A Day in the Life of a Staff Member

Please read the following carefully. While we won't "quiz" you on it, we do expect you to be familiar with this information for your interview. You may wish to print this.

The typical day begins with staff prayer at 7:50 AM at the dining hall, followed by breakfast, with all campers and staff dining together. After cleaning up breakfast, everyone gathers for "Morning Watch," a devotional time usually led by the camp director, with singing, a story, and campers memorizing a Bible verse (by the end of staff training you will be able to recite James 5:16 in your sleep).

 After morning watch, "capers" are assigned to each of the camper groups (tasks which support the whole camp community) such as cleaning an area, collecting firewood, or preparing the evening worship time. Counselors assist their campers in these tasks, while support staff have the pleasure of other assignments such as cleaning the pool or staff areas.

The morning and afternoon are each divided into two activity blocks, for a total of four. Camper groups rotate through four main activities, which include Bible study, recreation and crafts, swimming, and boating. Counselors are given a schedule at the beginning of the week to help with this process, but this is just a jumping off point if you and your group want to be creative.  Counselors can adjust the schedule to better suit the needs and desires of the campers by coordinating with other staff. Included in the schedule are "open times," blocks of unscheduled time that can be used for going on hikes, taking showers, playing games, planning skits, etc. The counselors and campers together decide how the time will be used.  (If it happens to be a rainy week, you can bet that one block of time will be used as a massive mud fight...)

Every staff person gets a break during the day, approximately 1.5 hours. Staff also get one night off, and often have part of the weekend off (usually Saturday noon through Sunday 2 PM).

After lunch, everyone takes a 1 hour rest period--campers are expected to be horizontal on their bunks either napping or doing something silent, such as reading a book or writing letters. If you prefer to run sprints with your campers while singing songs, you are welcome to do so, but we have found most staff prefer the "face-down-in-pillow" position during this time.

While most meals are together in the dining hall, most camper groups cook-out over an open fire at least twice during the week.  This is almost always one of the week's highlights!  Campers and counselors plan the menu, build the fire, cook the food, etc.  Counselors are expected to develop fire-building skills and learn safe cooking techniques.  Cookouts are normally Wednesday dinner and Friday breakfast.  Sometimes you can take your group hiking to pick fresh blueberries for pancakes. 

 After dinner, everyone gathers together for vespers, the evening worship service led by campers and staff. Then in the evening, usually one or two all-camp activities are scheduled. Examples include pool parties, field games, night hikes, dances, the ever popular game called "Smugglers" where kids try to smuggle Bible verses across the camp in the dark, and "Makemie Woods University," a time for staff to teach the campers a bit about a new skill. Some of the courses offered have included tie-dying, miming, soccer, field hockey, sign language, karate, songs in French, birdwatching, guitar and drum lessons, to name a very few--the kids pick which activity (out of about 5 or 6 choices) they want to attend.

 Before going to bed, counselors wind down the day by leading their campers in a devotion--it's a chance to see how the campers are doing, to let them ask important questions, to challenge them to think for a moment how faith and life are connected.

 Counselors sleep in the same room with their campers--younger campers are usually in cabins near the main camp area (which have plumbing and electricity), and older campers rough it a bit in the woods in "longhouses," screened primitive cabins nestled in the forest which use lanterns for light and the showerhouse for plumbing. Support staff spend part of their time living in cabins with plumbing and electricity and part of their time in primitive housing.  Mail is delivered daily and we have a phone and computer for use during breaks.

Night activities can be limited to sleeping, or if you have older campers you can be a little more adventurous if you choose.  Some groups enjoy night swims, night canoeing, sleeping out under the stars, a small group campfire with s'mores... the possibilities are limited only by your imagination!

One of the highlights and challenges of the summer is a two-week session for children with diabetes called Camp Jordan. These campers learn to give themselves their injections of insulin and take their own blood tests four times each day. If you are a person who is "unnerved" significantly by needles or the sight of blood, please let us know during the interview. We have had counselors who chose not to work with these campers and we were able to assign them to non-diabetic camper groups. But we want to be up-front about this.

So what do you think? 

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