Full Circle: Vacation camper becomes summer missionary
August 18, 2015
OCEAN CITY, Md.—Corrina Petit was just eight years old when she started attending surf & sand campground ministries at Assateague Island. Now, 11 years later, Petit, is a young woman serving as a summer missionary with the Central Atlantic Leisure Ministries (CALM), a ministry partnership with the Mid-Atlantic Baptist Network, Ocean City Baptist Church and the Eastern Baptist Association.
At camp, Petit, as a little girl, made crafts, heard stories and said she was shown God’s love. In addition to the camp, the family participated in worship services the resort ministry hosted at campground.
“The camp let me meet new friends, and I’ve even kept a lot of those friendships through the years,” she said.
Petit said last year she helped with a variety of the resort ministries during her family’s vacation, but this year she’s spending the summer.
“And it has been non-stop,” she said emphatically. “Ministry is more exhausting and demanding than other jobs because you’re giving of yourself. It’s not just time, it’s your emotional and spiritual self. And I have to rely on God to give that strength to me because I have none left of myself. But when you rely on Him, He gives you blessings,” she said.
Petit serves in a variety of ministries at the ocean, including interacting with international students at coffeehouses and dinners, and ministering to children at the campgrounds.
“Corrine is very talented. I’m very fortunate to have her on staff this year,” said Resort Missionary Lynn Davis.
Petit committed her life to Jesus in the summer after eighth grade.
“I grew up in a Christian home but I was looking for relationships in all the wrong places,” she said.
As she watched her parents’ relationship, she knew they had something special.
“They had an awesome relationship with each other because they were relying on God, she noted. Petit said she knew she didn’t have what they had.
She attended a Chris Tomlin concert as part of the Kingdom Bound Ministries’ music festival in New York and felt the Holy Spirit drawing her.
She said, “That night, I made the decision to lay down my life for Christ, to trust Him with all of me. I realized I was broken and He was the only thing that could fill that God-shaped hole in me.”
