For 21 years, my summers have all been spent at one place. This place and my time there would always be my highlight and what I told my friends I did over the summer. All year long I'd be looking forward to getting to go back, and I would sieze every opportunity I had to get with my friends from there. This place has changed my life and the lives of my entire family, it's been my home away from home, my safe place, my favorite place.

This place is Camp Sychar. A non-denominational, holiness, family camp meeting, located in Mt. Vernon, OH, that has been around since 1870. Since 1926, members of my family have been attending Camp Sychar; every single year, for almost 100 years someone with the last name "Keene" has attended camp meeting. What started out as a simple "yes" to a seemingly small thing, a visit to a neighbor's church camp, by my great grandmother, Ruth Keene, has changed the trajectory of four generations of my family.

The same altars that my great grandmother knelt at have welcomed my grandfather, Tom, and his brothers, my grandmother, Sheri after her wedding, my dad, Blaine, and his siblings, and now myself and my siblings. The picnic tables that my dad flirted with my mom on and formed life long friendships with my uncles around, are the same tables that I gather at with my friends, my cousins, and my siblings. It was in this place that my grandpa felt called to ministry and his brothers with him, where my dad, his siblings and cousins also felt similar calls, and where, today, myself and my cousins are answering the same call.