A Camper's Story

MYNA has provided an environment for thousands of Muslim youths to act upon
their ambition to gain Islamic knowledge and become confident, active members of
their society. One camper in particular started at MYNA at a young age and eventually
grew into the MYNA culture. His story began when his mom, a MYNA alumni, suggested
that he attend a local MYNA camp.

Following his first camp, one of his friends who happened to be a MYNA officer
at the time, suggested that he join the committee as the program chair. At the time, he
didn’t realize what a responsibility it would end up being, he commented, “It was
actually a lot of work, but I know it was a good decision that I made. At the end of the
day, it was [a source of] betterment for me.” The first camp he attended as a member
of the committee, he realized “If you're in any committee spot, you need to learn how
to take initiative and lead.” During this camp, he also found himself practicing skills such
as public speaking that he believes will be useful later in life “These skills,” he said, “can
be used outside of MYNA life with your work or your job.” Being able to speak and lead
confidently are essential to many professions, and it was an extremely valuable
opportunity for him to be able to practice them early on in life through MYNA.
After being on the Camp Committee, he continued his MYNA journey by joining
the Regional Executive Committee (REC). After seeing what he could accomplish
through the camp committee he saw an even bigger opportunity through REC to give
back and help the youth. His REC experience opened a lot of doors in a spiritual,
professional, and social sense. As an REC officer, according to him, being on the
lookout for ways to help and improving in ways that weren’t available to him when he
was on the camp committee, “allowed him to take a step back and look in the 3rd
person.” Essentially zooming out of certain situations and seeing the bigger picture, in
order to lead productively.

He found that after joining the REC, he started to make more of an attempt to
live life according to the standards he was being taught from MYNA. For example, a
few days into the camp as REC, after fajr, he stayed up with a counselor to read Quran.
It started off as him testing the counselor on the surah he was memorizing at the time,
and then evolved into reading the whole surah together. They then started reading
surah Yaseen every morning, which is a good surah to read after fajr, or in the morning
in general. They would read Quran until it was breakfast time, which would end up
being about 4 hours of continuous reading. This experience with the counselor sparked a deeper love for the Quran that the MYNA officer was able to discover. That moment
of spending time reading Quran as the sun rose with a fellow Muslim who he now
considers a big brother figure, inspired him to continue memorizing and improving his
recitation. Along with this tranquility, a passion grew in him to become closer to Allah
SWT (As Salam, The Giver of Peace). “I realized how the Quran is applicable in every
situation, and that really made me turn to the Quran when I was in a crisis.”
The story of this camper serves as a perfect example of how MYNA provides a
wealth of opportunities that allow youth to develop lifelong friendships, learn leadership
skills, and expand deeper into their own spirituality.