Protected: Jess from Malawi Shares about her First Summer on Pioneer Staff

This summer was my first time at Pioneer Pacific and God-willing, not my last. Hi, my name is Jess, I am a 20-year-old History-student from Scotland/Malawi, and I love working with kids and seeing them grow! You may be wondering how I ended up at Pioneer. Well, of course God was involved, but how He did it is a funny story. In 2020, a friend from North Carolina told me about the awesome summer camp that she worked at. But since visiting Prince Edward Island in 2015, I have had a constant desire, which I believe to be God-given, to return to Canada, so I simply googled ‘Christian summer camp Canada’. Pioneer was the second one to show up. Because of COVID-19, I was unable to enter Canada in the summer of 2021, but that didn’t put me off. I worked all summer long saving up so that I could come and work on camp in 2022 and the timing has coincided exceptionally well with being accepted for an exchange at a university in Ontario this year. Another act of God. As for my experience, Canadians truly live up to their stereotype. On a personal side, God blessed me with many amazing friendships through working at Pioneer Pacific. Our summer staff were exceptional. I have never been part of such a united and supportive team. We would work hard all week and then get to do things such as go for a staff sunset-tube ride, share Shabbat, or have spontaneous worship sessions. I had never been in such a fun and Christ-centered community.exceptional. For the first half of the summer, I was a cabin-leader. Shift camp was probably my favourite week for this, simply because of the challenges that showed up that week, e.g., a few COVID-19 cases, we as a team were made to rely on God more and thus could see more visibly how He showed up. Generally, it was a gift and a privilege to see how the girls I cabin-led grew in confidence in such a short space of time, and how they responded to what they were learning. The second half of the summer as a PYC leader was even better, and its challenges were what, in part, made it evident that God was at work. I would summarize it as ‘lots of chores, lots of fun, lots of growth.’ For both the campers and the leaders. We had spontaneous whale-watching rides and night swims in the bioluminescence. We also had a teen that arrived with no knowledge about the Bible who, only two days in, was voluntarily working their way through the book of Mark, and then left PYC with the intention of joining a church. Another teen who wasn’t super keen on learning about God arrived, but left looking to join a youth group and perhaps attend the LIT program next year. To summarize: this past summer was full of fun, but most importantly, full of God and His Holy Spirit.