MIDDLER CAMP 2007

I'm still tired. Last week, I took part in what has become a yearly gig for me. I served as a counselor at a week of church camp for some crazy (yet awesome) 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Yes, this age group is a little younger than what I am used to, but it was fun all the same. The amount of energy that these kids have is unbelievable. It's hard to explain life at church camp. It's kind of a continuous cycle of eating, walking, Bible study, laughing, swimming, eating, teaching, lining up, not sleeping, walking, tooting (I can't say the F#RT word, my mom may read this), praying, eating, singing, dancing, lining up, eating, Bible study, teaching...I think that you get the picture. Usually the week at camp flies by for me. This year, it didn't. I'm not sure why but the entire week just seemed to be a constant struggle. First of all, my right hip was out of socket most of the week. This causes great pain when I walk for a long time and and as mentioned above, walking is big at camp. They even had a chiropractor come to camp to adjust me but it didn't last long. Second of all, we had a lot of technical issues with computers, projectors, and sound equipment. Nothing went right. While none of those problems in themselves were really a big deal, together, they made for a long week. But I think that the biggest reason that week was such a struggle was just the emotional roller coaster that God decided I needed to ride.

ROLLER COASTER UPS:
The ups on my "emotional roller coaster" ride were awesome. One of which was spending time with "Hosehead" (Brad, my nephew). He makes me laugh so much that my face starts to hurt. He is truly a joy to be around and it is exciting to bounce my ideas off of him to see what he thinks. It doesn't seem to matter where we are or what we are doing, something funny is always happening. Another "Up" for the week was working with the teen counselors from our youth group here at LCC. I was so proud of them in that they honestly made the week about the kids and not about themselves. I knew they all had a heart for serving God, but it was just cool to see it in action. I hope they all understand the difference that they made in the lives of those kids at camp. Our teens were also fun to play pranks on. Shaving cream in the shoes was fine but my favorite was plastic wrapping one of our teen guys in his bed. It was so worth staying up until 3:30am to do it. He was so mad when he woke up. It took him like five minutes to get out. I crack myself up. Many other cool "UP" things happened but none would top what happened on Friday. You see Friday, my oldest son Jacob was baptized into Christ (thus the picture). I have never been so proud. What even made the moment more special to me was that he chose to be baptized not in the pool (like everyone else), but wanted to go "old school" and have it done in the lake. Yes, I know it doesn't really matter but I thought that it was cool all the same.
ROLLER COASTER DOWNS:
I guess it's not really fair to say that I had down moments. It would probably be more accurate to say that I had some "heavy" moments. Most of these "heavy" moments revolve around some of the kids that were in my group at camp. It's really amazing how close you can get to some kids that you only know for a few days. The more I joked with them, kidded with them, and simply cared for them, the more they opened up to talk. Eventually, I found myself being crushed in hearing some of the stuff that they deal with everyday at home. It was really hard to hear. Even though it was good to be able to share some scriptures with them and pray about each of their situations, I still struggled with...knowing. Really it wasn't the knowing what was happening thing that messed me up, (I have seen/heard stuff like that before) it was the knowing that at the end of the week, many of them were going right back into the life that they had left a few days earlier. I can only pray that God encouraged and strengthened them through their week at camp. It might have been through a song, a lesson, a word from a teen, a burping contest, or just about anything else that goes on at camp. My only hope is that the campers heard the message loud and clear....I know I did.