Daniel P., Age 14
A week is a long time in the life of a teenager, so try to imagine what happens when God puts a bunch of them in one place… with NO electronics. Life at Camp Gilgal is a wonderful thing, and those of us who get to experience it are truly blessed. In this article to all you future campers out there, or even veteran campers, I’m going to tell you what happens in the weeklong life of a teen camper. Every morning starts the same, at 7:00 am. We are awakened by the loud, and long, blast of the shofar. We are then told by our cabin staff, although no
t all of us listen at the time. We then get in the showers and get dressed, and once we have all done that we start to clean the cabin until the whistle is blown. Once the whistle is blown, we go down to the mess hall to get breakfast. After breakfast, we go and clean the cabin in preparation for cabin inspection. After we are done with that, we go down to the Tabernacle for worship, and a quick message.
After Tabernacle, we then head over to a certain activity for the day, which could include the giant swing, low ropes, high ropes, and the rock wall. When we are finished with our adventure activities, we go back to the mess hall for some glorious lunch. When we first get into the mess hall, we hear from Ida Schmutzstein, this year’s cabin inspector. After lunch, we go back to our cabins with specific instructions on what to wear/bring. When the whistle is blown we go to the “Lone Tree,” whic
h is a regular tree that just isn’t around other trees. We are then told what our next activity is, which could be pool time or some other activity. After that, we then have free time, in which we can do whatever we want with a staff member with us. After free time we get ready for dinner. After dinner we are then for a second time given instructions on what are we going to wear and bring. When the whistle blows, we then go to the Lone Tree, and we start… the night games.
If you don’t already know what those are I will explain. The night games are an amazing thing, where we play games such as Capture the Degel, Wells Fargo, and icebreaker games. Then after we have an amazing night we return to the cabin for a good night’s rest, and the best part is that we get to wake up and do it all over again the next day. Now that you know what we get to do in our weeklong camp lif
e, I’ll let you hear from an actual camper. I asked veteran camper Isaac H., “What do you like about camp life?” He replied with, “Well, I like the fact that I get to get away from all the stressful things in the world today.” I think that that says it all to be honest, and I hope you will too when you get to camp next year.