Under the glow of stage lights, surrounded by hundreds of students in worship, a group of girls in leis stand in the middle of a crowded room—hands raised, eyes closed, faces tilted upward. For anyone who has been to Camp Ocoee, it’s a familiar scene. But for Aniston Cheek, that moment last summer was anything but ordinary.
“I remember just being so in awe of the Lord,” Aniston said. “Worship is a totally different way of connecting with Him—you can feel His presence in a way that’s hard to explain.”
Aniston was preparing to enter 8th grade, and she had arrived at camp feeling worn down. For her, worshiping God in that moment carried a different kind of weight than summers past.
“You meet Him in moments when you feel really broken down, and God is the only one who can save you from that,” Aniston said. “I was going through a really hard time, and I just felt really lonely.”
But Camp Ocoee has a way of meeting students in the middle of whatever they’re carrying. Away from her phone and the rhythms of the school year, Aniston found herself in the stillness of worship that week, and she finally felt ready to lay those burdens down before the Lord.
“I surrender this to You, Lord,” she remembers praying. “Help me not fall back into any of this.”
That prayer became more than just words. Standing in a room full of students singing together, something inside of Aniston shifted. The worship songs weren’t background music; they were the moment she stopped wondering if God heard her.
“Sometimes when I pray, I wonder if God hears me, but when I’m worshiping, I realize, ‘Yeah, God heard me in this,’” Aniston said. “He brought me out of what I was struggling with.”
Now, as she heads into high school and prepares for Beach Week, Aniston is still tending the seeds that were planted last summer. She reads her Bible daily and prays—even on the days it feels like no one is listening.
“It does get hard sometimes,” Aniston said. “But you just have to fall back on the Lord and reenter that cycle—worship, devotion, time with Him. Just make sure you have a consistent plan with God.”
Three years of Camp Ocoee taught her something she holds onto even when she can’t feel it: God doesn’t stop working just because the summer does.
“God is doing things behind the scenes that you just can’t see,” Aniston said. “He fulfills everything even when you don’t notice anything’s happening.”
Aniston’s story is a reminder of what can happen when Bellevue invests in the next generation. Camp Ocoee isn’t just a fun week away from home—it’s a space intentionally created for students to encounter God and be changed by Him. And when that happens, the impact doesn’t stay on the mountain. It walks back into homes, schools, and communities, carried by students who met God there. And that’s a commitment worth showing up for year after year.
Learn more about how Bellevue is discipling the next generation at bellevue.org/next-gen!