Meaningful

When I talk about camp with people, it is almost always with a huge, dimple showing smile on my face.  But one time, when I mentioned how unbelievable a camp experience can be, I was completely shut down.  This person, who I love and think is amazing, will never consider working at a camp, because a sister of hers is a counselor.  The girl says that her sister is just so consumed by thoughts of this camp and never wanting to leave, that that's the last thing she wants.  She wants to have a life, essentially.  I think she's dearly missing out.

There is nothing like returning to Village Creek.  It's an instant feeling of knowing you're home, and where you belong.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I love my family so very much, and I do like my school, but there's something here at camp that those places can't give me.  Being gone the last two days from camp, I didn't think anything of being gone.  I was coming right back, no big deal.  Plus I got a night in my own bed at home, which was WONDERFUL!  I could do that at school and get nothing but a question as to why I wasn't in class.  But I leave for only two days at camp, and when I return I have many many people come up to me with wide smiles and hugs.  They then carry on to tell me how much they missed me and several others asked me how my appointment went.  These people that are chosen here as staff are truely a bunch of remarkable people.  I've been at other camps.  Ones with much better facilities, several times the size of Village Creek, and more donors than they know what to do with, but here at Village Creek you feel like you matter.  I may have never had bugs get into my room at Hidden Acres Christian Camp.  I may have never seen mice where they didn't belong (I've also had mice in my high school locker, so it happens).  But I have also never been at a place that cares so deeply what is happening in your heart and in your head.  I've never made so many friends that I honestly knew were going to always be in my life.  The speakers here are always so well spoken, and they are never afraid to challenge you, or bring you to new understanding.  Even the most timid person here as a story to tell.

That brings me to tonight's talk.  If you've been here before, you have probably been blessed to know Debbi.  Debbi is the woman in charge of the kitchen, and I believe I've had the pleasure of getting to hear her speak twice.  At least with non-kitchen related topics.  And despite her claims of being a very reserved person, when she speaks she always has a profound impact with me.  I was greatly encouraged by her talk, and her way of explaining things in simple, personal terms makes everything stick.  Most of the information she said was taken from a conference she got to attend, but it wasn't really the information that meant a lot to me.  It was just the reminder of something I already know.  I am inadequate, but God is not.  Backtracking a little; when I arrived at camp, Camie let me know that I'm going to be counseling this next week.  I'm always completely willing to do anything they ask of me.  I'm here to serve, but that was (and is) not something I was (am) looking forward to.  Debbi reminded me that it's not me, but God that is going to make a difference in these children's lives.  I'm even doubly bummed that they are the Junior Campers, which for those of you that don't know, are 3rd grade through going into 6th grade.  This is a challenge I'm willing to take on full throttle.  Although I don't feel ready to counsel, I'm planning on taking the weekend to prepare myself for devotionals, and would appreciate the prayer from back home.  In the off-camp season, I often seem to slack off on what I swore I would keep up on, even attending church.  I have yet to find one in Sioux Falls that I truely enjoy attending, though I do listen to Steamboat Rock messages online.  It's really entertaining to hear stories from home online, and even more so when Pastor Harrison gets a laugh out of the congregation and you hear your dad's laugh quite clearly.  I love my dad!

The fun stuff about Junior Campers, is that they almost always love you.  You are an older person that is there specifically for them and it's amazing to them.  They're also young too, and things like vocabulary and other simple things can be challenging.  Even when they are naughty or they are just grating on your last nerve, they will suddenly do something mirroring God so perfectly that you want to just cry from the beauty of it.  That happened with my very first cabin of Junior campers, and I always hold it close to my heart.  They are usually very sweet, and I love holding them in my lap.  They are a great deal of fun, though I really don't know how the whole swimming deal is going to go with my ear.  That's something I'll have to talk over with leadership when I get the chance.  I pester them with questions all the time! Ha, at least I don't ask them if Firefly is coming back! (Inside joke, sorry)  It'll be a good time, and it's good to know that where I am weak, God is strong.

On a craft room note, seeing that I'm the facilitator and all that, it is going very well!! I'm going to MOP in there tomorrow! Or at least have somebody mop in there.  It has not been done in any of the starting into three summers I've been here, and I am so very excited about it.  We also made up some very fun crafts that I think they'll all enjoy.  I melted crayons into modge podge molds and it made fun crayons in  fun shapes :D.  It'll teach patience, cause it took a lot longer than I thought it would for my hair dryer to melt the crayons.  We also made fun page holders, pendants, tested all the puffy paint, scrubbed the counters and one drawer, swept the floor, cleaned the sinks, made a list of things we need,  made play swords, cut out a hole in an encyclopedia (sliced open my finger too, yay Band-Aids!), and much much more! I'm sure you didn't want to know absolutely everything we did this afternoon!

