It’s been five full, wonderful, challenging years since we moved to Red Rock Bible Camp.
I remember feeling like we’d moved to paradise.
I would lie in bed with the window open, and listen to the loons on the lake. And I couldn’t believe that God had blessed us so richly with the opportunity of being here, of having the chance to do something we’d always wanted to do.
And now it’s time to do something else.
Everyone who moves to camp knows it’s not forever. It’s so isolated, and pretty much everything about it is intense.
The schedule is intense, the ministry is intense, the location is intense, the beauty is intense.
Part of me is so tired, I know this is a good choice for our family, but part of me is aching.
I love intense.
This has always been my favorite place in the world. Last time I left, I hoped and hoped that I would come back. Countless times over the last five years, Ben and I have taken our girls on little adventures around camp, and I’ve almost had to pinch myself to believe that we’ve done this as a family.
We came back and made this ours. These memories will be ours forever. It’s in the story of our family.
(photography by Morgan Braun)
I don’t really know how to move on from that.
I’m getting that feeling you get on vacation – the feeling at the end, when your days have almost run out, and you’re trying to get in as much as you can. You know you can’t stay on vacation forever. It has to end, but you try to make it last as long as possible, and as you walk away for the last time, you keep looking back over your shoulder, trying to memorize every sight, every sound, every smell…
I’ve actually been walking around camp with my eyes closed a lot, lately. I can smell the trees better with my eyes closed! I can hear the silence better with my eyes closed. And then I open my eyes, and there’s the moon shining through the trees, and I ache.
We hear about summer staff who are planning to come on spring staff this year, and I ache. It makes me want to ditch the new plans and just stay. Oh, the people. We love camp ministry. We believe in it.
There are a lot of reasons why we’re going. I’ll cover those in a different post, for those of you who are curious. It’s another story about how God leads, and how we’ve gone about coming to this decision. It’s been a struggle.
But now it’s time to go. And I just keep looking over my shoulder…
Ordinary Days 
Thank you for all the years you and your family have served at Red Rock! I can personally attest that your presence has made my life richer. May God continually guide your footsteps as you move to something new. You will be a blessing to those around you wherever he is leading you.
Thanks for your sweet words, Janna!I’m hoping that we will still keep in touch, even when I’m not at camp anymore.
I didn’t know you guys were leaving! When are you officially done? There will be a lot of changes around camp this summer hey?
We’re done at the end of April. Yes, there will be a lot of changes at camp! Sad, but also exciting. There are such great full time staff just starting out, and it will be neat to see how they change camp and fill in the gaps.:)
I can relate to how you feel Kendra as after only three short months we felt the same when we left. The kids and I often talk about coming back to visit and wonder how things may have been different had I not gotten sick and we’d stayed on, but the truth is as much as those tears hurt the last morning and continued to hurt for three days on the road and how they still hurt now when I think about the people places and experiences, I know that God put me at RRBC for a reason and he put me there when he did for a reason, and as I lay in bed or under a quilt on the couch recovering so many of the memories that have brightened my days are tied to those three months and the desire to get back to those experiences in any capacity and to be in a position to help someone else build their own memories.God knows what He’s doing and He knows when our time and energy can be spent better elsewhere… sometimes we just have trouble with seeing the future for the past but we are always blessed to have lived the past and even more blessed to have a future designed specifically for us by God.
Prayers to you all…
Wow! Big news!! I’m sure that was a hard decision to make. And although you will miss it dearly, I look forward to seeing where God is going to bring you guys next.
I loved reading about your vacation. Glad you are back together as a family again:) Thanks again for this wonderful blog…can’t count the number of times your words have challenged, encouraged me, and made me smile. Bless you, Kendra.
Thanks, Melissa! I can’t count the number of times you have made me smile and inspired me to keep blogging, just because of your kind words!
Good-byes are hard, but it sounds like there will be many wonderful “hellos” in your future. I wish you peace in the transition.
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