For the last nine years, summer has meant New Life Camp for my children. Nestled in a wooded corner next to a water treatment plant and across from a medical center in N. Raleigh, NLC is a seemingly innocuous Christian camp which has been operating for over 50 years. It is a small camp, with rustic cabins that have patches in the screens and holes in the floor boards and generations of campers' names scrawled in ink over every square inch of wall space. Metal bunks with thin, sagging mattresses line the walls, and a large electric ceiling fan stirs the sultry Carolina summer air. Yet these are 5-star accomodations in the eyes of many children and young adults who flock here each summer. A concrete basketball court , a gazebo, and a picnic shelter providing shade to several ping pong and carpetball tables grace the center of the camp. A small swimming pond of muddy water features a zip line, diving platform, and water slide which provide hours of fun for the boys and girls who enjoy them during their separate swim times each day. Hungry campers fill up on stacks of pancakes, plates of sausage gravy and biscuits, T macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, pizza, and spaghetti in the newly air-conditioned dining hall ~ gourmet dining at its finest! When hunger and thirst strike mid-morning or afternoon, the Snack Shack is ready to provide popcorn, candy, snowcones, ice cream bars, and soda. Up on the hill, across the "athletic field", is the gym, built several years ago to provide indoor recreation space for the growing camp programs. Ultimate elimination dodge ball and the climbing wall, not to mention the BIG GAME held during Teen Week are found in the gym. Cabin devotions are led each morning by the staff of devoted young men and women who spend their summers earning little but living for the Lord as camp counselors. Bible classes, Missionary Moments, Skit Night, and Evening Campfire reinforce the message of hope and the challenge to live a life that makes a difference. A new group of campers arrives every Sunday afternoon, and soon learns "the ways of NLC" via the Rules Video. Cabins are meticulously cleaned each morning by their occupants as they compete with one another for the distinction of earning "Honor Cabin" for the week. Games, challenges, prayers, competition, kindness, skills, homesickness, encouragement, drama, worship, sweat, refreshment, testimony ~ all part of the NLC experience.
Some campers come back as teens to serve as CITS, some can't stay away even as they head into adulthood and join the summer staff as counselors. NLC seems to get into your blood.
The camp may seem old and run down at first glance, with little to offer in the way of amenities... but the fierce devotion of NLCampers tells something of the heart of the people who minister there. To many people, young and old, no place on earth is as beautiful as New Life Camp.
www.newlifecamp.com
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