Blessing the World Part 2: Italy

I have been so grateful for the opportunities that CLC has given me throughout my life to gain a more worldly perspective in all of my activities outside of camp. As a counselor, I quickly had to learn how to communicate with campers who spoke almost no English, and also how to use the language of love to foster a supportive family atmosphere. I had an opportunity to put these skills into practice even more so during my two-month study abroad program in Greece and Italy this semester. There were daily challenges with the language barrier, but I found that the majority of the time I was able to still convey my love and care for the person without being able to communicate through a common language.

During my time as CIT director this past summer, I learned many, many important life lessons that I found myself applying during the abroad experience as well. One of those lessons was simply having to be in charge of a large group of people at all times. Even though it wasn’t my specific job, I found myself constantly aware of the group and wanting to help facilitate traveling. This helped me get outside of myself and bless the people around me (whether they were a part of my group or not) by giving up my seat to someone who needed it more, helping pass out tickets, or just making sure that our entire group was present and ready to go. There was a time in Paestum, Italy when I was at a site painting, a mom and a little girl came over to watch me. I simply smiled and let them see what I was doing because I didn’t know what language they were speaking, but I could see the happiness on the little girl’s face. They stayed for probably 5 minutes just observing me. Even though I didn’t do anything specifically to reach out, I felt that my art brought something fresh and new to them, and that made me really happy. 

Overall, camp has taught me so many life lessons over the years that I am so grateful to have been able to use during this experience, and I can’t wait to see how they continue to have a positive effect on me as a leader and a world citizen.

Logan is a junior at Principia College majoring in sociology and minoring in both global perspectives and dance. She lives in Florida and has been going to CLC for 11 years.