I am still anxiously awaiting Katie Strupp's return to camp.  She is my best friend, after Philippine Barnerias of course, and I love sharing things with her.  She's coming back from finishing up her UNI class on Saturday, and it can't come soon enough in my book.  I got to show her all my craft room improvements!!!

One thing I want to leave with you is a statistic that Debbi read to us I believe from the conference she attended.  1 out of 5 teens say that they do not have conversations with their parents lasting longer than 10 minutes in an entire month.  That's incredibly sad.  For a note of encouragement, please, ask your kids how their day was.  You may be surprised at everything you hear when the cell phone, laptop, iPad... all technology, is taken away and you're left to wonder at the depth of this human being that came from you from God.

God is Good? ALL THE TIME!!

Lindsay

In the Interim

It's been a couple days since an update, but I've had great reasons for that.  Monday was declaired a "no technology" day, and just yesterday and today I was down in Iowa City getting my ear checked out by the best of the best at the University of Iowa Hospital.

My ear has been giving me a lot of trouble since last August.  I got what I and several others thought was just swimmers ear, but it turned into so much more.  When I returned from camp after two weeks of using 4 painrelievers every...I don't quite remember... 4 hours? The pain in my ear just reached such intensive levels that I was screaming for hours.  I ended up calling my dad and had him drive me to a specialist in Mason City, where he then called it either a fungal infection or a bacterial infection.  He really pulled out quite a lot of nasty stuff out of there.  Upon arriving in Sioux Falls for school, I saw another specialist, and he pulled this great hunk, about the size of three garden peas and a white color, out of my ear, and I could hear well for the first time in weeks! You really don't understand the wonder of hearing until you've lost it and then gained it back.

To make a long story short, It has been bothering me off and on for almost a year now, and I'm quite sick of it.  I had a bad flare up in February that just sealed the deal to see a real specialist, hence today's appointment.  And it's now proven that I'm not crazy; there really is something wrong with it.  There is a mystery pocket/flap in my ear, most likely formed my my childhood ear surgery, that has collected wax and things that are unable to get out naturally.  Each time they get wet I end up getting another infection.  I'm on drops (I swear, they're the 6th one I've tried) and If that doesn't work, I may have to have surgery to just make that inside canal of my ear smoothed out again.  I pray that doesn't happen, but at least I can now prove that I was really, truely, having something wrong with my ear and not just complaining.

I'm getting up to return to camp in 6 hours, and more updates will come in.  We've gone over new camp technology rules, so I need to get permission from people to mention thier names and such like.  Yay being back to my craft room!!

Lindsay

Staff Training: Day 2

Wow.  I'm people exhausted! It's quite a change from watching Cinderella alone in your room to being with roughly 50-60 people all day long.  Here's quite a few of us smashed together on the hay rack.
More were in the dish room, like I said, and we're still waiting for a few more.  Well, mainly Jani, but she's very important! 

The day was pretty average for staff training.  We had rotations in the morning and Staff Jam in the afternoon.  Rotations is when you get taught about the rotations.  Rather obvious? But those rotations include craft room, trampoline, archery, frisbee golf, creative games, pony rides, and nature walk. I taught how the craftroom should be run, with new info from the one and only Camie.  This summer we'll be making cardboard castles!! I'm VERY excited for this one!!! How is that not cool!? We're also making these parachord bracelets.  They look pretty neat, I just don't know how to finish them yet.
Staff JAM is basically a huge collection of activities that you do as a group.  My team members are the Purple Turtles.  Not the most creative name ever, but my group wasn't as gung-ho for Staff JAM as most I have been in.

Fairly basic day.  We'll have church tomorrow, then the lake! Good thing it'll be hot!

Lindsay

First Night of Staff Training

Howdy All!

We have a new leadership member from Texas, so I felt obligated to start off my new post like that.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Camp is just like it has been for the last two summers, with a few minor improvements.  Well, improvements in my book! There are now 3 lovely stripes down the hallway of the... the... gym building.  I think I forgot half of my camp lingo over the school year! But anyways, that looks great, and the craft room walls have been painted fun colors!! I was bummed for a split second before being completely happy I didn't have to do that.  I'm a little painted out after my Painting 1 class this semester.

There's a great aray of old faces and new faces, though it seems that quite a lot of the new faces are just younger relatives of the old faces.  Sarah Maslo's sister is here, and there are three Vik's that I've never got to meet before.  Vik's are amazing.  On our tractor ride around the camp, I spent quite a while aiming gummy bears into Amy? Vik's mouth.  I think I had 4 out of 7, and I think that's a pretty good shot!! Specially since I can't hit my mom with a sock and she'll be 6 feet away from me! There are still quite a few people not here yet, but I think I may just think that because they were still in the dish room when we were all gathered together.

