If you strike a match in a dark room, that single little match can illuminate everything around it. You can light a candle with that match, or start a camp fire to keep you warm.
Fowler is a place that shows you where to find the matches in the dark. I wont get into too many of my own experiences, but I can say my life has been powerfully and positivity impacted by things I learned at camp.
Creating a framework for a healthy Christian society outside of boring church can show you that God, religion, and spirituality can be fun. That church can be conducted outside, or around a campfire, and that cool people pray. That there are lots of ways to learn how to live a good life, and a teacher named Jesus had some lessons worth learning. A way of life. There is God in nature for some people, and Fowler teaches to respect that. That recycling, and using only what you need are good things.
Fowler teaches that you can go a week without your ipod. That when you go back to it you'll have a little different relationship with it. You might appreciate it more, you might need it less. You might realize it was silly to miss it. You might realize music comes from us, and we can make it.
Fowler teaches how to be silly, and how to play games with a hundred other people. It teaches you how to climb a ladder and kiss a moose. Fowler teaches how to be part of a community. About your responsibility in that community.
Kent Busman is the coordinator at Fowler, and is a bridge from the religion to real life. He leads by example, and can tell awesome stories/ fables to illuminate what he believes. He has the wonder of a child at having fun, great laugh, and clear boundaries and rules. He is an orthodox minister, but just between you and me I think he has had to wrestle with some of the more strict church rules. Kent's the kind of guy that would rather help somebody in the street because they needed it, than follow strict rules to make influential members of the community happy. If you ever watched Star Trek the Next Generation, he reminds me of captain Picard. Sometimes the captain would break the rules of the universe because the rules just don't have the subtly to fit every situation.
Essentially fowler is about having fun and being in a community with a purpose. While I was staff there I saw that not every child left loving the place as much as I had, but the vast majority did. This is a wonderful place for a child (or adult volunteer) to spend a week . read more