‘We can only do so much, but our God can do so much more’

Suzanne, you’ve been a leader at Camp for Kids in Western Australia for four years. Why are you so passionate about Camp for Kids?

It basically comes down to this: if I can be a loving figure to these kids and show them just a little bit of God’s love, I know it can make a huge difference in their lives. As a teenager, I was lucky enough to have two incredible mentors who really turned my life around. The support they gave me, as well as seeing the way they loved God, really made an impact on my life, and I know that if I can show the kids on camp just a little bit of God’s love, it can make a huge difference for them as well. I had a lot of disadvantages as a kid, and my heart is for anyone who has experienced disadvantages in life. I experienced abuse within my family, and now, as an adult, God has given me a heart for these kids who have experienced much more than I have. The way I see it, at Camp for Kids, we’re shining a light into these young people’s lives. We plant Gospel seeds, we shine a bit of light, and we pray and pray and pray that God will keep working in their hearts. 

Tell me more about your mentors.

Dave and Elise* were two youth leaders at my church who took me under their wing when I was 16 years old. I come from a family of 9 kids, and we were home-schooled for a lot of my childhood. Things were, and still are, quite messy in my family, and I suppose you could say that I experienced a lot of stress as a child. 

Towards the end of high school, my parents separated, and my life fell apart. No one really knew what was going on in my life, but then Dave and Elise realised I was struggling with something. So, one day, they sat me down and asked what was happening, and for the first time in my life, I felt loved and heard.

It sounds like Dave and Elise had a huge impact on your life. Did they inspire you to care for children and teenagers? 

For sure! If it wasn’t for my mentors, I wouldn’t be running these camps, and I can see that in the trajectory of my siblings. At one point in time, five of my siblings had marriages that were breaking down and one day, Dave said to me, ‘Suzanne, you’re not your family.’ It was such a powerful moment for me! I feel it is important for us to tell the kids on camp the same thing. So many of them believe they will end up in prison like their parents, as if they have no agency in their lives. It’s such a joy to speak into that hurt and say to them, ‘You are not your family. You are not your parents. You are your own individual, and God has a plan for you.’ I know for myself that I don’t like receiving compliments in a group setting, so we often follow up with the kids one-on-one to make sure they know that we weren’t ‘just saying’ it but that we actually mean it for every child at that camp, including them.

Without Dave and Elise, I would be in a very different place. They took the time to invest in my life and brought me into their family. They were my rock during that time and supported me so well through it all. 

What activities do you do at Camp?

We spend time each morning running Bible devotions with the kids in small groups, singing songs, and telling them how much Jesus loves them. We also take some time to talk with them about life and share our testimonies.

In terms of activities, we do horse therapy, and we go caving, too. Caving can be quite mentally and emotionally challenging for the kids who don’t want to do it or are quite scared. But we gently encourage them to participate, and we make sure there are leaders throughout the cave to ensure the kids feel safe. Seeing how they trust us and take on the challenge is great.  

Tell me about horse therapy – what exactly is that?

All of the activities we do at camp are intended to help the kids engage and grow, and horse therapy is pretty powerful in this way. We take the kids to a local riding school and teach them about horses and how to care for them. They then get to play with the horses and guide them around the enclosure. It’s a really special activity because some of the kids who come to camp are very hurt and very angry. It can be really hard to build trust with them. But to see the gentleness that comes across these kids when they’re trying to connect with the horse is so encouraging. Even the kids who come to camp with a lot of anger seem to relax around the horses and understand the importance of being gentle with them. 

One year, one of the boys got to ride a horse, and all the other kids were cheering him on. They were really excited for him, which you don’t see much, especially with angry kids. It was pretty special to see!

Can you tell me about a time when you saw a real change in one of the campers? 

Kylie* was only 12 years old when she witnessed the death of one of her best friends. They were riding their bikes, and he’d been hit by a car, and the driver didn’t stop. When she came back to camp a few months later, I didn’t know this had happened. But I noticed that she wouldn’t eat at meal times, and I knew right away that something was going on for her. So I pulled her aside one day so we could chat. It took a few days, but she told me what had happened. She said to me, ‘It was my fault. It was my fault that he died.’ 

My heart broke as she said this, and I wanted her to know that none of it was her fault. So I asked her, ‘Why do you think it’s your fault?’ She replied, ‘Because I couldn’t stop the car. I should have done so much more.’ Kylie felt so guilty that she hadn’t put her own life in danger to protect her friend, and I wanted her to understand that it wasn’t her responsibility to do that. I asked her, ‘Would it have been better if you had both been hit by the car and no one was able to call for help?’ I think this shocked her a little bit, but somehow, the message got through, and she realised that it wasn’t her fault at all. 

I saw Kylie dropping her brother off at camp a few years later. She came up and said hello to me, and we had a quick chat. It might not sound like much, but the fact that she came up and said hello to me first was huge! I know she wouldn’t have done that a few years ago. Seeing how much she had grown in confidence over those few years was incredible. 

How do you make sure you select the right leaders for these camps?

Having the right people on the leadership team at camp is so important. There’s a commanding leadership style that can be fast-paced and loud, and many of these young people experience this at home. I know for myself that when I experienced that as a kid, I just shut down. That’s not what we want for the children on camp. We want them to feel safe and experience a more soft gentle presence. So, we make sure that our leadership style is slower and gentler. Often, this is how God relates to us, and we want these young people to understand that God is loving and kind.

Recently, we started running some trauma-informed training for all the leaders on camp, and we found it really helpful in trying to walk alongside these kids and support them. One very small thing we do is make sure that each young person feels seen by the leaders. There are often more than ten kids at camp, so on the first day, I’ll ask my team to make a special effort to learn all the names of the kids in their dorm within the first 6 hours and then the names of all the kids in the first 36 hours of camp. Even having one or two adults know your name in that size group and converse with you is a whole different experience.

I’ve had conversations with kids who have said to me, ‘You won’t remember me after this week,’ and it breaks my heart that they struggle to trust adults. A lot of these young people haven’t experienced love from their families, so if we can show them just a bit of God’s love during camp, we’ve done what we need to. If we can share God’s love and demonstrate that the way we relate to them is an outworking of God’s love for us, then I feel like we’ve done our job. 

What is it like to leave Camp, not knowing when you might see the campers again? 

I trust that God put these kids on camp for a reason, and He will continue to work in their lives beyond camp. But sometimes it is tough to leave camp because you know that these young people aren’t necessarily going back to very happy homes. Sometimes, it seems like camp isn’t long enough to really make a difference in their lives, but we trust that the Lord will provide more loving people around them, whether mentors or chaplains or someone else who can speak into their lives and show them love. For instance, we link the older youth with Christian mentors so that they can have a role model in their lives who can support and encourage them. As camp leaders, we commit these kids to God and say, ‘I know we can’t do anything about this situation, but we’ve done our best and given each child a Bible and given them some good things to take away from camp.’ We can only do so much, but I know that our God can do so much more. 

Do you have people praying for you while you’re away at camp?

Yes! Even though I’ve never met most of them, I’m aware of networks of people who are committed to praying for us around the clock while we’re away on camp. These people are a huge part of the team, even if we never get to meet them. We’re all part of God’s work in the lives of these precious young people. 

*Names have been changed to protect privacy