Saints Training Camp in Nashville ‘can truly change you from the inside out,’ youths say

Jonas Burton, left, and Laila McMasters, both members of St. Agnes Parish in Nashville, work as a team to split wood for someone in need during St. Agnes’ Saints Training Camp, offered on June 25-29. (Submitted photo)

By Natalie Hoefer

There’s a sense of joy when kids return from summer camp and excitedly share stories about their adventures—bonfires, swimming, games, canoeing, making crafts, conquering high-ropes courses.

That post-camp excitement was the same for Landan Hoskins and Adia McMasters, both members of St. Agnes Parish in Nashville.

Yes, there were bonfires and swimming and games. But most of their adventures were a bit different than your typical summer camp.

“Being able to help people in our community was a lot of fun,” says 12-year-old Landan. “I learned that sometimes doing the simplest things can make a big difference.”

Adia, 15, shares how she and her fellow campers cut down a large tree and hauled away the “giant pieces” of wood.

“I did a lot of stuff I never thought I could do, but I did it,” she says with well-earned confidence.

Adia and Landan participated in their parish’s Saints Training Camp on

June 25-29 for young people in grades six through 12. They were joined by 11 other youths from St. Agnes and two from St. John the Apostle Parish in Bloomington.

The camp was organized by St. Agnes youth minister Adrianne Spahr and her husband Paul, with help before and during from other parishioners.

“The goal of the camp is to get the young people to see what living in community, prayer, simplicity and service really means,” says Spahr.

‘We can be there for each other’

Prayer, simplicity, community and service. These form the “four pillars” of the Saints Training Camp, values the kids both learned about and practiced.

“Each day had an assigned pillar and a saint who was a good example of that pillar,” Spahr explains. St. John Bosco was the example for community, St. Vincent de Paul for service, St. Thérèse of Lisieux for simplicity and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini for prayer.

Prayer formed the bookends of each day of the camp, including prayer groups in the morning and evening and adoration each night.

“I thought it was nice to have adoration every night,” says Landan. “It helped me learn how prayer can change your life.”

And as they learned about each day’s saint in the prayer groups, the campers were reminded “that the saints are there to pray for us when we need their help,” says Adia.

“It just comforted me in knowing that God and the saints are watching over you and there’s somebody to ask for help if you need help or somebody to pray for you.

“And we learned that it’s OK to ask for help,” she added. “It doesn’t mean you’re helpless. It just means that we can be there for each other.”

Which leads to the pillar of service. Each day, the campers split into groups to help local residents in need.

“We helped five households in the community—three [St. Agnes] parishioners and two non-parishioners—who couldn’t afford to fix their property or simply couldn’t do it for themselves,” says Spahr. “The kids painted, cleaned, did yard work, tree removal and garbage removal. And they managed to get some work done at the church, too.”

But the youths also learned the other side of service that is equally—if not more important—than the physical labor: the importance of getting to know those whom they’re serving, hearing their stories and connecting on a human level.

“One lady, her husband died a few weeks before we came,” says Adia. “We had to clean up her house and yard so she could sell [her property].

“She told me she used to do all these kinds of sports, and now she can’t do a bunch of stuff, which made me sad. But she doesn’t let that get her down.”

Landan enjoyed “working together as a team to get things done.”

That awareness of accomplishing together more than one person could achieve alone was a lesson on the pillar of community. The campers did everything in community—prayed, served, ate.

They even lived out the pillar of simplicity in community.

“They left their phones at home, ate simple meals, slept on mats in [St. Agnes’] Youth Barn, bathed with a hose or in a lake,” says Spahr. “If it could be done simply, we tried to do it simply.”

‘It’s life skills, and they’re serving others’

The Saints Training Camp was not a boot camp. But it was a sort of reboot camp.

It originated as Nazareth Farm in 1994 as a joint effort of the St. Agnes youth minister and the head of Terre Haute’s deanery-wide youth ministry, says Spahr.

Her husband was an early participant in the program. She began helping coordinate the camp with her Terre Haute counterpart after being hired as youth minister at St. Agnes in 2003.

The last year of the joint effort was 2016.

“Terre Haute had a change in youth ministers and couldn’t bring a crew in 2017, so we did the camp as just St. Agnes,” says Spahr. “After that, we decided to take a break in 2018 to rethink the camp.”

By 2021, Spahr and her husband felt called to revive the camp.

“We missed the help to the community, watching the kids grow in faith and doing that by serving others—it’s just priceless,” she says.

She and Paul modified the program slightly, incorporating the saints and renaming it Saints Training Camp.

The camp did happen that summer. But the lack of adult volunteers due to the COVID pandemic was a challenge.

Again, the camp was put on hold.

“This past year, again we were missing the camp,” says Spahr. “I put together a committee of people that had been to Nazareth Farm—and yes, Paul was one of them, always!”

She gushes about what the campers gain from the four-day experience.

“The kids gain a lot of confidence going out and helping people and learning that they can handle doing a job—climbing a ladder, pulling a stump. It’s life skills, and they’re serving others.

“It’s amazing to see the before and after growth in their confidence and in wanting to serve other people.”

This year, the Spahrs witnessed those changes in their three children young enough to participate in the camp.

“I watched our own kids grow in confidence and love for others from just four days of prayer, simplicity, community and service,” says the proud mother.

Serving ‘just makes you feel so good’

The Spahrs were not the only parents who saw their children grow from the experience.

Elizabeth McMasters recalls Adia sharing a story about a wood splitter that wouldn’t start, “and the group prayed to St. Cabrini, and then it started working.”

She says Adia and Laila, another daughter who participated in the camp, “brought this awareness and appreciation for the saints home. It reminds me to be more aware of the beauty of our Catholic faith that I take for granted.”

The Saints Training Camp is “a great opportunity for teens to do things they never have the opportunity to do,” says McMasters. “Then you add in the spiritual side of it all, and it’s just outstanding.”

Jessica Hoskins, Landan’s mother, also appreciates how the camp drew upon the lives of the saints.

“It gave [the kids] an opportunity to learn about other saints and how they used the same virtues in doing their big work,” says Hoskins, who with her husband was involved with Nazareth Farm for many years.

Beyond the faith component, Hoskins calls the camp “a remarkable opportunity for youths to look outside of themselves and see how they can make a positive impact now as youths and not necessarily waiting until they’re adults.

“Landan came away with a greater awareness of people in his own community that are in need of help—help that he can provide.”

The Saints Training Camp “truly changed me,” says Landan. “It changed the way I thought about people.”

For instance, he admits he used to feel uncomfortable around the elderly. But time spent getting to know an older person he helped during the camp altered his viewpoint.

“Now I feel like they’re nice to be around and fun to learn from,” says Landan. “The camp can truly change you from the inside out.”

As for Adia, the experience opened her eyes to a connection between the saints and serving others.

“Helping people makes me feel like a good person,” she says. “But the camp really inspired me, because many saints helped others either physically or spiritually.”

At the end of the four days, did Adia enjoy taking a hot shower when she got home?

“Yeeesss!” she drawls like a sigh of relief.

“But despite the hose showers and sunburns and bug bites you can get, [the camp is] very rewarding,” says Adia. “You see the smiles on the faces of those you helped, you make somebody’s day better, and it just makes you feel so good.” †