From Stepping Out on Faith to Stepping Out on a Mountain

From an on the spot interview outside of a chick-fil-a to now being hired to lead senior girls as their counselor in the mountains of Colorado. If I would have been the author of my own story I can’t say this is how I would have written it, but man am I glad that isn’t the case. I knew when working for Sky Ranch there would be sacrifices, physical and emotional, but never did I think it would have the long-lasting impact it has had on me and on the people I’ve been able to serve.

Doing camp ministry is something that I have always felt called to do. I grew up going to a small camp in my hometown and when I was old enough started working on staff as a junior counselor. Something about having campers for one week at a time was something I just found so fascinating. You have a group of 20 kids for 5 days and want to do nothing but hear their stories and pour into them as much as you can. It truly is a wild experience. I really did love working at this camp and learned so much while doing it but after working at this camp as a counselor for 4 summers I began to develop burnout and felt as if I was being called to work somewhere else but I had no idea where that would be.

ETBU puts on a campus event called “camp day” where camps from all over texas set up booths and talk to students and try to get them to work their camp for the summer. I had an older friend and mentor back at my home church who had talked to me about Sky Ranch a few times and how she worked there for a few summers and absolutely loved it. I went to this campus even with no intentions of committing to anything and honestly was going for free snacks and maybe even a free tee-shirt. I made my rounds around to the different booths and found myself standing by the one for Sky Ranch. A girl by the name of Kinely introduced herself to me and started talking about camp. We soon discovered that she knew my friend from back home who had worked and they were actually really good friends. The next thing I knew was a quick 5-minute conversation turned into a 45-minute one that ended with me doing an official interview. Little did I know that 3 years down the road I would be working there still.

The thought of working at a camp in another state with a group of people I had never met at a camp I had never stepped foot on scared me. It was hard. I went into staff training knowing no one but the girl who interviewed me. I had to make new friends. Learn new things. Step out of my comfort zone. Trust God fully. This is something I am beyond grateful for. If God had not given me the courage to accept the job and follow through with being obedient to his so evident call on my life I can confidently say that I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Stepping out on faith isn’t easy but it’s what we are called to do.