This past week we had colt camp and I was able to counsel with one of the girls who I’ve grown very close with throughout the summer; we had wanted to counsel together for a very long time and it finally happened. We had a great cabin of nine very fun and well behaved girls. Some of the cabins weren’t so blessed. One cabin had a very misbehaved and disrespectful girl who acted like she was 13 but really she was only 9 or 10. She would not listen to anything the counselors said and called them ugly and stupid many times. It was a tough four days for them, but God gave them the strength to make it trough and gave them help from others at the camp who were willing to spend time with this young girl so the counselors did not have to focus all their attention on her and could focus on the rest of the girls in their cabin.
Brittany (the girl I counseled with) and I had a great time with our cabin. We made a scavenger hunt for them to do the first day which they really enjoyed, and I did too, maybe more than they did at timesJ We also had a camp fire with another cabin and read them a story and sang songs. Brit knows how to play the guitar so that was really nice to put the girls to bed by playing the guitar and singing to them. Each day for colt and bronco camp the kids have cabin clean up time and then each cabin is judged on their cabin cleanliness as well as decorations. Sometimes cabins challenge each other to see who can get the higher score between the two of them and this week Brit and I challenged one of the guy’s cabins. We had done a great job and felt really good about our cabin, but then it turns out that the counselors from the other cabin put horse poop on our cabin stoop, toilet paper in the trees around our cabin, and trash in our trash can which made us loose by a lot. But the fact that he broke some of the camp rules by doing those things he had to take the punishment instead of Brit and I which happened to be a few things: thrown into the ocean, pie in the face, and eating his dinner without his hands. He also had to walk around for the afternoon with a puppet on his hand and used it to talk. Then during supper our program director, Nick, said that he was going to take Peter’s (the guy counselor who did the pranking) punishments from him because he cared about him and had a relationship with him. It was neat to see the sacrifice of someone right before your eyes and think about God and His sacrifice for our lives. Nick ate his supper without using his hands, Brit and I threw a pie in his face and then we dropped him into the ocean. I’m not sure if the campers really understood everything, but I know many of the counselors, especially Peter, learned something from Nick’s example. It reminded me of God’s unconditional love and despite the fact that He knew we were going to sin and cause Him grief He was still willing to die on the cross for us. He allowed His son to be put to death. He turned His back on His own son for me, someone who half the time I’m turning my back on God. If you have never read the book called Crazy Love you should because it’s so good.
So after all of that, the next day the same boy’s cabin asked us if we wanted to have a rematch with no pranking to see who the true winner was. We decided to take them up on that challenge, and another boys and girls cabin was also challenging each other. We decided to change up the punishments for this round. If the girls lost the boys would be allowed to write on their faces with maker and if the boys lost the girls would be allowed to put makeup on their faces and paint their finger nails. So, our cabin worked very hard and made sure everything was super neat and our decorations were amazing (it was Christmas morning so we had snowflakes and cookies out for Santa). And guess who won…both girl cabins. So we got to put makeup on three of the four boys and paint all of their finger nails. The one boy who did not want makeup on had to walk backwards for the whole afternoon. The week was a lot of fun and we were able to share God’s love with the kids in a fun and creative way.
The week was shorter so we had a lot of time to do fun things over the weekend as counselors. One of those fun things consisted of four of us putting all of our clothes that we brought to camp on at the same time. It was super hard getting them on, but well worth the trouble. We walked around camp and showed off our added pounds. Then Brit and I slept outside in a super amazingly awesome place (you’ll have to ask me about it in person). It was a wonderful night and the stares were out. The only problem was that we got a little cold and the sun comes up early so we woke up super early, but it was ok cause we were able to have God time and get some things done even before a lot of people were up. That whole day was a very relaxing day and Brit and I just hung out in hammocks and read and talked. Then the next morning Brit, Laurie and I went for a hike to the point around 7. It was a lot of fun, but we had a little trouble with the water getting there, but we made it. When there we read Proverbs 31 and talked about what it means to be a true women of God. We also talked about what we had learned throughout the summer and things we were struggling with or worrying about as our summer comes to a close. It was so nice to just be able to sit with them and be real. I love both of them so much and am so thankful to God for allowing us to meet each other and grow so close. Brit and I also did some baking. We made buckeyes, cookies, and popsicles. They all turned out really yummy, but the process was interesting. I accidently put salt in the cookies instead of sugar so those were interesting at first, but we started over so that worked out fine. Then for the buckeyes, the recipe was not very good so we just kind of added some peanut butter, vanilla, and butter to the powdered sugar till it tasted good to us. They were super super super yummy I might add.
I’m on work staff this week again and it’s been a lot of fun. Keep praying for focus as our summer comes to a close. God has been doing some amazing things up here and I don’t want us to miss out on any of it because we are thinking about going back home.
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