By MACY WEATHERFORD/Staff Writer
The Baptist Student Ministry went to Timberline Baptist Camp and Conference Center on Oct. 21-23 to spend a weekend away from the busyness of the school year. The fall campout was a time of fellowship and building strong Christian community with other UT Tyler BSM students. 62 students and five staff members attended.
The BSM fall campout has been an annual event for the last 15 years.
“Every year we keep doing the campout because there’s something about getting away from campus and getting out into nature, exploring deeper conversation and relationship with our friends, as well as digging into the Bible and praying together,” said Joe Osteen, the director of the UT Tyler BSM.
Osteen continued, “The students often say one of their favorite parts of the campout, in addition to deep friendships, is the hour of solitude that we do [on] Saturday morning. We take one hour, and we give them a scripture to read and things to think about and send them off to be quiet somewhere around the camp for an hour. I’m always amazed at how many people say that was one of their favorite parts of the weekend.”
Sophomore leadership student Alex Ramirez agreed.
“I really enjoyed the hour of solitude because I didn’t really know what it was. I was a believer, but I wasn’t really living out my faith and not consistently reading my Bible. The BSM explained what the hour of solitude was, and they hand out a paper explaining where to start reading and to ask yourself these questions. It is really peaceful reading your Bible and meditating on the Word, so that was exciting, being my first time I think I’d ever intentionally done something like that,” he said.
At the fall campout the students participated in many activities, including scavenger hunts, competitions and team bonding skills.
Each night everyone gathered after dinner and spent time worshipping and listening to a lesson from God’s Word. After this time the students went to their teams and spent time answering questions from the lesson.
All of the team bonding games during the day opened up more opportunities to have personal and meaningful conversations at night. Spending time in community helped grow friendships that can be brought back to campus.
Michelle Reyes, campus missionary intern, said that she was excited for the fall campout and being able to dig into and enjoy God’s creation of nature. Specifically, she said, she was most looking forward to intentional conversations between students and seeing friendships begin to flourish.
Maci McDowell, sophomore leadership student, definitely agreed. For her, the fall campout was a weekend full of quality time with others and time to grow lasting friendships. McDowell’s favorite memories from the fall campout were sitting around the campfire “talking until three in the morning.”
“Going to the BSM, you know everyone from your focus group, but the fall campout was a great opportunity to get to know everyone,” she said.
Dakota Arden, sophomore leadership student, said, “From a freshman perspective, we could see that we were going into a new event, especially with the BSM and with me never going really camping at all, it was definitely a surreal experience.”
One of the biggest facets of the event was the team-building games and contests. Teams were divided and chosen “based on the different mealtimes,” according to Arden. Each team had a responsibility to help prepare or clean up after one of the meals.
“With your team, we did a variety of games and had competitions, which really made it fun overall. You could really meet people that you probably maybe have never talked to or would not have talked to without being paired up with one another,” Arden said.
On Saturday afternoon the teams had a shelter-building competition. The shelter had to be built in less than 90 minutes, be able to hold four people, have a fire out front and could be built from anything found in the woods. The students were given some resources but had to complete an additional task to achieve outside resources such as duct tape, trash bags, cardboard or matches. If any student decided to sleep in their shelter, their team received bonus points.
The winning shelter, along with a team chant and dance competition, were judged by the BSM staff.
At the end of the weekend BSM staff tallied up all of the points to see which team won overall at the fall campout. Team Flameacorn took home the win.
Ramirez said that the fall campout helped him feel connected to the BSM in a way he hadn’t felt the year before as a freshman. To him, the “intentional time bonding together over the small things” made all the difference.
“Seeing the freshmen now and knowing what it was like in their position, we know how hard it is to like feel a part of something. If they can feel a part of the BSM, I think it’s all worth it. It’s not all about the events, but the fall campout is an event that I feel it’s really like that flipping point of going to the BSM and then being a part of the BSM,” he said.
“We do a lot of silly activities and eat good food, but I think the thing that makes it special is the experience. Getting away, spending time together, and doing fun things allows for that shared experience away from campus [and it] really builds community,” said Osteen.
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