LAKELAND — As the school year winds down, the Florida Conference camping staff is preparing children and youth for another summer of vitally experiencing God’s love and appreciating his relevancy.

Florida United Methodist Summer Camp launches June 2 and spans through Aug. 2 at the Warren W. Willis Youth Camp in Leesburg, as well as June 30 to July 12 at the South Florida Camp in LaBelle. As of mid-April, slightly more than 1,000 campers were registered for a summer of fun, fellowship and spiritual growth.

This year’s camp theme is “Can You Hear Us?” Assistant Camp Director Heather Pancoast said the theme was chosen out of a sense that today’s generation of children and youth are earnestly searching to be heard and understood.

“There seems to be a real need to be accepted,” Pancoast said. “Kids are going to absolute extremes to get heard, from school shootings to violence to gangs. It seems like they’re searching in a lot of the wrong places. At camp this summer the curriculum and the worship leaders will focus on how we can be in communication with God, sense that he is hearing us, and, in turn, how to listen and hear what he is saying to us.”

One vital addition to this summer’s program includes a multisensory prayer experience inspired by the parachurch organization Youth Specialties that’s set within an outdoor prayer chapel. The chapel will offer various stations where campers can learn disciplines, such as “prayer sculpting” with clay or creating a prayer using construction paper and different types of arts and crafts. The prayer chapel will also feature a world map, and campers can insert straight pins into portions of the globe they believe need prayer.

“There will be a tray of sand where they can write out a prayer, and once they feel their prayer has been heard, they can erase it,” Pancoast said.

The chapel will also include such items as mustard seeds and fresh lilies to help enrich the experience of certain scripture readings.

During the past two summers high school students have had the opportunity to attend various spiritual growth workshops during camp. This summer middle schoolers will experience a “mall” on Friday mornings set up with various booths providing hands-on information for hearing and communicating with God. The information will help these campers share what they have learned about God with others.

Another key change to this summer’s camping experience is the elimination of the traditional Thursday evening concert at the Life Enrichment Center in Leesburg. The concert is being replaced by an outdoor carnival replete with games, music and other activities.

“I think the kids got real used to the concerts and kind of got used to what to expect there. This keeps things fresh and exciting, as we do see a lot of campers who come over and over again,” Pancoast said.

The camp will continue the live Web streaming that allows parents to observe nightly chapel worship using a special password, as well as viewing digital photographs of camp activities and exchanging e-mails with their children.

At the South Florida Camp in LaBelle, the big change is that its summer programming will mirror what is taking place in Leesburg. An extra feature that campers at this venue will enjoy is kayaking. “We’re really targeting the districts down in South Florida, which do have a long trip up to Leesburg, to really utilize the South Florida camp this summer,” Pancoast said. “We’re sending eight team members from Leesburg down there for the two weeks.”