Saturday, July 10, 2004

wow!

What a week! This week we had the 10-12 year old boys at camp and it was a week packed full of stuff. the staff had responsibilities from 7:30 in the morning till 10 or 11 at night! It was also quite a wild group. 4 boys were sent home for misbehavior and many others had to miss activities and help with chores around camp. The way the camp was run was also very different. In the mornings we went into Bloomington for a Sports Challenge VBS program at a church there and then we would come back for lunch and spend our afternoon doing rotations at camp. After dinner the counselors all had a meeting together and the rest of the staff played with the kids. then we would have chapel and snack and they would head to bed. Nothing really happened on Tuesday it was a smooth day. On Wednesday the VBS did not meet but the church put a program on for us where the kids learned to box and then got to box against the state boxing champion who goes to church there. That evening during game time the "fun" began. We had a 3 on 3 basketball tournament going on. You would think this game was the biggest deal in the world. The kids were getting so angry at everything. Our ISS had to hold a kid down on the ground to keep him from hitting someone. Then while that was going on another team lost and one of the kids got very angry. He and another kid started walking away from the playground area where they all were supposed to stay so I followed him and asked him to come back. He shrugged me off so I just kept walking with him and he just yelled about how he wanted to be alone. I told him he could be alone he just had to come back to the playground. Well we walked by the maintanance guys cabin and Justin one of our maintenence guys was there and he came out and helped me and the kid was furious with him but Justin brought the kid back to the playground. The next day I was sitting in VBS and these two kids were play fighting a little but I told them to stop because these kids cannot play fight without gettin into a real fight usually. Well they didn't listen and all of a sudden it was a real fight and I and a couple other staff people got in the middle and broke it up. THose two sat out of the activities that moring. Well that day we were in the water camp so we had water baloons and a couple round 3 foot deep pools and a slip n slide. Well Thursday was not a very warm day and in the morning it was freezing. I was not planning on getting wet but I was there to help out. Anyway I was standing there and I see Adam and Travis talking and I realize they are going to throw me in the pool. So I sit down hoping they won't do it because I am already cold. Well they keep coming so I start yelling that I have tennis shoes on so they pull those off and one grabs my arms and one grabs my legs and they throw me in the pool. It was really funny but I was really cold the rest of the morning. The rest of Thursday went well. There was a problem all day with one camper and Travis was able to talk to him Thursday night and the camper asked about how he could recieve Christ and the camper did accept Christ Thursday night. This was a camper who everyone remembered from last year because of the problems he caused and he was sent home so it was exciting. Friday at VBS we had some fun. WE had ice cream sundaes for snack and I was sitting there talking to a kid when someone all of a sudden starts rubbing whipped cream all over my face. I turn around and of course it was Adam so I chase him a little and wipe the whipped cream all over his shirt. Then I go and wash my face in the bathroom. I go back outside and go over to talk with Adam and Travis. Travis picks up a bowl of ice cream to eat so I grab it from Travis and pretend to smear it in Adam's face and then hand it back to Travis where Travis then takes the ice cream and smears it in my face. It was really funny so I go wash my face again.
Well God also worked in some unique ways at this camp. At VBS there was a chance everyday for children to pray the sinners prayer and then raise their hand to indicate they did. Many of our campers raised their hands several times throughout the week. As the counselors watched this they knew it was a problem and were able to talk to these boys in depth about what it means to be saved and eternal security and things like that. It was very beneficial. All in all the week was a good week. my stories about the boys fighting probably made it sound like these were horid kids but many of them were wonderful, had wonderful attitudes (most of the time) and really made camp enjoyable. It was probably my favorite week yet this summer!

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