A Week Away
Dear friend,
I don’t know if you have fond memories of summer camps as I do, but I got to enjoy a camp story this past weekend that I wanted to share with you.
A Week Away opens with Will Hawkins getting into trouble. He’s a foster kid who has hopped from home to home, causing as much trouble as he can in the process.
His latest crime was ‘borrowing’ a cop car. He’s caught and he’s given two options, to go to Juvenile Prison or Sumer camp, oddly enough he turns down the summer camp at first, but then realizes it’s the last chance he’s getting to turn his life around.
He didn’t realize it was a church camp.
He arrives at camp and has a falling-in-love moment with the girl across the way. (*gag)
Will introduces himself and lies about his background, wanting to hide everything about him to impress Avery. She is the Camp Director’s daughter and she gives off the vibe of a Pastor’s Kid, striving for perfection in every way.
Here’s the conflict we see Will wrestle with.
(Disclaimer: this story has some areas where it is clear it’s a cheesy Christian version of Camp Rock. Just so you’re aware. It’s a musical as well, but I won’t get into the fact that most of the songs are just covers from Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant)
The villain of our story is an annoying camper named Sean. He’s proud and stuck up, he says all the ‘right things’ but realistically he’s just another high schooler not confident in who he is so he becomes a bully.
The guide in the story is Will’s bunkmate George. I can’t say George is the wisest character, but he keeps pointing Will back to why he should give camp a try, and see if he’ll actually like it.
The truth that Will needs to believe is that all past mistakes can be forgiven.
The lie he believes is that his past makes him unworthy of love.
Throughout the narrative Will continues to lie about who he is, Avery opens up about her past hurt, and how she wants to do everything right but she doesn’t.
Will sees her imperfection and feels the draw to reciprocate, but he’s terrified of her response. Sean sneaks into the office to find Will’s file and starts spreading the ugly truth around camp. So Will does what he’s always done, he runs away when people see the real him.
Avery finds him and makes it clear that all things can be forgiven. Will denies forgiveness and makes it clear that if God was real then all of these bad things shouldn’t be happening, and pushes on but reaches a breaking point when he realizes that no one has offered him forgiveness before.
In the climax, he returns to camp, accepts the forgiveness, and kisses the girl. (*gag)
The resolution is kinda cheesy. I’m not going to say that redemption can’t look this way, but I think it’s the fact that it hones in on the camp relationship more than the redemption between him and Jesus that doesn’t sit well.
But to be brutally honest this is something that is never done very well in movies. How to show a moment of redemption without it being cheesy? I don’t know, I’d love to find the answer to this question and get back to you, but for the time being I will continue to remember that God changes lives.
Through camps and brokenness, the foster care system has been something pressed on my heart, and I hope to have an impact within it as much as God allows me to.
Take the redemption in this story and be encouraged. God is always at work, within your heart and mine.
No one is outside of his loving gaze, and whatever role we get to play in showing the art of redemption we ought to rise to the occasion gladly.
Sincerely
Your Fellow Happy Camper,
-Mitchell