This article originally appeared in the August 2005 Boost-A-Month Club Newsletter

Finding God's Kingdom at Summer Camp

Father Tim Murphy (left), Chris Clark (right) and Chris’s son, Nick, take a break from doing dishes during Camp Glenmary. Chris, a former brotherhood candidate, spent a week volunteering as a cook.

Father Tim Murphy had his 50th birthday this year, but he says he stills gets to go to camp every summer. Since 1994 Father Tim has spent the month of June at Camp Glenmary on the banks of the Tombigbee River in northeast Mississippi. “You can’t beat it!” he says.

The first two weeks of camp are known as “Friendship Camp.” The second two are “Catholic Camp.”

Each week Friendship Camp hosts 55 to 60 low-income children, ages 9, 10 and 11, who live in and around the mission territory of northern Mississippi where Glenmary staffs nine missions. “We see Friendship Camp as an outreach that enriches kids and makes a difference in their lives,” Father Tim says.

Many children who come to Friendship Camp “carry burdens that kids shouldn’t have to carry, and camp gives them an environment of safety, fun and happiness,” Father Tim says. “They get to experience the best of God’s creation. They come for a week and have the kind of fun that a kid should have.”

The second two weeks—Catholic Camp—draws Catholic kids, ages 9 through 14 and gives them the opportunity to gather for fun, faith-sharing, liturgy and a sense of their tradition. These young people live in areas where other Catholics are scarce, so the opportunity to be a part of a group in which they are not a minority comes only once a year—at Camp Glenmary.

When Father Tim received his 1994 assignment to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Aberdeen, Miss., he knew that serving as camp director would be part of his ministry—and he eagerly anticipated that service, he says. Experience in Boy Scout camping and other outdoor activities gave Father Tim the background needed to run the summer camp founded by Father Larry Goulding and other Glenmarians in the mid-1970s. In August of this year, Father Tim will take a new assignment, as pastor of the Glenmary mission in Pontotoc, Miss., but he will continue in his role as director of Camp Glenmary.

Throughout the year, Father Tim works to recruit the 80 counselors needed for the four weeks of camp. In late winter he begins camp planning with long-time counselor Heidi Stevens.

During the camping season, his job includes a multitude of activities: working in the kitchen with the “counselors in training,” (teens who are too old to be campers, but not yet ready to work as counselors), ordering and transporting supplies, performing many of the tasks needed to keep camp running smoothly. He calls some tasks “mundane,” others “meaningful”—and admits that the title “utility infielder” describes his role rather well.

During Catholic Camp, however, Father Tim adds another very important task: celebrating daily Mass for the campers who come from the Glenmary mission areas in Mississippi and Alabama.

During the first week of Catholic Camp, the campers are ages nine through 11; attendees the second week are 12 through 14—and one of their activities is to help plan the liturgies in which they participate. “They help with music and we’ve really had a pretty good choir develop,” Father Tim says.

Catholic Camp “gives kids the opportunity to experience their faith on a different level,” Father Tim says. “I call it ‘faith in a different key,’ the same song with a different beat.”

In 2005 Catholic Camp had six counselors who had attended as campers and returned as college students to share with younger children the love and fellowship they received years earlier. “Camp wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for the counselors,” Father Tim says.

Most counselors, Catholics in their 20s or 30s, come from across the country, although some are local Mississippians. Father Tim describes them as young people who exemplify a life of faith. They form a community and keep in touch with one another throughout the year. Michelle Hageman, who just completed her sixth year as a camp counselor, is one of several counselors who return to camp each year. She is responsible for “Catholic Corner,” an integral part of the daily schedule of Catholic Camp that gives campers the opportunity to explore Church tradition and history.

“I really think of camp as the beginning of my year,” Michelle says. “It gives me a chance to get recharged, and it aligns my priorities. It helps me to focus on what’s important in life.”

Michelle agrees with Father Tim’s self-designation as utility infielder. “He’s the ultimate behind-the-scenes guy,” she says. She says he lets the counselors take the lead with camp, but he blends well with the people in Mississippi.

“I’ve never been able to master the art of chatting,” she says, “but he’s great! If someone drops by camp, even if Father Tim is doing 300 hundred different things, he’ll drop what he’s doing and talk to them, or show them around. That really makes him a good ‘face’ for camp.”

“Camp energizes me for other parts of my ministry,” Father Tim says. “And really, I get more than I give. I’m grateful to have the grace to do it and have the opportunity to be around the counselors and the kids. I really learn from them; they inspire me and help me understand how the kingdom is present.”