I did promise a long time ago that I'd tell all of you about camp, and now it's how many months later, here it is. This is pasted together from the few emails I managed to send this summer, so it might be kinda confusing, but it's here!!
The first week of camp I was at was LDC (Leadership Development Camp). LDC was so awesome! I got there on Saturday evening after I'd been in Winnipeg at the EMC Conference all day and only had an hour to throw everything I own into two suitcases, two backpacks and assorted plastic bags. It was hectic, but I made it!
We were so incredibly hyper and energetic all week. Our goal was to scare the campers as much as possible by being so happy. We cheered when we got to clean the washrooms and stuff like that. It was fun!!
We slept in tents for the first two nights. The camp out sites were a lot better than the last time I went which was like four years ago and I had a very bad time and that is an incredibly long story, totally unrelated to what I'm saying. But it was good. We were there for a two days before any campers got there so we could get to know each other first. We had a very slack first two days. It was so good though.
Our sessions were incredibly intense. We had a guy from LiMiT to do them. I dunno if you've heard of them before. I never had before I went to LDC. What they do is camps and seminar type stuff all the develop leaders.
We did all these TDAs (Team Devolopment Activities/Totally Dumb Activities) to build team unity. We had to do stuff like the human knot without talking for an hour. We did another game called Killer Beam in which we couldn't talk for two hours. That was hard because I talk all the time, but it was such a growing experience to have to do that.
That's only such a tiny little bit of what we did, but it would take me a couple hours to write everything about it, so I'm just gonna leave it here I think.
I was going to write to everyone about LDC, but then I didn't have time cuz I went back to camp the very next day to be a kitchen helper. It was a great week in many ways except that by Friday the tension in the kitchen was so high. Me and the other kitchen helper so totally did not get a long with the head cook, so yeah. But we managed to still be nice to her, and respect her, it was just very hard.
In other ways it was a great week. Me and two of my friends were the "patrols" during Mission Impossible. All we had to do was walk around and make sure everyone was behaving. The director told us we needed to take our job seriously, but we kinda forgot to. I was singing, cuz there was music playing through the awesome sound system and you could hear it all over the camp, and it was kinda distracting me from patrolling. We started a dance in the parking lot, and used flashlights for strobe lighting.
In some ways I'm very glad the week is over. I gotta get up tomorrow and teach Sunday School and then I have to pack and be back at camp by 4:00. I still have to finish doing laundry. Sometimes I almost wish I wasn't having such a busy summer. I would love to sit at home and do nothing but watch TV all day, but I just gotta remind myself that this is all for God. Pray that God would give me energy to keep doing this for him, especially since I'm assistant counseling this next week.
I finaly got to use the camp computer so I can email people, but it's a Macintosh, so it doesn't work! Thank you to everyone for emailing me though. And thanks so much for praying for me. You'll never know how much that has meant to me.
This past month that I've been at camp has been fun, but it has also been so hard. Last week was my first time counseling. The senior counselor was Jolene Kroeker, and we had an awesome time together. She was a great person to counsel with for my first time. I think I also got a pretty good cabin for my first time. My girls were very hyper and sometimes a little too cuddly, but I love them!
Some stuff I want you to pray for is that all of my girls will continue to grow spiritually even thought they've left camp now. Most of them said they were Christians, but I'm not totally sure where all of them are at. One girl didn't like to go to church because it was too "hot, boring, and for old people", so we challenged her to start a youth group. Pray that she'll follow through on that.
There was also one girl in my canoeing class who is anorexic. We tried to help her as much as we could, but one week isn't going to do a lot. She needs serious help.
This week I just want you to pray for energy for us as staff. I am the horsemanship assistant this week, and it is way too hot for me out at the corrals. I get really bad headaches from the sun everyday, and the nurse was worried about me fainting, so just pray that I would continue to stay healthy and strong. Also, I'm going home after this week, but a lot of the staff is staying on even longer. One counselor as been sick almost all summer already and he's still staying.
I need to end this message as much as I would love to keep on going. The camp director will kick me off in 5 minutes if I don't get off. I'm back home next week so I should have time to email people more.
UPDATED MAY 25, 5000