Thursday’s afternoon activity was one of our favorites, duck, duck, wham. It is duck, duck, goose, but it is done on a large tarp that is wet and soapy. It is loads of fun to go chasing after someone, then lose your footing, and go sliding off into the sand. We had had most of the camp participating, which was great. Some of those who didn’t participate at first were cheered for and the decided to join.
We also started playing “gotcha” which is where you have to sneak up on someone and hit the person with a marshmallow without anyone seeing. Everyone in the game starts with a target and the whole list of people makes a circle, but you only ever know whom you have and you don’t know who has you. This makes many of us a bit paranoid. In fact as I sit here typing this I’m terrified that someone might get me. We don’t allow this to go on during organized activities such as meals, classes, or services; but any free time is fair game. It is a great game to get people to know other people, and lots of funny stories always come out of it.
Thursday night at service Jamie brought a friend (Dylan) from his church to share his testimony and then Jamie summed up everything we’ve talked about this week and closed with an altar call. He laid out yarn for everyone to wear when they came to the altar to make a commitment. He talked about this piece of yarn being an altar for us so we can remember what God has done for us just as the Israelites built an altar to remember how God lead them to the promise land. What I really appreciated about this, was it wasn’t this huge emotional experience, like many camp experiences are (not that emotions weren’t apart of if or emotional experiences are bad), rather this was a very deep, informed time of commitment that was kind of a culmination of the week. Many campers and staff alike went to the altar to pray and make commitments during this time and many campers spent a lot of time talking to staff, as well as to Dylan.
Thursday night’s snack was French fries and cheese fries. For any of the other deans out there I encourage you to do cheese fries for the campers. I’m not a huge fan of when the staff has cheese fries and not the campers. Sorry for the vent. Then we went into the night game, which was called hypnosis. We had more camper volunteers as well as some staff. Every time the bell would ring, the volunteers would pretend to fall asleep at which point and then they would wake up on the next bell. The objective of the teams was to get the volunteers back to the dinning hall. They got extra points for getting people like Scott and Kevin back.
At bedtime the boys were their typical little angel selves going back, having devotions and going right to bed. (SARCASM) The girls threw a party (wedding shower type of deal for Jen before bedtime, including a skit where Courtney dressed up like Julio including a very creepy looking beard and Mel played Jen.
Friday morning Julio gave a great talk about stories. He told some funny ones, some not so funny ones and some serious ones. Going along with the theme of I am, he encouraged the kids to go out and think about their story.
That’s all for now.
-Steve
