I want to tell others as much as I can about the youth camp (I was a
staff member) and I hope it will be helpful.
The Philadelphia
Church of God youth
camp goes back to the early 1990's. There was an Australian camp and a
European camp (I think one year might have been Scotland). The
camp is for those who are 13-19, whose parents are members of the
Philadelphia Church of God. It is located in
Edmond, Oklahoma.1
As anyone can imagine, the camps are strict, and campers and
staff members are closely watched by the ministry. The teenagers get
up at 5 a.m. with a dorm Bible study before breakfast at 7 a.m.
Activities follow through the whole day until about 5 p.m. and then they
come back for showers and dinner at 6 p.m. They go to bed around 10:30-11pm (6 hours sleep). Teenagers are exhausted,2
and every year it was
expected that at least one or two campers got heat exhaustion or
fainted. One year, a teenager was flown to the hospital after collapsing
on the sports field. She was so dehydrated and tired and had to be kept in
the hospital. One staff had a broken foot and was not taken to the
hospital until the next evening because of the orders of the
particular minister. The staff, who had been vomiting one night, were still
made to continue with their kitchen duties. Everyone was frightened
and did what the ministry told them to do.
What really shocked me was the strict menu and the limited food the
teenagers were allowed to eat. As a staff member, the teenagers would
sneak behind the kitchen area and ask for any more food (some even
sneaking out to the shops to buy more food and then being punished for
having it in their possession). The kids were very hungry! The
ministry told all staff that the kids were only allowed their portion
and that was all! Personally I think it is sadistic and a way to
exercise and control the kids. I know one minister, Mr. Alex Harrison, 3
said he used military techniques in the way he ran the camps. Teenagers were made to do extra Bible study, miss out on activities
and go to bed without dinner if they were caught with food in their
bags. Their bags were raided every night and children were not allowed
to phone their parents in any circumstance.
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