Pretty much all we have done today is go on our camp 'tour,' eat, and then do teambuilding exercises, and then a short chapel service, if you want to call it that.  Three leadership people shared their testamonies,  and to sit and listen to those really gets you back in the camp spirit.  Those types of life changing moments are what we hope for for our kids, and hearing of ones that started at camps is really uplifting.

This girl decided that the midnight priemere of Men in Black 3 was worth being this tired (crazy I know), so I am going to bed an hour and a half before lights out.  Not so crazy.  Actually, that's very VERY normal.  Just not for the first day :). By the way, I totally suggest Men in Black 3.  It was so much better than the second, and it ties all three together well.  Not for small children though.  Some parts were really gross and I covered my eyes.  That kinda says a lot seeing that I'll be 21 in a month.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful day!

Lindsay

ps- sorry for any obvious typos.  I'm very tired and the blog program doesn't have those lovely red swiggles under the word to let you know you've messed up... :)

Packing

This being my third summer, I've learned a thing or two about packing for camp, at least by a girl's standards

First of all, you are going to be moving every week to a new 'home.'  You can not pack everything.  'Specially books.  They are heavy and you will never read as many as you think you will.  There are also much more exciting or necessary things for you to do, such as sleep.  Sleep will become your best friend.  There is also no need to get the idea that you should pack fun things for your kids to do.  As much as a night painting your girl's fingernails and doing hair sounds like the perfect camp experience, the reality of it is that those kids will not sit still long enough.  They will need to take showers, and there will be little or no time for such things.  Also, the kids will most likley have brought their own forms of entertainment.  Your focus should be on their hearts, not how entertained they are.  That also includes by what you do for yourself.  Don't ever pack straighteners or curling irons.  You will not have time, and the time that you would take for such things is much better used sleeping.  Or that time could be used with your own personal devotions, and that will become increasingly important as you wear yourself out over the summer.  Your heart and health are more imprtant than your hair.  We won't care anyway.

Forgetting things is pretty normal for staff as well as campers.  My first summer I forgot a toothbrush! It was rather embarrassing when Sue brought it up during a staff meeting and told me she had extras.  There's no need to stress about packing to that point, because there are always ways to get by until the next weekend.  Then a Wal-Mart trip is always welcome!

I've also learned that you need clothes for every kind of weather.  Rainboots at Village Creek are one of the most important things you can have.  People without them will be incredibly jealous after the 3rd day of rain, and their tennis shoes are ruined, and your socks are still as white as they were when you first put them on.  Mine are bright blue with yellow polka dots, and they are fantastic!! Rain jackets are great, as well as umbrellas.  It rains a LOT at camp.  Band-aids are a must for cuts, as well as if your shoes start to rub your skin off.  Kids who complain of things like that will get on your nerves so fast! It's better to be prepared for these things.

I could go on and on about what to bring and what not to bring, but I think I'm missing an important thing.  I have to finish packing myself! See you tomorrow, Village Creek!

Lindsay

10 Days!

Hello! In 10 days I will once again be at the most wonderfully magical place in the entire world! Nope, I'm not talking about Paris, I'm talking about Village Creek Bible Camp!! (You know, just if you didn't get that from the title of the blog and needed more explination...)

This summer we have a medieval theme, "Stand," and me and Katie Strupp, my best buddy, are going crazy over making ourselves armor.  Actually, she is.  I was for one night, and I made myself a helmet.  Then I screwed it up really bad, and since then she's been the one super excited about it.  I'm just going to have my sister make mine!!

My roles this summer are going to be really random.  My official contract title is Craft Room Facilitator, which I love, but I'm also been told I'm going to be a counselor once in a while, and help with media.  When I checked media on my application I don't remember if I was actually serious, but I'm happy with it all the same.  My grandparents are probably going to let me take their camera, which will be fabulous because mine has seen better days.  I think Sunkist got on it at one point, cause it feels rather sticky, and the shutter doesn't open all the way all the time... I have the worst luck with cameras.  It's my 5th one.  But that's a WHOLE other story.  I have an alterior motive for wanting to be on media anyways.  My senior art show has to have an overal theme, and I've been pondering doing Village Creek paintings for the last year and a half.  So that means I need millions of pictures.  I have an entire pinterest board dedicated to the craft room, and I've been thinking over how I want to do things all school year long! I'm also somewhat excited to be a counselor, but I think I need to be at camp a while to get back in the swing of things.  I always feel that I'm a better person at camp.

Oh happy day :D

~Lindsay