Keilah Fish had plenty of reasons to say no to a year-long internship at CAMP-of-the-WOODS.
She had a job that mattered to her, responsibilities at home, and a church community where she faithfully served. These were good things, places where she had invested her time and energy because she cared about the people around her. Leaving all of that for an HR internship in the Adirondacks was difficult to imagine.
Who would take her place if she left?
But when Keilah shared her concerns with her grandmother, she received an answer she wasn't expecting.
Keilah remembers her grandmother’s quick answer: “That’s pride, thinking that you’re needed in a certain place because nobody else can do your job. God is using you, but God does not need you.”
Her grandmother's words challenged her to consider something she hadn't before: Was she holding on to these responsibilities because God was asking her to stay, or because she was afraid to leave?
What Keilah couldn't see then was how God had been preparing her for this invitation long before it came. And learning to trust Him with the next step would become part of the very work He wanted to do in her.
A Lonely Year and a Loose Pamphlet
All throughout high school, Keilah had been sure God wanted her at a Christian college, or so she thought. Instead, she landed at a secular college, commuting and working with very little Christian community. Reflecting on her sophomore year, she says, “I was really lonely, and I was really discouraged.”
She prayed for a strong Christian community. Over Christmas break, a pamphlet happened to fall out of her close friend’s bag. It was for CAMP-of-the-WOODS Summer Staff, and across the front it read, “Looking for Christian community?”.
Keilah at the Staff BBQ in 2024
“Can I come?” Keilah immediately asked.
She spent the summer of 2024 working in Kids’ Klub, and it changed how she saw herself. During the second week of the summer, her coworker, Gabby, who she had grown close to, told her, “People really like getting to know you. I don’t know why you don’t realize that.”
“That literally changed my life,” Keilah says. “It felt like an extension of God’s love to me, that He just surrounded me with so many people.” She left Camp thinking her time there was over.
The Offer She Kept Refusing
As graduation approached, she found herself praying, “Lord, I just don’t feel like I’m supposed to stay here at this job, but I have no other options.”
During her last semester, a class assignment led her to call Adam, COTW’s Assistant HR Director. For her assignment, she had to interview a leader that she had worked for previously. Through their conversation, he learned about her minors in Management & Nonprofit Administration and that she would be graduating soon. A week later, he texted her; God had put it on his heart that she should consider the HR internship.
The conflict within herself grew. She said no. Then maybe. Then no again. “Every week, something would change my mind one way or another, and then change it back again,” she says.
But the invitation kept finding her. A friend texted her saying that she’d heard Keilah had applied. A former COTW intern told her what the year had meant for her spiritual growth, which was what Keilah wanted most. “Every time I’d say no,” Keilah says, “God was like, ‘Okay, here’s another reason why you should.’”
The one moment that finally got through came on an ordinary Wednesday at her church’s youth group, where Keilah volunteered as a youth leader. One of her co-leaders shared how someone had paid for him to attend a summer program at Word of Life, a ministry not far from COTW. He was supposed to start college the next week. He was adamant to everyone he spoke with that he would not attend Word of Life. But by the end of that week, he had changed his plans. He wanted to spend his life serving the Lord, and he wanted to begin on a solid foundation.
“I was just sitting there like, okay, okay, Lord, I get it,” Keilah says.
That week, she said yes to the internship.
A Year Built on a Foundation
Keilah is now a few months into her internship with the CAMP-of-the-WOODS HR office. While initially worried about what to expect, she was given weeks of structured teaching on communication with Summer Staff candidates, how to work well and be connected as a team, and various other professional skills. Some days are more challenging than others, but she is learning to trust her own competence. Her professional confidence is something she is striving to develop, and she is learning that the God who kept pulling her toward this internship can be trusted with that, too.
Now that training is over, she interviews applicants who will staff next summer’s season.
“It’s a little scary sometimes, knowing that I hold these people’s summer plans in my hands,” she says. “I know I am a new intern, but they trust me. And I’m actually doing a job that matters.”
Keilah and Jeff, this year’s HR interns
It's a different kind of responsibility than the ones she was hesitant to leave behind, but one that is stretching her in new ways. Keilah is discovering that saying yes to this opportunity didn't mean the work she had been doing before was any less valuable. It meant being willing to trust God with what she was leaving behind and with what He had placed before her now.
Not surprisingly, the internship is shaping more than her résumé. Interns also meet for monthly classes that range from professional guidance to discipleship. The COTW full-time staff and interns also meet once a week for Bible study, where Keilah is finally studying theology. One lesson stuck with her: God shouldn’t be one priority among many, but present in everything. “I realized that God shouldn’t just be in one category separate from everything else, but that He should be the center of every area in my life.”
Learning to Trust the Next Step
Looking back, Keilah can see how God was at work in each step that brought her to CAMP-of-the-WOODS, even the ones she resisted.
“I was probably dragged kicking and screaming the whole way,” she laughs. “But it only makes sense to trust the Lord, because He has been faithful every single time, and every single step of the way.”
The same young woman who once worried about leaving behind the places where she was needed is now learning to serve faithfully somewhere she never expected to be. She's growing in confidence, taking on new responsibilities, and discovering that trusting God doesn't require knowing exactly where He's leading.
Keilah doesn't know where the Lord will take her after this year. But she's learning that faithfulness isn't always about holding on to the responsibilities God has given us. Sometimes, it means trusting Him enough to step into something new.
And wherever He leads her next, she can trust the same God who has been faithful every step of the way.