Greenville | Marie Swegle and Stephanie Simmons have been serving alongside each other at Super Summer for several years. They didn’t recognize each other at first. “You get older, people change,” Swegle said. “I had no idea who she was when we first started serving.”
After Simmons found a picture of her and Swegle during their Super Summer days, she knew it was her old friend. “Her smile was the same,” Simmons said. When volunteers came in early for training, she showed the picture to Swegle revealing their old connection. “We had reconnected without realizing we reconnected, then we were able to talk about all these old memories.”
Both moms were serving at IBSA’s annual discipleship development week because their kids were attending—just as the moms had 30 years ago. This year Pam Smith brought her son, Jacob, so the trio was reunited and a second generation of Super Summer kids are beginning their journey.
“It’s just an affirmation that we’re where we’re supposed to be because the people we respect and look up to are making the same choice we are,” Simmons said.
The moms have loved seeing their kids grow spiritually and make lasting relationships. And it’s extra special because they get to experience it together. “It’s super special that they know each other and laugh and grow in Christ together like we were able to do,” Swegle said.
Simmons’ daughter, Holly, was the first kid of the second generation to attend. She was leery to participate at first, so Simmons stepped back letting her daughter experience the camp by herself. After the first year the mother and daughter attended together. “She really did make it her own,” Simmons said. “I didn’t make her go. It was always her decision, and she wanted to.”
Gen Two: (Left to right) Nathan Simmons, Jacob Smith, and Blair Swegle
Holly went through all the age-graded “schools” (excluding the Covid year), meaning she made some lasting friendships. “She communicated with the friends she made across the state, and they helped carry her the same way mine have,” Simmons explained.
This year, Holly served at Super Summer as an adult leader for the first time. Her younger brother Nathan, who started attending this year, is already beginning to make friends the same way Holly did.
Swegle has seen her daughter, Blair, return home after camp on fire for God and grow in her faith. “She told me, ‘I need a new Bible so I can read through the whole thing.’ She said she’d be able to read a new Bible better, so we got her a new Bible and she’s been reading it,” Swegle said. “As a parent, seeing her that excited is amazing.”
Blair is also checking in with the friends she’s made to see who she’ll run into at upcoming IBSA events AWSOM and Youth Encounter. “She’s excited about who’s going to be there and who she’s going to see,” Swegle said of the cross-state friendships that develop among Illinois Baptists.
A lasting foundation
From the late 90s, Stephanie Simmons (front row left) and Marie Swegle (front row, right) were regulars at IBSA’s annual discipleship week. They were reunited unexpectedly by their kids 30 years later.
The moms are thankful they found Super Summer as students so they could grow in their faith which would eventually pass on to their children.
For Simmons she found the annual IBSA event at the same time her home life became very complicated. Her dad left the family. “I had looked to him as an example of Christ for much of my childhood,” she said. “I felt like my foundation crumbled when our family crumbled.”
Her mother’s advice was to not walk away from God but to give him the struggles, and to trust Christian leaders who could walk through the pain, the anger, and the hurt with her.
Through the summertime discipling week that brings high school students to meeting on a college campus, Simmons experienced a real, deep relationship with God. “Super Summer provided depth of scripture and truth and honesty that I needed when I didn’t know where else to turn, in a world that didn’t have the same solid foundation anymore,” she said. “Those leaders lifted us in prayer and gave us a lot of truth. In the darkest moment of my life, it’s what grounded me and gave me a foundation when I didn’t have one.”
Swegle was raised in a non-Christian household. When she was in seventh grade, Swegle started attending a friend’s church in Virden. That led to the discovery of Super Summer.
“Super Summer was the deepest discipleship I had received at that point,” Swegle explained. “The value of being with other people who are pursuing Christ, but were further along in their faith journey than me, was invaluable.”
Simmons and Swegle were able to find a solid faith foundation, community, and a home away from home during their Super Summer journey and hope their children find the same.
Now, the moms continue serving alongside their families each and plan to serve as long as God calls them. “You never want those weeks to end. They feel so magical, there’s something about them,” Swegle said.
Now the next generation is beginning to say the same thing.