A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camp: SHERWOOD FOREST BEGINS

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camp:  SHERWOOD FOREST BEGINS 

 In 1966 we began Sherwood Forest.  We designed the family groups into hamlets and the sleeping units in the shape of huts.  The boys and girls would eat in their own hamlets and cooked some of their own meals.  We developed a town meeting, played games on the village green (which turned into the village brown by the end of the summer) and ended each week with a renaissance-like faire with a bar-b-que, and display of all the crafts the campers had made during the week.

The first week at Sherwood Forest was very exciting.  We had the banners up and the trumpets in place.  We all took on Sherwood Forest names.  The campers would make up new names for themselves.  The Pastor is the Friar, the lead counselors are the Squires, the counselors are the Sirs and Ladies.  My Sherwood Forest name was Lady of the Forest (It later became my “camp name”). 

            We had hired a young man from Sacramento to be a Lead Counselor of one of the Hamlets for the boys, named Redingham.  The other boys Hamlet was Greenwell and the Girls Hamlets were Blueshire and Goldwood.  The lead counselor had a casual style about himself.  He very seldom got ruffled about anything. 

The first night of the summer camps I walked around to each of the Hamlets to see how things were shaping up.  When I went to Redingham, the food truck had just arrived.  The “Squire” was in the center of his hamlet and the campers were all over the place.   I asked him when he planned to gather the campers.  He looked like he was not sure how to get that accomplished and was a little nervous with me there.  I said  to him, “I’m going to visit the other hamlets and I’ll be back.  Why don’t you get your campers to sit down at the tables?”  He looked relieved.   I left him and came back in about fifteen minutes.   Everything was going well.  

            It was a reminder to me the responsibility we were putting on these young college age people.  We did not take things for granted after that.  Our Orientation weeks would cover such possibilities and ways to get the support of the campers and counselors. 

During the summers a very special place I would go to have quiet as often as I could was at the Sherwood Forest Vesper area.   There was a stream running between the trees.  The shades of green on the trees and bushes were so beautiful.  I would sit for five or twenty minutes and I would pray and meditate.   It was a place where the Holy Spirit would fill my half empty cup of energy and quiet any concerns I would have for that day.   Sometimes I would cry and pray and dream of new possibilities of providing a program that would be an encouragement for campers to come to know Christ and want to serve him in anyway they could.