What Does It Mean To Be Free?

Chapter 14 - Memories From Revival

            The church summer camp that is being talked about, which has been mentioned before in this book, is called Revival and has totally changed who I am as a person and I have so many crazily memorable moments from the three summers that I had went on the trip. I certainly consider that going on those adventures is what has sparked the want and the need that I have of making sure that the little kid that I know is inside of me is content and happy. The church summer extravaganza taught me to let loose, and also to lessen my grip on the attitude of mine of being very stubborn.

            About six or seven years ago, I had went on my first Revival church summer camp. The day was a bright, sunny, gorgeous afternoon in the middle of July, and I was waiting by a gigantic bus that was parked next the church that I used to go to, called Compass Bible Church, and that bus, along with a few other busses, would soon be transporting me, my sister and other fellow high school students that also went to the church to a place in Arizona called Lake Havasu. This is the location in which the Revival church summer camp was to be held at. After I said goodbye to my mom, I sat down inside of the vehicle, and I began to get a little nervous because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I couldn't locate my sister on the bus because I am pretty sure that she was on a different bus. Then, as all of the vehicles started to move out of the church, I began to realize that at this point, there is no turning back. After about a few hours of being on the mode of transportation, an adult mentor that was helping out as one of the leaders who would be leading a team, came alongside me and began to talk to me. The name of this gentleman was Dan. The reason why he was going to be directing a team was because not only were all of the many adult mentors going to be put onto a distinct team, so were all of the high school students, which, at the time, included my sister and I. Everybody is put on teams as part of the fun of going to Revival as everybody on a team gets to participate in very silly games, and gets to make up creative and awesome chants. Getting back to the story, so as Dan and I were chatting, one of the question that he asked me about is what I liked to do for fun in my spare time, and my answer to that question was lame because at that time I was hooked on playing video games. After I said that, he then told me of all of the cool, exhilarating activities that could be participated in, such as tubing, and he asked me if that sounded like fun to me. As an aside, tubing is where people, who are on and are holding onto an inner tube, gets towed by a boat, and the objective of the boat is to make the ride either so fast or bumpy that the people who are on the inner tube get flung off of the inner tube and into the water. As I eventually did learn, this is quite an enjoyable experience. My answer to Dan when he questioned me on if I thought that this would be something that I would want to try was not good because I essentially said that I would be too scared to try it. Then Dan began to describe some of the other games that were going to be played at Revival, such as waterball, which is where all of the people from the teams would get into the water and would try to knock a ball that is on top of a pole of any opposing team in order to score points. To most if not all of the descriptions that Dan gave, again, I replied by saying that I don't think that that sort of activity would interest me. Dan himself even commented that I was being rigid in the head, but he also said that he will get me to have fun during the time at Lake Havasu. Little did I know, this first trip to Lake Havasu and the other two times that I went to the church summer camp and the plentiful number of adventures that I had and the uncountable number of connections that I had made during those times have had and very much have revamped who I am as person. Those instances are also examples of me being able to genuinely express myself and are real instances and occurrences of me letting go and becoming authentically free, even just intermittently.

           To this day, I can still without question recall the major events of my initial expedition in the church summer camp. Here are a few of those stories.