Camps, God and Neighbor

Petra here. On the last day of Family Camp, one participant said that camp was like a small picture of heaven. The coment made me smile because I've had that same thought myself many times. I often hear statements like 'Why can't the camp last longer?' or 'Why can't it be the way it is at home?' A student once asked me if it's possible to live like this all the time because it seems too perfect? I told her that I think this is a small foretaste of something even better.

For 50 years, those of us who serve and participate in camps, along with numerous who came before us, have been able to taste that small part of what awaits us in eternity. There are certainly many different factors that cause camps to leave such a strong impression: praising God together through songs, serving in the city, studying the Word, going for walks, the sincere joy of swimming in the lake, encouraging conversations, changed lives, homecooked food, etc. 

But I would say that there is something else - our neighbor. Camps give us a unique opportunity for our large world to shrink a bit for at least one week while our understanding of our neighbor expands. Through all these years, campers in Orahovica have had the opportunity to be with people from different cities and countries, different world views, different social status. Some children have had the opportunity to befriend a person with Down syndrome for the first time at the camp. Others made friends with Roma children for the first time or met children who live in a foster family. 

Last year, in just one month, we had people from Italy, Brazil, USA and Korea at the camp! This summer we had people from 5 to 76 years old at the children's camp! In Orahovica, God teaches us that His picture of our neighbors is much deeper and wider than ours, and so our neighbor becomes a little girl with intellectual disabilities with whom we share a room or an elderly lady who sings to us in Korean while preparing kimchi.

God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. In order to be able to obey this command as best as possible, our idea of our neighbor should constantly expand. Sometimes for that we need to visit new places, experience new cultures and get out of our context. But to begin with, it is enough to look around and see that even in a small Slavonian town, God is working to expand those horizons. What a privilege and honor!