by Vyasar Bhaiya, senior at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, JKP Radha Madhav Dham devotee, camp instructor and official blogger for Radha Madhav Dham's upcoming new official blog (to be announced later)
The first day of Camp is a unique thing. There are people who you've never seen before, walking around the grounds with their jaws dropped and their big suitcases bursting everywhere. The seasoned Campers are all moved in, lounging in chairs, trading stories about past Camps and the past year. Volunteers frantically scuttle from the office to the classroom, stocking last-minute supplies and making copies of everything. The air is heavy with anticipation at Radha Madhav Dham, for the December Hindu Family Camp.
My lessons are all planned, filed and ready to go. I look at the stack of papers I will have to distribute to the teen class over the course of the next week, and shake my head in wonder. I got here the weekend before and I'm already done? There has to be something left to do: sharpen some pencils, set up an altar, fine-tune a presentation. But of course, it's all being taken care of by the huge army of sevaks that have swarmed about the mandir, preparing it for rambunctious five-year-olds and devotional parents alike. Being at Radha Madhav Dham makes us all more industrious than we really are, because we have the more direct experience of Radha and Krishn watching us as we work.
I go through my list and check off the activities that will need further work, designs that must be monitored to come to fruition: burning Ravan, leela improv, kirtan, parikrama, team-building activities, trivia contest, art project, seva project. All of these things will happen during the course of the Camp. From the morning call of arti at 5 a.m., to late night warm milk at 10 p.m., every member of the Camp will have something to do, some activity in which to partake. Youth, teenagers and adults all have a set schedule - planned to the fifteenth minute - with classes, presentations, physical activities, games and service work; so much that by the end of every Camp, I have to wonder how we manage to do it all.
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