this was the BEST coed camp in all five of my summers. no staff drama, no boy crazy campers, no near deaths in adventure rec, no midnight pranks. these guys made me wish we had coed camp all summer.
my cabin was great! i had eight 6th graders, two 5th graders and one 8th grader, which was different but they were all good. it's weird that middle schoolers used to scare me to death, but now they all think i'm cool. i've learned how to shut attitudes down, and they're too old to get homesick(or if they do, they're old enough that i can tell them to suck it up[not in those exact words, but in a loving way]), which are the two things that make up my definition of "bad campers." so with those knocked out, i can just sit back and enjoy the fact that they get my sarcasm, they can have adult conversations, and they're actually interested in Bible study.
groups like these make me wish we had two week sessions like crestridge does. i had two who had been good all week then started acting up on thursday afternoon, and if we'd had more than 16 hours left together i could have addressed it, but it made more sense to ignore it and move on with life. another two were really shy the first few days then thursday afternoon they had just begun to come out of their shells. and three of them grew up in my old church with me, so i wished i could have spent a lot more time with them. all 11 of them would have been great to have for longer, and none of them wanted to leave on friday.
the best part of my week, and one of the best parts of my summer, was Bible study time on wednesday was one of the best that i've ever had. the first two days i had gone by the book and they had been bored out of their minds. day three is the really important one where we lay out the gospel. i really like the way we do it this year; it centers on Jesus calling the 12 disciples, how they chose to follow him, and what it means for us to follow him. some years it's focused more on the initial accepting Jesus part, but i love how this one emphasizes how being a Christian is a life long thing, not just saying one prayer("one...DONE!"). so anyways, this week i read the Bible story as it was planned in the book, and the girls had so many great questions about so many big things, that we didn't bother doing anything else. we spent the whole rest of the time, and 15 minutes into our rest time, just talking.
-how did the people who wrote the NIV and the people who wrote all the other versions of the Bible make sure they were writing the same things?
-did the guys on the other two crosses with Jesus go to heaven?
-is some sin easier to forgive than others?
-if you've done a LOT of bad things, is it harder to become a Christian?
-if you're a Christian and you keep doing bad things, when does God say "enough is enough" and just give up on you?
needless to say i got to talk a LOT about grace. that last question especially. and so many of them had never had that explained to them. most of them thought what i thought for most of my life: you ask Jesus to be your savior, then YOU try YOUR best to live like him until you die and go to heaven. but no. you figure out that you can never be good enough on your own, trust Jesus to be good enough FOR you(because he is) so that God looks at you and sees Jesus instead of your sin, then each day trust him to be good enough THROUGH you so that everyone sees Jesus in your life and wants him in theirs too.
at one point one girl said "DANG miss linda, how do you do that?" and i asked what, and she says "you can just pull a Bible verse out of nowhere for anything!" i got to go on a rant about how it's the coolest book in the world and all the answers to everything are in there if you just dig for it, which raised more questions about how to know what's in what book and stuff.
top funny stories:
1. one night at dinner one of the boys asked if someone would go get him an apple off the salad bar. i fixed to get up and get him one, but paused and asked him "what can i get for this?" he thinks for a second, says "hold on." gets out a pen and paper and draws me this monkey with a speech balloon that says "i love you" and hands it to me and says "is this good?" i said i'd get him two apples if he wanted; but he said he only wanted the one. =]
2. girl in my cabin#1: if i had a billion dollars, i'd buy this cabin. with linda and jenna and tori in it.
girl in my cabin#2: and hope!
#1: no, hope is too loud.
for next week, the biggest thing to pray for would be the fact that i'll have high schoolers in my cabin! when i asked to try working with older ones, i'd expected more 6th graders like this past week, but i never thought i'd get the oldEST ones. they need really special staffers. since i was that age when mine were so important to me, i know just how much a cabin leader can make or break a 9th grader's week...and i'm really scared about that. pray that i'll know how to be their authority AND their friend, that i either won't have attitude-y campers or if i do i'll know how to handle them, and just that God will work through me. i'll be much less nervous if i keep remembering that it's not me who's in charge.
also for all of us as this is our last week. we're all tired but don't want to leave. and for me, this is also my last week before school starts. usually that week is spent at home. i don't know how i'll handle not having a transition time. pray that i focus on camp and not get distracted thinking about being alone in the world soon, that i enjoy my last week of being loved and getting hugs more than once a week
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