After a full first day of pyc activities, streams of campers clad in brightly-colored T-shirts poured into the gymnasium. Sitting down in orderly stripes of color on the bleachers and bookended by red-shirted counselors, 144 campers chatted amongst themselves until the beginning of one of the most traditional pyc events: Stick Night.

At Stick Night, every camper, counselor, assistant counselor, and head staff member states their name, age, number of pycs attended and their personal goals for this years’ camp—while holding the wooden walking stick that has given the night its name.

Camp Director Wayne Turgeon started off the evening by reiterating the theme of pyc: “Eyes on the Prize.” He told the campers that his goal was to ingrain this vision into their minds “so much that you don’t even realize when you’re thinking about it.”

Canoeing instructor Roger Brandon and his canoeing staff made a somewhat unorthodox entrance when it was their turn to take the stick. Walking single file, they pretended to paddle their way toward the microphone in an invisible canoe, chanting common canoeing terms: “Stroke, feather, stroke, feather; swamp. Help!”

It’s been a camp-filled year for dance instructors Brent and Michelle Nagtegaal. This is their third pyc teaching dance in the space of a year— pyc 2014 America, pyc 2014 Australia, and now pyc 2015.

Archery instructor James Brandon told the campers that his sport is a great break for them because they don’t have to run around. “In fact, we encourage you not to run,” he said.

After the staff members, the 144 campers and their counselors each took their turn at the microphone. pyc 2015 is a diverse group, with campers from the Bahamas, the Netherlands, Peru, Australia, England, Canada and Hawaii, as well as the lower 48 United States. Foreign accents were peppered between the American speeches, providing refreshing variety.

Many of the counselors spoke of their hope that they could encourage their campers to learn to really love this way of life—to keep their eyes on the vision and never stray from it. Assistant counselor of 5B, Zachary Bush, said, “I want to teach them that this Christian way of life is not something you just do on the weekends—it’s something you do all your life.”

Several of the long-time campers had similar goals. Daniel from 3B spoke earnestly to the crowd, telling them that his goal was to show them how much of a blessing pyc is for the youth and to inspire them to come back next year.

A lot of the campers’ goals centered around one thing: getting out of their comfort zones. Dustin from 6B told the crowd that he wanted to overcome his fear of public speaking “by embracing opportunities like this one.”

Danielle Underwood, the Aussie counselor of 1G, joked that her dorm’s name is “Tea Tephi’s Traffic Cones,” referring to their bright orange camp shirts. Somewhat ironically, the girls of 1G were lined up between two real traffic cones, placed there to keep the campers in a fairly straight line.

Several campers and staff members made preemptive comments about their hometowns and personal history to fend off possible questions during camp. 1B’s counselor, Daryle Hochstetler, said, “I’m going to answer two questions right off the bat. Yes, I was born Amish and was Amish for seven years. No, I was not born in a barn.”

Montana from 2G, a resident of South Dakota, told the audience that “Yes, people actually live there.”

Abigail, the Canadian member of 3G, told everyone that she does not “live in an igloo or ride in a dogsled.” Contrary to popular belief, all Canadians are not Eskimos.

Red-tinged Tim from 2B brought some laughs from the crowd with his goal. “My goal is not to get sunburned. It didn’t really work out,” he said, gesturing to his burned face and arms.

The assistant counselor of 6B, Josué Michels, ended the night with an impassioned and eloquent speech in English, which is his second language. He wished every camper and staff member the “most wonderful and gorgeous camp ever”—and with that, the night was over, and the campers headed back to their dorms to rest up for the next jam-packed day.