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One of my responsibilities here on year-round staff has been to accompany “Boss Man” Glen Egertson on church visits around Southern California promoting the ELCA Malaria Campaign and our Knots for Nets program. Both California synods have been chosen to pilot this church-wide campaign, and LRCC is proud to be an active participant.

Some might ask why LRCC, as a camp, has chosen to participate in this global issue, or ask why it’s important to educate our campers about it. To those questions, I would point not only to the staggering statistics that occur around the world (800,000 deaths attributed to malaria every year, 600,000 of which are pregnant women and children under the age of 5), but to our call as Christians to love and care for our neighbors. Any Sunday School student will tell you that when Jesus talks about who our neighbors are, he means everyone, but sometimes we lose sight of just how expansive and inclusive that really is. It means your literal neighbors, the homeless man on the street, and a child in Africa suffering from malaria. Christ’s love extends to all these and more, as should our love.

The ELCA Malaria Campaign takes this call from Christ to heart, and uses our long-standing relationships with partner churches in Africa to walk with our neighbors to bring about an end to malaria. We at LRCC think this is a powerful message our church is sending, and we want to share it with our campers. We also want to empower our campers to be leaders in the church that care about global issues and all of God’s creation, near and far. We want campers to understand that because of the love shown to us in Christ, we must show that same kind of love to all. My hope is that the Knots for Nets program at summer camp will continue to educate and enable campers to go back to their churches and talk about ending malaria in the same breath as they talk about the love and fun they encountered here at camp.

For more information on Knots for Nets and the ELCA Malaria Campaign, go to www.lrcchom.com/KnotsforNets

How can you help the ELCA Malaria Campaign?

- Erin