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"I can do all this through him who gives me strength." — Philippians 4:13
There's a reason the camp is called XLR8.
After the very first XLR8 camp in 2013, a group of leaders sat together reflecting on what they had just witnessed. Story after story kept circling back to the same idea: camp had accelerated something. Faith. Relationships. Maturity. Confidence. A sense of calling. The word kept coming up, again and again, until the name wrote itself.
XLR8. Because what God does in a week at camp isn't ordinary. It's a catalyst.
Wendy's younger sister was already part of Unidos South OC, an organization providing essential services in under-resourced neighborhoods, and Wendy quietly wished she had been young enough to join herself. At 15, she was too old for the elementary tutoring club. Within a few years, Unidos launched a youth group and Wendy jumped at the chance to join.
A partnership grew between Unidos South OC and SRM, and as a part of the first Unidos group to attend camp, Wendy was nervous to go, but she said yes.
And somewhere up on the pamper pole, that towering challenge element that asks campers to climb higher than feels comfortable and trust what's on the other side of fear, everything changed.
She was scared. Most people are.
She climbed anyway.
The first time she did not make it to the top, she got scared and jumped off. But, something shifted that no classroom had yet taught her: I can do hard things. Not just this pole, but the uncertain things. The uncomfortable things. The things in life that require courage when courage doesn't come naturally.
XLR8 met her right where she was and accelerated a belief in herself to do hard things that has changed her life.
That's what Star Rock Ministries makes possible.
Not just a week of fun, though it is fun. What SRM gifts to young people is an environment carefully designed to develop the whole child: faith, relationships, character, and life skills. An environment where a young woman takes a break from a rough neighborhood compounded with food and housing insecurity, gets to be a kid and discovers something true about herself that she carries for the rest of her life.
Two years later, Wendy is returning to XLR8, not as a camper, but as a counselor.
This summer, she will be the one standing at the bottom of the pamper pole, looking up at someone who is scared, and saying: you can do this. I know because I did.
That's what acceleration looks like. One life changed at camp, multiplying into the next, and the next.
What God does at XLR8 doesn't stay at camp. It travels home. It shows up in the courage to try, in the willingness to go back and serve, in the young people who will hear Wendy's voice when they need it most, because someone first gifted her the experience that changed everything.
Because of your support of Star Rock Ministries, Wendy's story is possible.
And so is the story of every camper she will encourage this summer.
Thank you for being part of it.
