Transcript:
Lisa: Hi we’re Toby and Lisa Sledge.
Omar: Hi we’re the Qassom Family. I’m Omar and this is Susan.
Jody: We are Jody and Kristee Walker, and we’ve been coming to Family Camp for 4 years.
Adam: My name’s Adam. This is my wife, Robyn. We’ve been coming for 12 years, and I just want to share with you why we’ve been coming back all these years. I think one of the main reasons that we come back; when we’re not at Family Camp, it feels like our lives our going 90 miles an hour and everybody is going in a different direction. But this is a set time of the year that we can all be together, spending time together, focusing on what’s most important.
Toby: And I look at over the course of a year where we are just constantly going from the next task, to the next task, to the next event, the next school function, and to have a time where it’s kind of unscripted. We come here, and there’s activities, but for the most part, we are spending time as a family and getting to know other families that are by and large going through the exact same things that we are.
Lisa: I think, too, it meets so many needs. I feel like when I explain Family Camp to people I’m like it’s a marriage retreat and a parenting seminar and just encouraging fellowship all in one.
Kristee: At first we came, and we had a baby, and it was just a good way for us to get away. And now that our kids are older it means a lot because they have the full experience and love it as much as we do. The older our kids get the more we enjoy it.
Jody: I actually just come for the free baby-sitting.
Omar: What’s important for us also is that it gives the children an opportunity to be able to feel safe. It removes that fear that we typically would have other places, when we’re vacationing other places, or doing other things, and not to have to worry about the children. And then we have coaches that are part of our family that we can love on and then they love on us and love on our children. It really gives us an opportunity to not only invest in them but they invest in us and they become a part of our family that week and it’s just a tremendous blessing.
Jody: Just the interaction our kids have with coaches, they get to see a different role model exemplify Christ.
Robyn: Our 2nd child, our oldest daughter became a Christ-follower on the field. And I’ll never forget it because she became a Christ-follower and immediately it was celebrated. And it was celebrated by all these coaches who she looks up to and wants to be like. And they were throwing a party. There was dancing and jumping up and down over the salvation of my daughter. We’ll never forget it.
Lisa: I feel like Family Camp gives us these snap shots of seeing the Lord working in our family.
Susan: And to know that Family Camp was the most influential thing in their life. And we didn’t realize that, coming all these years. We’re not finished coming yet.
