What Camp Quest means to me

I was half way through “Devotion Time” and I’d just read that day’s assigned bible passage to my cabin of campers. I was about to read off the bullet points of What the passage teaches us when a camper interrupted to tell me that my shoes were “whack”. I don’t know what it was about this quaint slang that drove me into a state of anger and shame, but the next minute I was alone in the staff cabin and knocking the Windows 98 screen out of its reverie. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for but I knew I had to find a community that was not entirely at odds with everything I valued.

Kyrill at camp in the US — Kyrill and his “whack” shoes at Catholic camp in the US.

I don’t know how I found the Camp Quest UK site. The site had one white page with a little tent in the middle and, if I remember correctly, an animated gif of a fire. But more importantly it also had a values statement and an application form for new staff to join this as yet non-existent organisation with three weeks before the deadline. I researched more about Camp Quest and I knew I’d found my purpose.

Don’t tell anyone, but for the rest of that summer, during “Devotion Time”, I mixed the bible passages with short stories by Asimov, Vonnegut and Carter and let the campers discuss what they thought it was all about.

Ten months later I met my first crew of similar-minded young renegades at our first camp in Somerset. It is still truly remarkable to me that we the few who learn the names of stars, cry at “Matilda” and disrupt small talk with our strange questions should have found such a home in Camp Quest. Be it archery, singing or debate, everything is better when you do it with people who listen to the world. The members of this community, both young and less-young, invigorate, stimulate and yearly fill me with new wonder and new hope. As our very first campers become our camp leaders, I hope that we may remain a beacon to lost travellers forever.

Kyrill is an English teacher in London, and has been a part of Camp Quest UK every year since our first camp in 2009. He is very close to completing a novel.

It’s hard to put into words what Camp Quest means to me, and how it’s changed me as a person (it has changed me – there’s no doubt about that). I’ve been every year since it came to the UK in 2009, and now at 19 I’m more than proud to be a volunteer.

I suppose finding myself in an accepting environment with people like me was a huge change. Growing up I often struggled, like most children and teenagers, to fit in, but never did I feel more self-assured and open than when I was at Camp Quest. I love how, unlike any other event I’ve been part of, Camp Quest pushed me to question and learn topics that might often be considered “too complicated” for children to understand or even have views on. I was fed up with the idea that because I was 12 (or 13 or 14 – it goes on!) I wasn’t old enough to form my own opinion.

Questioning what I was taught was looked down upon elsewhere – but not at Camp Quest. And now I’ve reached the age where my opinions are given more weight, I’m actually able to reason and question, unlike so many people who were never given the platform when they were younger.

Julia at Camp Quest UK in 2009 and 2015 — Julia at the very first Camp Quest UK in 2009 (left) and in her first year as a camp counsellor in 2015 (right)

But whilst the discussions and the activities are great, what I find really defines Camp Quest is the people. I met one of my closest friends at Camp Quest, who I’m certain I will keep in touch with for the rest of my life. Before I met her, my writing had only been for myself. I soon found myself sharing my work with her; her encouragement drove me to write my first novel at 15 (a whopping 140,000 words). That level of motivation is practically alien to me, and I doubt I would have found it at any place other than Camp Quest. It somehow attracts clear-minded, kind, accepting people from all around the country. I felt no need to act like I was someone else or pretend I didn’t care about certain issues; for what was possibly the first time, all of me was accepted in a group setting. So for that I’d like to thank Camp Quest, and wish it a fortunate 2016!

Julia is studying Politics at University. She has written a Young Adult novel and dreams of being a writer. (We at Camp Quest would argue that she’s *already* a writer)

What Camp Quest means to me – Kyrill

What Camp Quest means to me – Julia

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