Every family and individual who comes to Camp has a different story. Everyone who attends Camp is impacted in different particular ways. The Drinan family, Tom, Lori, and their kids Mackenzie and TJ, started attending Camp Arcadia three years ago when their daughter worked on staff. Mackenzie had never been to RKD before her time serving on staff. She heard about Camp from one of her classmates and Mackenzie developed a strong desire to work at Arcadia. “I don’t know what it was, but God was really making my heart beat for a place I’d never been before. I really felt called here,” she says of applying to work on staff. She memorized the mission statement and learned all that she could of Camp. “What drew me to camp first when I was applying was that it was a family camp. It wasn’t just kids coming, it wasn’t just elderly people. It was a family thing. It is a ministry through the generations… The purpose of this place is to bond families together. I don’t know of another place like it.”
Her family came up to Arcadia to visit her that summer and have been coming ever since. It is now a tradition of theirs that they wish to continue. Lori also greatly appreciates the family focus of Camp. “I think it is a great place for us to come and be a family!” Families can just come to Arcadia and BE a family without the busyness of their everyday lives. They can spend time together and really be renewed in their relationships. They have the opportunity to grow spiritually together and that is something the Drinan family really appreciates. Tom states that “coming together and doing the spiritual aspects together really impacted us and really bonded us.” Some of the lectures during the deans program have stuck with their family through the entire year. “The next year proved to be challenging for our family… Those notes [from the deans program] held our faith together. We were able to study the Bible together and relate it back to what we learned at Camp Arcadia… Together,” Mackenzie said.
That is what Camp hopes to provide, a togetherness for families. RKD gives families the resources and environment to work through their joys and pains together in a community with other Christians, without distractions. As Mackenzie stated, we hope that this ministry through the generations continues to impact others like it has the Drinans for years and years to come.
