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Hearts of the City: The Challenging Ministry of Inner-City Kids’ Camps is Makin
By Olga Bonfiglio [Olga Bonfiglio]
Wednesday, 03-Oct-2007, 19:50
November/December 2003
Christian Camp & Conference Journal
The first thing a visitor notices about the woodsy lakefront property of Camp Beechpoint is the quiet. It is this same quiet that scares many of the inner-city children who come for a week in this natural setting in southwestern Michigan. Because they are so accustomed to traffic noise, gunshots, drugs, prostitution, and physical abuse, it takes the children two or three days to acclimate themselves.
Many of them have never seen a lake, the woods, or the countryside. Many of them, who are used to roaming city streets during the early morning hours, shiver in fright at the dark night and the sounds of crickets and tree frogs as they leave the evening’s campfire and prepare for lights out.
For inner-city children the camp experience is unfamiliar territory. But the warm, friendly and committed counselors not only allay the children’s fears of nature, they lead them into a Christian way of seeing, living, and knowing life beyond the poverty and violence of the street. This all happens in one week!
“Lives are changed at camp,” says Rick Phelps of Camp Beechpoint. “Our purpose is to reach urban youth with the gospel of Jesus Christ through a quality Christian camping experience” he says quoting the camp’s mission statement.
Working with inner-city youth is probably one of the most difficult of ministries. Most of the children have never attended church. They come from large families where structure, discipline and supervision are missing. Their attention spans are short.
Nevertheless, campers seem ready and willing for the Gospel message as well as the Christian lifestyle of prayer, morality, and integrity, says David Ditzler of Camp Wonderland in Wisconsin. For one thing, counselors model this Christian behavior and “kids pick it up right away.” 
With a camper-counselor ratio of 6:1, counselors have time to get to know the children and their interests. This kind of adult attention makes an impression on the youth because they get so little of it at home. Many counselors and children even stay in touch with each other, sometimes over many years.
Counselors come from a variety of backgrounds and purpose: they are interning, participating as youth ministers for their church program, or aspiring to the ministry. Some are recruited from colleges. Many counselors are former campers.
“Camp is a very relational place,” said David Long of Wildwood Ranch near Detroit. “But then the Christian walk is a very relational experience.” By the end of the week campers regret leaving.
The camps stress community living with rules and responsibilities like going to bed at a certain time, participating in all the group activities, and waiting until all cabin mates are served and seated before eating a meal.
Campers also learn how to give up themselves for the good of the group. They examine the attitudes behind their actions and learn to speak positively without sarcasm or “wrong thought patterns that knock others down and make themselves look good,” says Long.
Girls and boys are typically separated and then divided into cabin groups. The cabin groups spend the entire day together in various activities and then join with the rest of the camp during chapel services, meals, campfires, and other camp gatherings.
Ditzler says campers practice getting along with children from various ethnic and racial groups. So many children come from backgrounds where they think there’s something wrong with being Black and something superior about being white.
“We’re like brothers and sisters in Christ here,” says Ditzler who describes himself as a “Dad” among campers. They also learn lessons on “chivalry” where boys open doors for the girls and value them rather than try to “score” on them.
We are not here to entertain,” said Ditzler. “The greatest tool for reaching kids is to expose them to another human being who cares and listens.”
However, caring and listening is a tough job. Life on the street prevents children from trusting others, says Phelps. “We have to teach them not to hit each other when they are mad, bothered, or touched.”
Of course, campers attend chapel services, which generally involve singing songs, memorizing Bible verses, learning to pray, and listening to Scripture lessons. The camps go to great lengths to make services appealing to the children. Wildwood Ranch, for example, has a morning service that involves “smash time” where the children perform skits and play loud music. In the evening they hold a more traditional service.
But Long puts all the work of the counselors and staff in perspective.
“The lessons we teach are overshadowed by God’s speaking to the campers. It is His job to change lives, not ours. We are only the vehicles of change.”
There’s no mistaking the positive effect of camp on the children. About 50 percent of the campers are returnees and new campers are recruited by word of mouth. The camps also find prospective children through schools, churches, Boys and Girls Clubs and social work agencies. Phelps goes into neighborhoods where at-risk children live and simply knocks on doors.
While it would seem that parents might hesitate to send their children away from home to a strange place, they do it because they know their children will be in a safe environment to experience life outside the city, says Phelps.
One particular challenge camps have, however, is providing a Christian support for the children once camp is over. Camp Ray Bird started a bus service to transport the kids to a downtown church. Wildwood Ranch has a partnership with Messiah Church in southwest Detroit and the Detroit Youth for Christ. Camp Beechpoint pairs campers with Christian mentors in their community to meet for weekly Bible study. Camp Wonderland invites children who’ve made “salvational commitments” to Christ to participate in winter camp, winter retreats and after-school programs.
The camps are generally supported by private donors, corporate sponsors, non-religious foundations and ministry partnerships with churches. Some camps offer scholarships for children to attend camp.
“I’ve seen kids step off the bus mean and angry from their lives in the city,” says Phelps. “But the peace and serenity of camp changes the kids. Walls crumble. Hearts change. The coldness in the child’s eye melts away. It is the nurturing atmosphere here at camp that turns them into a new being in Christ.”
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