By Jim Coggins

SHUTTING DOWN for a few years has allowed Kawkawa Camp and Retreat Centre an opportunity to rethink its philosophy.

The camp, just east of Hope, was formerly run by the Christian and Missionary Alliance but was closed down in 2005.

With the denomination’s blessing, it reopened in 2008 under the guidance of a new nonprofit society. But it got off to a rough start. Camp director Rita Lihaven, who had helped to get the camp going again, died of cancer just as the camp was reopening.

New executive director Wayne Stewart joined the camp in 2009 and brought a new philosophy. He told BCCN that most camps are focused on their summer camping program and try to pull together staff to run those programs.

Kawkawa has flipped that model on its head. Kawkawa’s new focus is on the spiritual, moral and development training of the staff.

With the goal of ‘Transforming lives for all eternity,’ the camp aims to make an investment of five to seven years in the discipling of a generation of young leaders.

This does not mean the camping program does not matter, but “if you have the right people, the right role models,” Stewart said, the program will inevitably be good.

Young leaders in training work their way up through three stages. At age 13, they can begin as part of the work crew.

They do everything from washing dishes to camp maintenance; it is an opportunity to see how camp works from the bottom up and to test out gifting.

At 16, they enter a leadership training program developed by Stewart over his 25 years in camping ministry. This begins with two weeks of training in early spring.

The first week is spent in class, going through a 50-page manual. In the second week, each trainee shadows a member of the existing staff, learning on the job.

The trainees then spend two to six weeks serving in various capacities, as life guards, activity leaders and so on.

Continue article >>

Eventually, the trainees can move into program staff roles.

The idea is to “use Christian camping to test out leadership skills.”

Stewart said there is “no environment as learning rich as a camp.” This is because it is a 24-hour-a-day experience and “when you are working in such close contact, the haloes fall off after a couple of weeks.”

Key to the program is constant evaluation, Stewart said. There are three staff meetings a day – a morning devotional, a program meeting and a confidential no-holds-barred evaluation at the end of the day.

The repeated cycle of planning, implementation and evaluation will produce a continually improving staff and camp program.

The real test of the effectiveness of the program is “12 to 15 years down the road,” Stewart said.

Often camp staff end up in full-time ministry. But regardless of whether they end up in vocational ministry, what matters is their Christian commitment, exemplified by such things as whether they have married a Christian spouse, go to church regularly and are involved in ministry.

The new life for the camp is “not a surprise to God,” Stewart said. He noted that after the camp closed, one individual kept walking around the property and praying.

The answer that kept coming back was “God is not finished here yet.”

That means, Stewart said, that “we have a dream to chase.”

The camp is in an ideal location, with 400 feet of beachfront on the east side of Kawkawa Lake – with sun all day long and clean water.

By the time of the camp’s 40th anniversary in four years, camp leaders hope to have created a motel-style lodge, so they can add an adult retreat to the summer camping.

Kawkawa will host an open house April 18 and is hoping to attract a larger crowd than the 500 who attended last year.  

April 2010