!!Camp!!

As some of you may know, this past week of camp I had the privilege of counseling four girls from Grundy/Holland and three girls from Carlisle at IRBC during Jr Girls week. Although it was my third time counseling, it was my first year as the head counselor and without an assistant. After going to camp for 8 years as a camper and then counseling after I was too old to attend as a camper, I was sure of several things. I was sure that I was going to be exhausted by Thursday, that I was going to love the food, that it would rain at least one day, but that we would all come home sun burnt, that we were going to have a total blast, and that God would be at work changing lives by way of the morning and evening speakers (oh yah, and a seventh one, that Satan would also try to get a foothold).

A few things that I did not count on were that it would rain every day but Friday and there would be no sunshine until Friday, that I would get more sleep at camp than an average night at home, that we would accidentally get locked out of the cabin twice and later have to clean up a broken light bulb in the cabin, and I certainly did not count on learning more from being with the girls than from the messages in chapel.

The morning speaker was Lori Tebbenkamp. Since the camp theme is a western theme, she decided to help us each morning with packing our bag for the trail. Tuesday we talked about our course or map which is God's Word. Wednesday we packed our clothing and talked about modesty and looked at it from a couple of different angles than I had previously thought about and it was very neat to hear from the girls, that that was the most remembered of all the camp sessions. Thursday morning we looked at what the right conversation for the trail is, using encouraging words, and Friday we spoke of creativity. For each thing we packed, we looked at a lady from the Bible who was either a poor example or a great model of what we were learning.

Our evening speaker was Sandy Capon from Carroll, Iowa. Each night we made a stop at a new campsite and even had a little "fire" on stage that she invited a cabin to come up and sit by while she read us a story about a lady from the west like Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane. Our campsites were Dead Man's Gulch, Red Creek Pass, White Mt Trading Post, Paradise Hills, and Abundant Fields. Basically, Mrs. Capon took the wordless book and covered one color each day and her scripture passage was all from the Romans road. Probably my favorite night was Wednesday at White Mt Trading Post and talking about imputation--the greatest exchange.

However, as I mentioned earlier, the most that I learned was from interacting with the girls. Not because they were challenging in the sense of being a handful or unruly, which they totally were not, but because of some things they caused me to see in my own life that I need to work on. This past year at Faith, most of the classes I was taking were focusing on training me to step up and be the leader that God desires me to be. But as we all know, doing in real life what we have learned in the classroom is often much more difficult. To be honest, I was really looking forward to camp for me. Looking forward to being challenged from the Word and to just get away from...well life.. for a bit. My three jobs and even my housing situation for this summer has placed me in a close environment with several people who have different views about salvation than I do, so I had really been looking forward to this week for a bit of "me-time." But God in His perfect plan, gave me a very sweet first-time counselor friend and a great cabin of girls and together they unknowingly taught me just how selfish many of my motives are, how much of a leader I am not, challenged me in my verse memorization, and challenged me as to who I was relying on for my strength. It was so cool to see how God was working in my own life in ways beyond what I had even thought about, and also to see Him working in the lives of the campers. I believe there were 306 campers this year; at least 26 of whom are my new sisters in Christ!

Saturday after I got back from camp, I quickly washed all my dirty laundry, packed up everything and returned to Ankeny to chaperone a birthday party for my niece at a hotel. That was all fine and dandy until about 3am when the girls were still not asleep! Between the swimming for almost 5 hours, the drive home from camp, the busy week and the late night/early morning, I was exhausted, but still managed to make it to Sunday School on time and even to stay awake!! Sunday night I was able to go to Calvary Baptist Church and the message fit perfectly with what I had been learning all week at camp (How a leader is to deal with selfishness) and not only that, I finally figured out where I had been reading about leadership! It was my notes I had been taking almost all summer long as we have worked our way through the book of Nehemiah and talking about leadership! Totally made me almost laugh out loud when I realized it! (Good thing I didn't though!)

Today I finally got to see my kids again after a very long 11 days! Of course, none of them said they missed me or were glad I was back, but I hear from their mother that they actually did. => Its good to be home (altho, it totally did not feel like I was home when I finally got to my apartment Sunday afternoon) even though I will also miss camp. When I am at camp, its like the rest of the world just fades away..and coming back home is like ...well it seems like you have been gone much longer than a week. And gas prices dropped bout 10 cents during the week! That was cool!

Enough for tonight. I am going to attempt to do some much needed homework and then head to bed!
And to end with the traditional ending, I had a blast, learned lots, the food was great and I want to go back next year!