Opening Summer at the Ridge

Summer 2018 marked the first summer we officially had a just-for-high-schoolers camp in Central Texas, and what a summer it was! Our Central Texas teams worked crazy hard to finish all the final details to make this camp excellent and (of course) seriously fun!

We had a Ridge dedication ceremony during staff orientation, and we were fortunate to be joined by Pine Cove’s founder Bill McKenzie. It was a great way to celebrate opening this camp that has been dreamed about for so long.

Pine Cove Founder Bill and his wife Sharon McKenzie wave to a cheering crowd, with Central Texas Vice President Phil Baker at the Ridge dedication.

It was an extra-special celebration, because this camp marks the completion of our Central Texas region. We will continue to add cabins to the Ridge in the coming years, but this is the final camp in Columbus we have planned. (That’s definitely worth celebrating!)

While we know that not everyone has been able to see the Ridge in person, hopefully you’ve still been following along with our construction progress, like the updates we posted on this blog. And now that we’ve finally been able to welcome campers to camp, we hope these pictures from the summer will make you feel like you were there.

If you’re more into shots of the facilities, these pictures will show you exactly what it looks like! Here’s the pool and the gym from above:

Here’s the dining hall:

And oooh look at that awesome finished cabin!

Most of our overnight youth camp cabins look similar these days, but here’s an inside look:

Hope you enjoyed this virtual “tour” of the Ridge! Thank you for celebrating with us the opening of a brand-new high school camp in Central Texas.

It’s amazing to reflect back on what God did at the Ridge this summer. Every week at camper share, there were countless stories of how the Lord used camp to impact campers’ lives. One camper said, “This week changed my life a lot. I came in knowing nothing about the Lord, and hadn’t been happy in a while. This week I’ve felt happier—I gave my life to Christ!”

A Ridge camper parent told us his son “came home wanting to start a Bible study class weekly with his peers and high school classmates.”

We love hearing stories like that, and we are so thankful for all that the Lord did this summer in the lives of campers and staff. We can’t wait to see how God continues to move and work through this camp!