Summer Staff Highlight | Small Group Leader – Josh Hines
We wanted to take the time to highlight one of our summer staff. Josh Hines is currently working this summer for WinShape ON. He graduated from Berry College in 2019 with a BA in Visual Communication. This is his fourth year serving with WinShape Camps and has served in a variety of roles. We are so excited to have him serving with us this summer again for our brand new experience!! Recently we got the chance to ask him some questions to find out more about him and his role for this summer. Here are his answers:
How did you hear about WinShape?
I was actually a camper at Mount Berry in 2011-12.
What is your history with WinShape?
Aside from being a camper back in the day, I joined as a Team Time leader for WinShape Camps for Communities back in 2017, serving the Yellow Team as a Village Leader and a Wacky Science teacher. I came back for the next two summers, serving as a Recreation Director in 2018 and 2019 on the Orange and Yellow Teams, respectively.
What is your role this summer and what does your day to day look like?
This summer, I am serving primarily as a Junior Camp counselor, with minor roles as a Force Feud Setup helper. My day-to-day is pretty simple. I wake up at 5:30 every morning to spend time in the presence of Jesus, and this is the most important and best part of my day. After eating breakfast at 7 a.m. I make my way to the Force Captain’s Quarters, where we go over the setup plan for the day’s Force Feud challenge, and then spend the next two hours setting up the Challenges, ensuring they are practical and visually appealing for the camera. After this setup time is my morning small group, starting at 10:45 and ending at 11:15. This is another favorite part of my day, as I get to hang out with some awesome kindergarteners from across the country on Zoom. After this, I review the small group curriculum and spend time in prayer, for both my campers and fellow counselors, that they get to experience a rich and lasting relationship with Jesus every day. My afternoons are spent in the Camp Material Warehouse, located in the WinShape center, where we prepare materials to be sent to campers (which is pretty unprecedented, I believe). My day ends by helping clean up the Force Feud Challenges that were set up in the morning!
What is your favorite part about your role?
My favorite part of my role is having face-to-face interactions and conversations with kindergarteners. It is so fun helping guide their thinking towards this year’s theme, which is the Life Giver and John 10:10. We get to talk about what that means for their everyday life, and, even though I am spending time with the youngest age group, they grasp the concepts extraordinarily well. While most don’t face the same troubles that us adults do, they get to see how Jesus meets them right where they are, in no matter what circumstance they are in. I enjoy teaching them these things because it is my hope and my prayer that they hold fast to those truths for the remainder of their lives.
What is the hardest part about your role this summer?
There are a lot of small and large joys throughout my day, however the hardest part of what I do is not seeing the value or results of what I am doing. It is pretty easy to look around at all of the other incredible staffers that have gathered here, to see the fantastic things their doing on camera or for other staffers, and immediately start comparing my own work and my own worth. All I do is spend thirty minutes with a few campers on Zoom, and I may never see the fruit of the Gospel seeds that I am planting, and I have to be okay with that. I have to be okay with serving Jesus in obedience, no matter my role.
What is one thing God has been showing you this summer?
The Lord has been teaching me to be okay with who I am, and that I am wired differently than the others around me. I am His creation, created in His image, and I need to be accepting of that, and not associated my value and my worth with the work that I do, because I am more than my job. He has put people around me who have encouraged me in this as well, which has been such a gift.