My favorite childhood memory!!!

        One of my most favorite childhood memories had to be the year I spent at summer camp. I was 13 years old at that time. The camp I went to for one week was called the Wilds (http://www.wilds.org/). The camp was in Brevard, North Carolina. I never had such a great week during a summer vacation in my life, and it rivals many of the vacations I have been around time.

        My father took me up to North Carolina. On the way there I was nervous because I had never been to a summer camp before and had not spent more then a few days away from my family. The scenery was really awesome, though the drive felt like it took forever since I had not been eager to go in the beginning. I remember when my father left, the shellshock of being alone for the first few minutes. Then I started to meet new people.

        The first person that I opened up to was a girl named Alicia. She was a girl from West Point, Mississippi that I knew through church, though until summer camp had no interest in being friends with her. We started talking when all of the kids at the camp were allowed to go white water rafting. What an exciting way to get to know somebody as you are being tossed around in a fast flowing river! We started talking to alleviate fear, found out that we had a lot in common, and have been good friends ever since. Even one of my most intense memories came from camp, bungie jumping! To fall without anything expectedly underneath you has to be the most liberating and free feeling one could ever experience and one I am happy to have been allowed to experience.

        Not only did I make a good lifelong friend, but I also grew closer to God in such a way I felt as though I could feel God change things in my life in such a way that my pulse only continued because He wanted it to. I had a lot of pent up emotions that came to surface, that God amazingly cured at a campfire one night. What I can only describe as an open confessional one night, I told one of my most dark secrets in my life at that time, that I deliberately disobeyed God by hating my mother. From that point I was given advice to help me with dealing with my negative feelings. God was burdening my heart so much that I was saved that night as well. What an awesome feeling knowing that when I die, I will be going to Heaven!!

        By the end of that week I had learned a lot of things about the outdoors, made a lot of friends, grew closer to God, and grew as an individual person. I was also able to talk to my mother and we dealt with the issues that I had been dealing with at summer camp. I attribute much of my everyday life that goes well to being simply achieved because of the time I spent at summer camp. I went back the following year, though I did not get to see the same people as I would have liked to. Whenever I feel any negative feelings in my life I usually tend to think about that week at camp and remember that if I can bungee jump then I can face anything I have never done before!