During my time at camp, I gained life long friendships while exploring the Blue Ridge Mountains. I became more confident through learning practical, intellectual, and missional ways to lead - and had the time of my life doing it. I loved Excel and the community so much I returned here for college in September with some of the friends I met at camp.

I’m not an outdoorsy person at all. I was just going to go and get through the camping part and then I’ll be done, and I’ll survive and it’ll be okay. But I actually really enjoyed it a lot, so that was surprising! I think my favorite part was the rock climbing, which I was a little bit nervous about, but it was actually really fun!

It has a lot to do with leading yourself well and learning how to do that before going and leading others. It’s not just about having all this head knowledge, they teach you to actually have wisdom and live it out and practice being dependent on the Holy Spirit every day - listening, leaning in, and pressing in on him.

I think a big thing for me and my generation is being able to be around people that are understanding and that’ll actually accept you and let you in. Here, I feel welcomed in and I feel like this is a family basically - and I’ve only been here for a couple of days! I love how accepting everyone is, and how everyone loves to be able to give and to teach. For me, community isn’t just about what’s around you, but about the people and how they treat you.