Are you looking forward to your holidays?  When I was your age, the last two months of school seemed as if it would never end, but finally Dad piled everything except the kitchen sink into our little car; there were boxes piled on the roof and suitcases on a big rack where modern cars have their trunk.  Often, we rented a small apartment at the seaside, but one year we went camping with the boys from my uncle’s Sunday School class.

How you ever been camping?  I expect a lot of you had a big trailer, like the man across our street, and you went to a beautiful campground with hot showers, washrooms, and a hook-up for electric light.  But camping was a bit different when I was a boy...
 
 

First of all, my father got out a big spade and dug a great hole.  Then he wrapped some burlap around four poles, and told us this was our washroom.  Next, he found an enormous canvas bag with a pole slung through the handles; he pointed to the farm over the hill, and sent two of us to ask the farmer if he would be kind enough to give us some water for cooking and washung.  Meanwhile, he dug another shallow pit and put some logs around it- here was our oven for cooking the dinner.  Finally, my uncle hoisted a big bell-shaped tent, just like a giant mushroom, with a strong pole right in the middle.  He spread a tarpaulin on the ground around the pole, and this is where we had to sleep for the next two weeks.  Boy, did the ground feel hard that first night!

Right outside the tent, we found our own special wood, with delicious blackberries, beautiful flowers, birds, and wonderful butterflies that we had never seen before.  We took a small saw along to cut off some strong branches, and these became rapiers, as we cut new paths through the uncharted jungle.  Deep inside the bushes, we made special dens for ourselves where we could sit quietly and enjoy all of the wonderful things that God had put in the countryside.  We were miles from the bright lights of the city.  At night, we could lift our tent-flap and look out at millions of stars in the heavens, a sight that gave new meaning to our vespers, as we gathered round the campfire and sang the hymn: “O Worship the King, all glorious above”.

Our camping trip gave us not only new playmates and new experiences, but also a great opportunity to learn about God.  When you go camping, I hope the sun will shine just the right amount, and that you will have lots of swimming and games in the woods.  And I hope you will also take time to look around you, learning about the wonderful world God has created for us, and thinking what you must do to make sure these wonderful things are still here for your children and your grandchildren to enjoy.