Being sent to summer Bible camp was one of the things that shaped my core & made me who I am today. But not the way the church probably wanted.
I got yelled at for not capitalizing “he” when talking about Jesus.
My big brother, seeing I was pretty miserable, (& probably also not wanting to get up in the morning to walk me over there any more than I wanted to go) decided I could just stay home with him instead during the summer.
That was the year he made me watch The Fly & The Blob & every other horror movie our gas station had for rental.
So thanks, old biddy that yelled at me for not knowing to capitalize pronouns related to your deity.
You led me down a totally different path & I’m happy for it.
Three other clear memories from Summer Bible Camp:
Meeting a lanky, dark-skinned boy that would NOT BE QUIET while we drank tiny paper cups of orange McDonald’s drink & much preferring his quiet frilly-dress-wearing sister. Being bothered by that loud & constantly-moving boy would turn out to be my first interaction with my husband.
Learning about ammonia from a teen girl that was helping out at the church. She let me smell it (ew), explained to me about the vapors produced when mixed with bleach & held a tiny little chemistry experiment (ammonia volcano) for me, while we were supposed to be memorizing Psalms 23.
We made a sheep magnet out of cotton balls & our sheep dog puppy ate it. I was distraught for a second, but then thought “Well, that only makes sense, since he’s a sheep dog.”
