Last weekend, Minnesota students were once again rewarded with MEA break. MEA is a long weekend given to Minnesota K-12 students every year while a state-wide teachers’ conference is being held. Each year, our church youth group spends MEA up at camp Castaway. We eat good food, stay up too late, sing and worship together, play silly games and laugh a lot. The camp is in up-north Minnesota, near Detroit Lakes, right in the middle of Minnesota lake country. It’s surrounded by three lakes that are lined with houses and summer cabins and thick forests, and this rural location left me in awe. Every time you stepped outside, you’d breathe in crisp, fresh air, and know that you were somewhere special. You’d see the trees beautifully flaunting reds, oranges and yellows around the camp. And at night, the sunset would cast stunning colors over the lakes, and soon the stars would appear in the sky, more brilliant than any night sky back home.
Castaway is the kind of place you can return to every year and still leave with new and wonderful memories, and when you finally make it home, you find yourself grasping for what was. Grasping for more sunsets, more laughter, more board games and candy. More beautiful days running wild and late nights under the stars. But you’re exhausted from all those late nights, and suffering a cold from eating too much junk food and using up your voice. You’re realizing that the excitement of the weekend was the only thing keeping you from total collapse, and right now, you could really use a cup of hot tea and a long night’s sleep.
Roaming Elsewhere 