This week our guest blogger is Emma Crandall, who was a camper during Week 1. Emma was on summer staff at Mountain T.O.P. from 2015-2017, filled in for a week or two at a time during the summers 2018-2021, and has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2022. She is a teacher, having taught third grade for five years and moving to teach Kindergarten this upcoming school year. Also, she is a newly certified yoga instructor. She has been on various mission trips and passionate about service to others for as long as she can remember. She hopes to see you around on the mountain sometime!
Relationships
“The success of Mountain T.O.P.’s ministry heavily relies on cultivated and nourished relationships.”
Cultivating Relationships
I shared with my church group that I traveled with down to Mountain T.O.P. a few weeks ago that the Mountain T.O.P. ministry holds a very big piece of my heart. I have been involved with the ministry in many ways - from being a teenage camper, to working on Summer Staff, to returning to help “part-time” on Summer Staff, to now being an adult camper and serving on the Board of Directors. As I reflect on the week I spent as a camper there (during week 1 of the summer), I keep coming back to an idea in line with this summer’s theme: cultivating relationships. Anyone who has been to Mountain T.O.P. knows this is an important value to the ministry and is a large reason the ministry has been successful for nearly 50 years.
There are many relationships I feel were cultivated during just the one week I spent at camp in early June. First, the relationships I made while on Summer Staff. The friendships I made with my coworkers during those summers are extremely important to me and have been lasting friendships since even my first summer working on staff eight years ago. Going to camp gives me a chance to reconnect with friends in person that I typically only get to talk to on the phone throughout the rest of the year. I also get to reconnect with people from various church groups who return to camp year after year as adult campers that I first met while working on Summer Staff. I am a big believer in connecting with people of various backgrounds and experiences. This is one way that I believe people, not just myself, get to do that! Another way people cultivate relationships at Mountain T.O.P. is through working together in their YRG (youth renewal group) throughout the week. Coincidentally, I had a lot of mutual acquaintances with people I served with in my YRG this year. We also had a great mix of church groups - one of us was from Illinois, one from Iowa, two from separate churches in Tennessee, and two from Florida. As in a typical YRG experience, we were a lot closer at the end of our week of service than the beginning. We have also found ways to stay in touch now that we are back in our own communities.
“the success of Mountain T.O.P.’s ministry heavily relies on cultivated and nourished relationships”
As I mentioned before, the success of Mountain T.O.P.’s ministry heavily relies on cultivated and nourished relationships. Through staying involved with the ministry prior to and now as a member of the Board of Directors, some of the relationships I have most enjoyed cultivating are with the current Summer Staff. It filled my heart with pride and joy, truly, to watch our staff “do their thing” during our camp week. They handled challenges with grace, were effective leaders and facilitators, and delivered powerful programming to help all of us campers grow in our faiths. I know for a fact that they were also inspiring to the next group of potential leaders, as many of the people in my church group showed interest in being on Summer Staff in the future. Finally, the relationships that Mountain T.O.P. has cultivated in the community and with homeowners might be my favorite. Listening to other members of the week 1 camp community share about their positive experiences throughout the week and the impact Mountain T.O.P. has had in the area was so powerful. Also, getting to connect with the homeowners my group was blessed to work with during the week was such a joyous experience.
I will leave you with this quote to reflect on:
““Take something you love, tell people about it, bring people together who share your love, and help make it better. Ultimately, you’ll have more of whatever you love for yourself and the world.””
