Hume Lake Winter Camp allows students a weekend getaway

Imagine a weekend away from technology and packed full of snowball fights, sledding, life-changing chapels and awesome recreation with friends. This is the case with Hume Lake Winter Camp.

Over 1000 high schoolers and junior highers made the voyage up The Sierra Nevada mountains to Hume Lake Christian Camps, Jan. 22-24. United Winter Camp is an annual event that only includes several churches from the Fresno/Clovis area.

The weekend’s activities include a giant tube run, TATONKA the mechanical bull, The Screamer and the giant swing, a snowboard hill, an ice skating rink, metal crafting and lazer tag. If you do not participate in those, the snow is plentiful and perfect for snowball fights, building snowmen, snow angels, and sledding.

However, you can not talk about Hume Lake Winter Camp without mentioning the annual Broom Hockey Tournament and the Boxsled Blitz. The Boxsled Blitz is a late night recreation activity where each church creates a sled exclusively out of duct tape and cardboard. Each sled contains between two to ten people and are judged on style, performance and durability as they fly down the tube run hill that includes a jump.

Some of the best parts are nights like tonight where people hear the gospel and get saved but some of the harder parts about it is that you are very removed from normal life, an hour and a half away from the city. Some differences from summer are the cold, the snow and that it’s a shorter camp and I think because of that there’s a lot more energy that kids come with. I like it because I get to see firsthand God move in people’s hearts. –Cory Fenn, Wildwood and Winter Camp Director

The annual Broom Hockey tournament is anticipated all year leading up to camp. The rules are simple: guys versus guys and girls versus girls in four minute rounds, no intentional violence or high sticking and you can not use your hands or feet to handle the puck. Hume creates a Broom Hockey promo video for each year, describing the rules and game for the campers.

Campus eighth grade student Blake Deffenbacher participated in the junior high tournament. He came with Peoples Church Student Ministries.

“I liked the competitiveness of Broom Hockey and how serious Hume treated the event,” Deffenbacher said. “I would have played harder and more aggressively so we could have won if I could go back and play again. I’m looking forward to making another good team with my friends and winning it all.

Along with these activities, there were four chapels. Friday night, Saturday morning and night and Sunday Morning. Worship was lead by a band from Los Angeles called The Procession and the speaker was Brian Holland.

[fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244087298″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

The theme for the weekend was ‘I Am’ from Isaiah 6:1-9. Holland preached that too often we have too small a view of God and put him in a box and then in turn raise the view of ourselves and when we choose to trust or follow our feelings and culture instead of God’s truth and His holiness.

Wildwood and Winter Camp Director Cory Fenn appreciates the nights where the Gospel message is shared and received by students. Fenn loves the opportunity to experience God move firsthand.

“I’ve worked at Hume for three years,” Fenn said. “I run Wildwood and Winter Camp. Some of the best parts are nights like tonight where people hear the gospel and get saved but some of the harder parts about it is that you are very removed from normal life, an hour and a half away from the city. Some differences from summer are the cold, the snow and that it’s a shorter camp and I think because of that there’s a lot more energy that kids come with. I like it because I get to see firsthand God move in people’s hearts.”

Macie Thompson, ‘19, admires the way the speaker, Holland, used humor and stories to catch the audience’s attention. Nevertheless, he always managed to bring it back to Jesus.

“My favorite part was probably being with my friends,” Thompson said. “I didn’t play broom hockey, but I ice skated and went on the tube run. I really liked the speaker because he had a way of being funny and catching our attention, but he always brought it back to the Lord. He also used some pretty funny stories to help his points and the band was all right too. I’ll probably miss meeting new people.”

Often times, Winter Camp at Hume is overlooked, settling in a place behind summer camp. Yet the brief intensity and the multitude of activities and traditions of winter camp can not be excluded when talking about Hume’s camps.

For more articles about Hume, read about the results of the Rough fire.

This author can be reached via twitter @alexrurik23 and via email [email protected]