Summer Camp Reflections
This summer, Blue Sky Acres had the opportunity to offer a summer camp for differently-abled kids in our community. We knew we wanted it to be Christ-centered and include horses somehow. After much prayer and planning, we had our first annual Vacation Bible School Horse Camp at the home of Mrs. Tina Bragg in Guyton. Two sessions were offered, one in June and one in July, meeting every Monday morning from 9-11:30 am. A fabulous team of nine counselors and jr. counselors, five board members, three staff, and five other dedicated volunteers came together early each Monday to pray, set up, and prepare for the fun.
In June we had six kids attend camp and in July we had five sign up to come. The Lord prepared just the right ones to be there!
Each week we would start with a welcome and approach the throne of the Lord in prayer together. We wanted to make sure Christ was invited from the very beginning! The kids had a blast singing songs and even got to play their very own ukuleles right along with our music leader! The Bible lessons and memory verse time came from a curriculum called “God Colors”. We learned that each color represented a story from God’s Word:
- Green for the color of creation and that God can forgive us and make us new.
- Yellow for the star at Christmas and if we are wise, we will seek Jesus every day.
- Blue for when Jesus calmed the storm and we can trust Him to calm the storm in us.
- Purple because Jesus is the King of Kings and He wants everyone to receive him as their Savior.
The Scripture memory verse every week was Romans 5:8, But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful. The kids learned and memorized this through sign language! Every week, each child would recite and sign the verse and get to put a sticker in their personalized Memory Verse Passports.
Next up, the kids would divide into two groups, and along with their counselors they would go to one of two stations: Horse Time or Crafts. In Horse Time they learned basic horsemanship skills, grooming, and how to lead the horse through an obstacle course. Every Monday we saw improvement in the skills learned. One week they even got to paint the horses! Craft time truly allowed the creativity to flow! These kids went home with some of the best crafts around! They made canvas bags with handprint horses on the front, fancy decorated actual horseshoes, special Blue Sky Acres picture frames with their painted horse in it, God’s Eye yarn hangers, and even tie-dyed their very own BSA t-shirts!
Our morning was packed full but we couldn’t end without some crazy, fun, and wet games to cool everyone down! Everyone got involved with water relays, sponge bombs, water cannons, plunger relays, and even a shaving cream bullseye!
We had an overwhelming response from parents that their children really enjoyed the camp. One parent even commented one week that her daughter “LOVES camp and talks about it so much!”
Another camper with cerebral palsy was so excited about camp that she wrote out "hose camp" on a piece of paper to show her how much she enjoyed it and wanted make horse camp an everyday thing!
When we were planning it out in May, I had great expectations for what summer camp would look like and what we could do with the resources we had. June and July far exceeded those thoughts and ideas! The Lord was faithful to us, not just in providing fabulous weather each Monday but in opening the doors to speak of His goodness to the children each week. We had limited resources but again the Lord took what we had and used it to create something of excellence! Our camp was AWESOME! The facility, the horses, the music, the lessons and sign language, the crafts, the games.... it was ALL top-notch and FUN!
I cannot wait to see what next summer has in store for Blue Sky Acres. The Lord never ceases to amaze us when we trust Him with the details.
~Written by BSA Program Director, Jackie Garman