Q&A with Camper Parents Kris '99 and Amy [Vinson] Ritter '99

Reflecting on Five Campers' Experiences in Summer Camps at HoneyRock

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

November 24^th, 2021

I asked the Ritters if they would share more about their story when I learned Kris ’99 and Amy Ritter ’99 are parents to five HoneyRockers. This year their youngest, after watching all of his siblings go to HoneyRock, attended his first session. Their oldest participated in Wheaton Passage, the pre-orientation program of Wheaton College. Here's our conversation about their campers' experience at HoneyRock.

SDC: Thanks for taking the time to connect and share more about your HoneyRock experience! I knew I wanted to reach out and hear more of your HoneyRock story when I learned Kris did High Road, and you now have five campers. How were you first connected with HoneyRock?

Kris: I grew up close to Wheaton. Although I did not go to summer camp, I had high school friends who spent their summers at HoneyRock. Every fall they would come back excited and spiritually encouraged by their time at HoneyRock, and it was clear that it was a special place. As an incoming freshman at Wheaton College, I knew I wanted to experience it, so I decided to do High Road. That was such a memorable experience and a great opportunity to build strong friendships with a great group of guys even before classes began.

My second experience was during winter when I went up for a cross-country ski class with Bud Williams. I remember it being negative thirty degrees on one of the mornings we went out. When I walked into the Dining Hall after a few hours on the trail, I could not understand by everyone was staring—until someone walked me to a mirror and showed me my beard full of icicles! My wilderness experiences at HoneyRock could be pretty extreme.

SDC: In those days, the wilderness trips had some pretty hardcore challenges thrown into the already challenging environment.

K: I’ve never really gone on a trip like my High Road. We had long hiking days that sometimes lasted late into the night, had to navigate with some very outdated maps, and ended the trip with a three-day fast and solo time. I hadn’t had the experience of being thrown out into nature with a group of eight or nine strangers and having to navigate and get to a destination.

SDC: How did High Road (now called Wheaton Passage) help you grow?

K: A challenging wilderness trip can really expose our character, our good and bad habits, and our strengths and weaknesses -- and just how dependent we are on God at all times. It’s so easy to ignore those things while in a familiar routine full of outside distractions. High Road forced me to acknowledge, for example, wow, I got frustrated way too easily while trying to find dry kindling in the dark. Why was that? How do I need to grow here? Distractions get stripped away, and there is plenty of time while hiking or paddling to think and pray. Encountering my limits like that and having time to reflect on them definitely helped me build resilience in facing new challenges, but more than anything it showed just how dependent I am on God.

SDC: Fast forward, and you now have five kids. This summer, all five spent time at HoneyRock. When did your kids start their summer camp experiences?

K: My wife, Amy, went to Wheaton, too. I graduated early and we got married after her junior year. Our first was born in 2003, and we sent her to HoneyRock eight years later in 2011. This year she is doing the Wilderness track of Wheaton Passage.

Amy: I got a glimpse of HoneyRock through Kris’s college experiences and heard all of the wild stories about High Road. We were definitely eager to send our oldest to summer camp at HoneyRock. My first time at HoneyRock wasn’t until my daughter’s Family Day. After hearing about all the great experiences she had at camp, I wanted to be a camper too.

K: Amy wants HoneyRock to do a “Mom Camp.”

A: It’s true—I’ve heard my kids talk about everything they can do at HoneyRock, and I want to know when it’s our turn to be campers!

SDC: We hear that a lot, especially on Family Days! What’s been the most important thing for you about your campers’ HoneyRock experience?

A: My first camp experience was when I was 7. Even as a 7-year-old, I could tell the leadership at that camp didn’t run it prayerfully and that my leaders just weren’t very wise. I was really glad that HoneyRock was there for our kids for so many reasons. There’s a very intentional faith atmosphere—you can just tell it’s being run prayerfully. That’s important to us.

K: The most important thing is spiritual growth—having a place outside of the home and their church where Christ is at the center. The worship times, Cabin Impact, things like that—the lessons that we as parents are trying to impart to them are reinforced at HoneyRock. There’s also this opportunity for them to articulate their faith to a new group of people, their cabin mates, and leaders. Cabin Impact—time studying God’s word—creates space for them to talk about what scripture means to them and how they see God working. They can articulate it for themselves, which helps make it their own, and they do it in a new environment in front of new people. That’s a skill we want our children to learn.

SDC: Have you ever had any concerns about sending your kids to HoneyRock?

A: Last year, I was worried about our 10-year-old. He’s introverted, typically not interested in playing big group games or activities, and cautious by nature. We were a little apprehensive about how he was going to be at camp in a new environment. I thought, how in the world is he going to do this? He came back and had done so well! I was astonished. Clearly, HoneyRock is doing something right.

SDC: What kind of growth have you seen in your kids?

A: One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s given them a chance to be independent of us in a safe environment. One of our sons earned his Basic in Wilderness Skills in his first trip to camp. I think that sense of achievement carries through back home. He’s a little less fearful and more confident. I’ve always loved hearing Rob Ribbe talk about the activities—like Wilderness Skills— that are offered. They’re interesting and not the same ones that are offered anywhere else…they have a deeper purpose behind them.

K: At home, they’re spending so much more time indoors in more structured environments. Anything on a screen is designed to be intuitive and keep you clicking to the next artificial virtual environment. To be in nature, in God’s creation interacting with new things lets you engage God’s world with more of your personhood. It just creates more confidence.

SDC: What has surprised you about your kids’ experience at HoneyRock?

A: The amount of confidence that they have come back with is a big thing that surprised me.

K: They’re energized and pleased and confident as they’ve faced challenges. I’m sure the first day or two away from home can be tough, but by the end of it, they say, I can do these things. I haven’t done these things before, but I tried it and I did it. I’m always impressed with how much energy and confidence they have by the end of camp. They’ve been away from older siblings and parents doing things for them or telling them what to do. They’re doing things more on their own and trying new things and establishing relationships pretty quickly as they’re navigating it all.

SDC: How does the “place” of HoneyRock—the relatively remote and outdoorsy setting—shape your campers’ experience?

K: Remote is good! We have no problem driving to where it’s beautiful and uncommercialized, and that’s HoneyRock. It feels like “God’s Country.” You travel to a place that is set apart to be with God. You’re set apart from screens and set apart from all of these structures and routines of our modern society. You’re out in nature and not just in buildings. Then, even though you’re going to a sleepaway camp at HoneyRock, you still go on a wilderness trip as a part of it. I love that the emphasis is being in God’s creation.

A: That’s one thing that drew me to HoneyRock. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. I could roam. I grew up in nature without a T.V., so anything that reminds me of that makes me happy. It’s something I want to give my kids—I think it’s really valuable to have that experience. For kids today, spending time without screens is going to get more and more important. It helps reinforce to kids that there’s another way to live.

K: As far as the physical space—the land, the water—it’s God’s creation. There’s plenty of room in and around HoneyRock to walk and roam and explore. Campers are outside the whole time unless they’re sleeping, eating a meal, or in the chapel. Even when you’re in those places, they’re filled with windows. The cabins have metal roofs and screen windows, so you hear the rain falling and birds chirping.

The fact that it’s just a bit more remote makes it more set apart from the ordinary routine, from the structures and conveniences of modern society. You’ve taken a journey to a place that’s set apart to focus on things in a way you can’t always do in your day-to-day in the suburbs. That’s something that we’ve experienced as parents and even still as adults, we want. We want to connect with God in his creation.