Lessons from the Mountain
Camden Kimmel had the pleasure of serving as a Service Project Ministry Coordinator this summer. Originally from O’Fallon, Illinois, he attends Michigan State University where he is a third year student studying Physiology, Biochemistry, and Psychology. His favorite part of working at Mountain T.O.P. was seeing the growth of campers over the course of a camp week, every week! Camden loves to dance, lift weights with friends, and play piano.
My summer at Mountain T.O.P. was the most intense and rewarding of my life. I loved getting to “peek behind the curtain” and see what all goes into creating positive experiences for the campers and homeowners alike. First-visiting around our service area, donation-seeking from local businesses, nail-bucket-making the night before construction projects, and so much more went into every camp week. That being said, I couldn’t imagine being as happy as I was, while working as hard as I was, doing anything else.
One of my favorite aspects of being a Service Project Ministry Coordinator is the constant, outward-facing involvement that the position encourages. Whether chatting with campers in the canteen during late-night free time or walking and talking with homeowners around their property, I had to be physically, socially, spiritually, and emotionally present (you see what I did there? ;) in every moment. Though that meant there was a lot to process at the end of every day, it also meant that I felt as engaged as I could possibly be with the Mountain T.O.P. community. Being so involved in and out of camp is a privilege unique to the Ministry Coordinators, and I’m so grateful to the Managers on staff who made my level of involvement possible.
“Whether chatting with campers in the canteen during late-night free time or walking and talking with homeowners around their property, I had to be physically, socially, spiritually, and emotionally present (you see what I did there? ;) in every moment.”
An area of immense growth that I experienced over the summer was in the skill of facilitation. Prior to working on staff this summer, I thought that the best leadership looked like taking control of a situation, flawlessly steering a group through it, and not letting up until the objective is reached.
How wrong I was.
To me, facilitation is a more indirect form of leadership that relies heavily on observation, interpersonal awareness, and humility. A helpful analogy that comes to mind is driving a car; facilitating a group is like being the GPS. You guide them on where to go, do your best to give them the most efficient route, and lead them back to the correct path when they take a wrong turn. Throughout the entire journey, it is the group that sits behind and controls the wheel. Facilitating a group showed up everywhere, from giving daybreak messages in the field to overseeing multi-day construction projects to playing silly games with my Major Group. Turning ultimate control of a group over to the group itself was a difficult thing for me to do, and the discernment required to know when direct leadership was necessary was something that I sorely lacked prior to this summer. By learning to step away and be a guide, rather than the one in the driver's seat, my YRGs and major groups were able to ultimately rely on themselves for a fulfilling week at Mountain T.O.P., and a lot of campers were able to undergo very important leadership growth themselves.
As I begin my studies at college once again, I find myself deeply missing the parts of Mountain T.O.P. that just aren’t the same anywhere else. The vulnerability of asking someone to pray for you and your struggles on a Wednesday night, the accomplishment of working with a homeowner to fulfill their expressed need, the quiet joy of riding through camp at night and gazing at the star-cluttered heavens above, these memories and so many more are ones I will carry in my heart for years to come. I feel a great peace in the knowledge that I made the absolute most of my summer by working with Mountain T.O.P., and in the knowledge that my work will continue to lead to personal insight, growth, and progress. I am so thankful for the 10 weeks I spent at Cumberland Pines, and I hope to make another 10-week return in the summer of 2027.