Athlete finds joy in summer work, travels

Spelunking, cliff jumping, traveling to Nashville to see the solar eclipse. Leah Springer ’20 has lots to say about summer vacation.  

“I was home a total of eight days,” she said.

The bulk of her time was spent working as a camp counselor in the Laurel Mountains at Summer’s Best Two Weeks, a faith-based camp for boys and girls ages 8-18 in Boswell, Pennsylvania. In Springer’s case, the camp experience lasted 10 weeks, working with a new group of children every two weeks.

Thanks to a “Wilderness First Responder” class she completed during J-term, Springer led the camp’s caving tours. Coaxing campers into a dark cavern filled with cold, muddy water proved to be an essential part of her job.

“Eventually, the cave opens up, and it’s incredible,” she said. “There’s a place in there we call the sanctuary. We hand out candles and explain: Without light, we can’t get out of this cave. Without Christ, we can’t get out of this world.”

Once the camp season wrapped, she spent time with family camping in the Adirondacks. She hiked, kayaked and jumped off 85-foot cliffs into Saranac Lake. She also fit in a snorkeling trip to the Bahamas.

“I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie,” she laughed.

That adventurous spirit led to an impromptu drive to Nashville, Tennessee, to see the solar eclipse in August.

It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The sky was a dark blue with a beautiful white light. There were crickets chirping. Dogs barking. People cheering. It lasted about two minutes.

In what can feel like two minutes, summer is over. As fall semester begins, Springer is looking forward to declaring a major and gearing up for her second season of basketball at Messiah. Recruited by D-I schools while she was in high school, she instead opted to play for Messiah where she felt she could make an immediate impact. The team finished 25-3 during her freshman year.

“It was phenomenal to be on such a successful team,” said Springer. “We had an amazing season and a great team dynamic. I’m looking forward to playing on the new [Jordan] court.”

As she holds her summer memories close, which ones will carry into the academic year? She says working as a camp counselor provided a critical life skill: “That experience will impact the rest of my life, because I found so many opportunities there to practice my patience instead of frustration, to be selfless ... to convey and illustrate the gospel and, ultimately, to radically love children like Jesus does.”

­– Anna Seip