I am pretty amazed, as I’ve now visited six of our many, many camps around the country: How do they put on such a good program for such a low price? How do they make it happen without the normal resources that most large camps have?

The answer is “volunteers.” Nobody gets paid. They just come because they want to serve. They come because they feel called to come. It’s pretty amazing how volunteers drive down the cost of camp and drive up the affordability to the students who must be there.

You see, I come from a camp that charges $300-$400 a week. Oh, we had the best speakers and the greatest band and incredible videos to intensify the week. We had boats, canoes, and amazing experiences, but what I learned in the last couple of weeks is that sometimes we priced ourselves out of the market.

I spend much of my time in the Development ministry, trying to explain to donors how they can invest in the ministry of AMF (and other ministries I’ve been involved with) in order for us to have the resources to continue them. Oftentimes a donor will say to me, “I’m impressed with how much bang for the buck I get in certain ministries. I’m impressed that there’s not a lot of overhead. There’s no one driving fancy cars, no one living in fancy houses.” There is a sense that the resources go directly to the ministry.

Well, I can tell you that after spending time with the ministries of AMF and the camps that I’ve been involved with in the past couple of weeks, and with my history in camping, I can say with certainty to any donor, “What we do at AMF – we get as much out of those resources as humanly possible.” In fact, I believe we get as much out of those resources as spiritually possible.

The human mind often takes snapshots of images and scenes that seem to stick around. When we go on vacation, a certain smell or picture can remind us of that time. Well, I have one of those images from my AMF camping experience. We were at a camp that met in a community center, and there was a disruption in the dining room as kids were eating. One of our retired missionaries – who I found out later is seventy-eight years old – walked over to this camper; gently, gracefully, and respectfully took him to a chair; pulled up a chair so they would be face to face; and simply loved that kid, talking to him for five to six minutes. When I looked over, there were an almost-eighty-year-old missionary and a fourteen-year-old tough kid, holding hands and praying together. There’s something about that picture that shows what is right about what we do at AMF: we run $95 camps.