Charles Hewlett is the National Leader of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand. He has been to a few Easter Camps.
Easter Camps are an incredibly important part of what New Zealand Baptists do. They are camps, at Easter, for young people, and we Baptists have been doing them for decades!
For many people Easter Camps are a very significant part of Gospel renewal occurring in their lives: a lot of young people meet Jesus at these camps.
Can you help Easter Camps this year?
Last week I caught up with Blue Bradley, Director of Northern Easter Camp. I found out there is an urgent need for camp crew: volunteers able to turn up and help with a variety of things before, during, or after the four Easter Camps around the country: Lake Karapiro (Cambridge), Mystery Creek (Hamilton), Manfeild Park (Feilding), Spencer Park (Canterbury).
Crew are needed to help set up the camps. It takes a massive amount of work to set up these large events u2013 for three of the camps just about everything needs to be brought in to create a great and safe environment for our young people.
Volunteer roles
Set up Crew: From 3 April setup begins. Might you have some availability to help before camps start?
During camp there are many ways to serve, things you might not think of, such as the Site Safe Crew: these are the people who make the camp sites awesome and fun for the kids, as well as safe.
Kitchen Crew: Blue says we need people in the kitchens u2013 there are a lot of pies to cook! You donu2019t need to be a chef u2013 being an accountant is ok, or a normal person. Who gets to cook for thousands of people? Easter Camp kitchen crew volunteers do! There are great systems and processes in place u2013 can you imagine helping in a camp kitchen?
Gate Crew: to make sure everybody that gets onto the camp sites are known and safe.
Traffic Crew: broom-broom.
Donut Crew: to ensure there isn't a riot!
Hot Chips Crew: a bit like the Donut Crew but with chips.
As Blue says: If you or someone you know are available pre-Easter, during Easter, or post-Easter (Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning after camp finishes to tidy it up and put it away), we would welcome any offers of help: come and join the Easter Camp Crews around the four camps.
Blue goes on:
Easter Camps are here to serve the Baptist family u2013 their only purpose is to serve and to strengthen youth work in our nation. This is the family business u2013 itu2019s when the family get together to celebrate together. Because itu2019s a family thing, we want to invite the family to come around the table and celebrate together, and we need the familyu2019s help in the form of the crew to help make it all happen.
Please get in touch with Blue Bradley if you can help: no special qualifications are needed, you just need to be available, email [email protected]
Blue also urges us to support our youth pastors and younger leadersu2014check in with them, ask them what they need, encourage them, help make camp accessible for everyone, and most importantly, pray for them!
Check out what each of the four Easter Camp are doing via their websites:
Northern Easter Camp Mystery Creek (Hamilton)
eCamp Lake Karapiro (Cambridge)
Central Easter Camp Manfeild Park (Feilding)
Southern Easter Camp Spencer Park (Canterbury)
You can watch the 17-minute catchup Charles had with Blue on YouTube here...
Photo credits: photos drawn from the following Instagram accounts:
Southern Easter Camp: instagram.com/eastercamp/
Easter Camp Central: instagram.com/centralec/
Northern Easter Camp: instagram.com/northerneastercamp/
