Reflections

I got home from camp at probably 3:00ish, and I sat down with my tablet to blog, but my big mistake was the sitting down--I promptly fell asleep!  Two hours later, mom called wanting to know did I want my kitties back (YES) and did I want to grab some dinner (DOUBLE YES--so not interested in cooking right now!).  So, duly fortified with my burger and fries and reunited with Dino and Sophie who have been at their grandparents' house for three weeks now, I can write about the last moments of camp with a smile.  :-)

The last day felt like it FLEW by!  Lessons were more compact and there was very little down time today (hardly any time at all for nine square or human foosball or pine tree forts!); we had picking up and packing to do.  When I looked at my schedule at first, it seeme too tight to me--very often, Jason had allowed 15 minutes for one activity or another.  Hardly anything was longer than 30 minutes, and nothing except swimming took more than an hour--which seemed like a frantic pace to me, until I was there long enough to get used to the 5th and 6th grade creature.  If you tell them to, for example, clean up their appointed area (we Team One peeps were in charge of shelter one and the canteen areas), they take off at BREAKNECK SPEEDS and COMPETE for who can find more trash (measured by the handful: "I already threw away FIVE HANDS and he only got THREE hands!!").  This took a full 7 minutes.  We were totally done with time to spare; so now I find myself measuring chore times in tiny increments and rushing my own self.  Maybe when I sleep in tomorrow, I will have slept that out of my system.  But I know now that it takes me about 13 minutes to eat lunch and clean my tray....  The French would be appalled....

We did our final prayer around the flagpole and Jesus rocks (do NOT step in or play in or pick up any of the landscaping rocks around the flag poles and cross; dire consequences) to finish up our week with a nice little finale.  We prayed for the children, for the continuation of this revival of spirit, and for their return next year.  I've always said that people come home from camp feeling very holy, and despite the showers and heat and bugs (and worms--I actually had to tell a kid that he coult NOT keep his worm in his Bible case, no matter how careful he is not to squish him--boys are SO GROSS), they really do experience a renewal of faith there.  I hope that spirit remains in the kids and plants seeds of kindness and determination to live a Christian life, no matter what's going on in their lives.  Some of those kids come from hard circumstances; bless the hearts of the family members or churches who cobble the money together to get these kids to camp.

This week has made me want to work at helping fund this camp that was so important to my own childhood and to the childhoods of the current and future campers.  I know I'll be donating more than I have been to the camp scholarship funds for Elkville Christian Church, and something needs to be done to give the cabins a facelift.  To be continued.  I suppose I've been roped into (through my own big mouth) writing a curriculum for next year's camp theme--a timeline of the major events of the Bible--so it behooves me to stay involved with the maintaining of the camp.  With a retirement  of the owner and new men on the camp board, I'm looking forward to seeing changes afoot.  Stay tuned!!

Are you dying to know who won the memory work contest??  I will tell you!  TEAM ONE, BABY!!!!  Woot, woot!!!  We had these awesome twins on our team--Maddie and Cameron, and they are the most precious kids of all time.  If their parents had let me, I would have brought them home.  They were SERIOUS about memory work and racked up the points--and Cameron is a walking encyclopedia.  It's amazing.  He's like that kid in Jerry McGuire who knows how much the human head weighs.  Someone asked did he know anything about Moses, and five minutes later, he had exhausted his store of info.  I think he knew Moses' favorite color and sandal size.  His sister earned over a thousand points with memory verses--earned in 10- and 20-point increments.  These kids rock--can't wait to see what they turn out like.  :-)  May they always spend their summers at church camp.  So with these twins and our other rock star memorizers, Team One won camp.  Their winning swag included posters, Christian rock CD's, and colorful plastic bracelets with cool symbols on them.  The winners were pleased and smiley--how great is your day when you can make a 5th and 6th grader pleased and smiley because they really, genuinely won the prize with their smarts and their teamwork??

So  the bottom line is that camp is wonderful and everyone should go!  Send your kiddies!  Support your local camp!  Go be a sponsor!  For one week... once a year... after 360 days of recovery... and armed with flip flops!!  :-)  You'll be glad you did.