Photo of the Week Series
Photos from last year’s summer camp, family camp, and many of our retreats!
Your one stop shop for all of our photos of the week! We’ll be posting pictures from summer camp, retreats, and so many other of our wonderful offerings!
Running and Screaming at Summer Camp
Some activities at summer camp take a lot of explaining. Others? Not so much. This particular activity is known as “run and scream.” It largely entails… running and screaming. Whoever can run the furthest while still screaming claims the prize of being the craziest summer camper or summer staff member. In reality, the real winner is… everyone. Sometimes, breaking down our barriers means doing the exact opposite thing that one might normally do in the outside world. When walking at the mall, sauntering slowly and being...
read moreFriends for life formed at Summer Camp
Summer camp: a place to start fresh This picture from Summer Camp last summer sums up so many parts of what Vanderkamp is, all at once. Dom, pictured on the left, pretends to be cold, while his new friend Andrew pretends to warm him up. The coolest thing about this picture, though? That Andrew and Dom are still friends long after summer camp has ended. These two young men likely would never have met each other if it they hadn’t come to camp in 2011, and it was until they spent a week here in our experiment in Christian community that...
read moreCrazy Relays and Wild Summer Fun
During summer camp last year, we came up with all sorts of creative and crazy relay games. This one was invented because we were thinking of doing a banana relay, but had no bananas! Instead, summer campers tied down their thumbs and tried to cooperatively peel an orange. After that, they tossed the orange peels to see if counselors could catch them in their mouths! The whole activity was full of laughter, insanity, and fun. It didn’t matter if campers were big or small – everyone had the opportunity to join in the silliness. At...
read moreClose up on friendship
Find people who understand you at Summer Camp this year Okay, summer camp here is really, really fun. We allow kids a lot of choice in their activities, and we spend a great deal of time planning to have a fair community that lacks rules strictly in place for adult convenience. But what we’re most proud about is the relationships that form here. Sometimes that’s between campers, sometimes it’s between staff – but one of the coolest types of relationships that can form is between summer campers and staff. You see, young...
read moreIs there such thing as too much Chocolate Pudding?
Pudding monsters invade Summer Camp It’s an interesting life, being a director who works at a summer camp that has a rather tribal song about Chocolate pudding, that serves chocolate pudding every week, and even sells t-shirts that say, “Chocolate pudding, Vanderkamp’s favorite dessert!” The pudding mania has grown so thick at our summer camp that a particularly strange species has emerged from the depths of Vanderkamp lake. That creature? The pudding monster. Here are some survival tips if you encounter a pudding...
read moreMaybe I DO want to be a Chicken!
Be what you want to be at Summer Camp! One of the coolest things about summer camp is watching everyone let their guard down and just get a little bit silly every once in a while. We really believe that taking a retreat from the outside world means unleashing our imaginations to their fullest potential. In this picture, our Sneak-A-Peek girls decided to imitate our chickens, and hilarity ensued. From time to time, a summer camper or staff member will get an idea – “Hey, let’s all be chickens!”, or “Should we all...
read moreHow Can it Be??? Summer Camp Songs
Amazing times around the camp fire last summer Every night at summer camp we have a contemporary worship service, but my favorite nights are Sunday and Thursday, when we sing around the camp fire. Here you see some of my favorite camp people singing, “Oh my God, this love, how can it Be?!?” To be honest I don’t remember the name of the song off hand, but this part really sticks out in my mind from this summer – campers and staff alike genuinely smiling and enjoying each other – asking in song “How can this...
read moreThe Best Things in Life are Free at Summer Camp
Can you believe the beauty of this world? Deep in the recesses of the woods at Vanderkamp, there is a phenomenal beaver dam that is more than 8 feet tall. Beyond it is a lake that houses at least two beaver families. It’s said that beavers are the animals that have the 2nd biggest impact on their environments. The first? Humans, of course! On one day during our camp outrageous, we hiked out to this wonderful beaver dam to observe these incredible creatures in their natural habitat. One of the most satisfying things we do during...
read moreFamily Camp Fun Last Summer
With all of the fun and excitement during our summer camp, we think it’s incredibly important to not forget the real reasons we all make the trip back to Vanderkamp each summer. Sure, it’s fun to use the bouncer on the lake, or act like a swamp thing and cover yourself in seaweed…but first and foremost, it’s all about relationships. During family camp, Amboy Belle Isle Presbyterian Church brought 11 people out for a vacation Bible camp, and they saw the awesome power of God moving through the entire week. People...
read morePterodactyl sighting at Summer Camp!
No game at summer camp is more outrageous than Pterodactyl. Not because of any wild physical activity. No – Pterodactyl takes place on the ground. Not because of any costumes – Pterodactyl is a “come as you are” sort of game. You won’t get wet during Pterodactyl. You won’t have to sing. You will have to wrap your lips around your teeth and scream “Pterodactyl” without laughing, and you might have to make a Pterodactyl noise to reverse the circle. Do you think this camper is about to...
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