds and using walkers and being unable to breath.

I couldn’t put hope in something that I thought maybe wouldn’t happen.

But thankfully I had you all to borrow hope from.

It came in the form of a virtual circle of prayer and a box of cards and treats. It came in the form of texts and messages and so much love.

And because of that hope I was able to keep moving forward.

Because of that piece of hope I was able to come to camp.

And then we all showed up.

It was a new year, a new campground. New challenges, so many unknowns; from the bathroom systems to the chapel to the menu.

And I truly believed we handled each moment with grace. I was so completely honored to be a part of it.

I am so proud of us for this week.

To the teen staff for running around a new environment.

To the counselors for dealing with bathrooms and showers and being a little more separated than we have been before.

To all the different activity spaces and coaches for figuring out how to set up in a new space.

To the staff waking up early, or staying up later to being present in different ways.

To the deans for having to rework how they cared for their buildings without actually being in the same building space. 

And to our directors for handling each question, each logistic, each fire every single day.

I am proud of us.

I had so many moments at camp this week, from spa day with the grandmas to making it to 10:35 in morning chapel (or very close to it) every day. Watching the LITs get to be stage crew and be so excited about it. playing mangablocks at the pool and also swimming in the vomit pool (iykyk). Making it through LIT graduation without actually crying. Being a porch auntie. Walking a mile to a coffee shop before camp. Almost tearing up over a bowl of lucky charms.

It was a good year. It was tiring, it was learning my own limitations and where and when I can move past them (sorry Jana I missed your concert). It was a year of seeing what we could do and then figuring out how we can do it better in the next. It was a year of new possibilities and I believe we took them. It was a year of sitting outside girls dorms at 6am and quietly waving to the counselors as they slipped out to shower. It was a year of stepping into help each other.

I will repeat: I am so proud of us. We showed up for each other, we showed for ourselves and most importantly; we showed up for the kids.

I am honored every year to serve with you all. It’s my absolute favorite week for the year when I get to see how each of you show up for the kids. 

Thank you for showing up with me.

My prayer for each of you as you read this is that every moment of exhaustion, every bead of sweat and every dusty moment of your days last week are returned to you. That God plants little nuggets along the way   for you to find (like the ducks and sheep’s and the Jesus’s and even that weird creepy worm thing) and that your sleep and your joy and your energy is restored to more than it was before. I pray until we show you at camp again that you are surprised and blessed and reminded, just as I pray are kids are everyday, that you are immensely loved and that what you do matters.

I have some more tears to cry and more words to write but I can’t express how grateful I am that I got to do camp with you all again this year.

Just as the kids are a part of my why; all of you Jesus people loving like Jesus are just as much.

So here’s to the year ahead and to taking these moments and the truths that camp brings with us.

You are loved.

With love,

Miss Meg 

PS to the text thread- thank you thank you for holding me up all year. Your words, your friendship and your presense in my life even from two states away means more than I’ll ever be able to explain 💜