Junior Camp pictures!

Well, I know you've all been dying to see pictures from last week. This is the 5th time I've tried to upload them! I kept doing dumb things that ended up stopping the uploading process. But here they are...finally! :)

Olivia, Juoleanne, Elisa, and Caroline waiting to ride the horse.

Samantha 

Scoring game after the evening services-the campers spin a wheel that has 1 through 6, -2, -3, and -4. Then they try to get the ships around the world behind the people in the above picture, and the first team to get their ship around wins the game and gets to fly their team flag the next morning. These are two guy counselors from opposing teams: one wanting a 6, and one wanting a -4. 

Every morning during chapel, the kids would do a penny parade. They could choose how many packs of pennies they wanted to give and each kid put their pennies in the buckets. Then, Mr. Scott let go to see which team won. All the money went towards a camp in Africa.

Flute quartet: Rachel, Clara, Ashley, and Bethany. I play the piano for this- I Sing the Mighty Power of God.

Bethany and I played a duet and decided to match. :)

Here we are :)

All my campers... from back to front: Samantha, Danielle, Caroline, Elisa, Olivia, Juoleanne, Celeste, Madison, and Jackie.

Caris was really hungry that day... :) Just kidding! She asked the snack shop girls to split one flurry into three and shared with Clara and I. :)

We were all pleasantly (?) surprised on Thursday night when we had to eat with crazy utensils! This was the first time this had happened the whole summer! So of course I had to go around and take pictures of every single counselor. :)

I poked myself in the forehead like every time I tried to take a bite. And I had to hold those things open! :)

Bethany

Kaylee (she had a coffee pot to drink out of)

Nathan (I have no idea how he ate with a potato masher? I don't think he did either!)

Poor Nick...nice baby bottle! :)

Caris

Allison (the one with the blue lid was for drinking out of)

Clara

Ashley (now I really wouldn't want to try eating with that!)

Charity

Jeremy (those huge bucket things are what we always put trash and dirty dishes in after the meals! :))

Dan... he wouldn't keep his tongue in for the pictures (rolls eyes) :) I think he had an ice cream scoop to eat with.

Micheal got a baby bottle too...

Jonathon (he had to drink out of the glass dish)

And Mark - he had to stand up to eat out of that thing! And they did crazy utensils again this past week (I didn't get pictures), and he ended up with a really really tiny cup to eat out of and a styrofoam cup to drink out of. They went from huge to tiny with him! :) 

Bethany and Clara did a toilet paper bride contest. I think Clara won. :)

My campers during God-and-I time one morning.

The Camp Joy Quartet

My girls (my troublemakers weren't paying attention :)) at the end of fun time. L to R: Juoleanne, Celeste, Madison, Jackie, Olivia, and Elisa.

Annnnnnd... after the campers left. This is Clara, Ashley, Bethany, and I. We were taking a moment to relax and enjoy the company of people over the age of 12 before we got started on our Saturday jobs. :)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! It kind of gives you an idea of the campers I was talking about last week. Look out for another post! :)

Junior Camp 2

Well, I've finished my second week of counseling now! I must say...this week was much harder than my first one. I had 9 campers again, but a lot of them came from bad or strange backgrounds/don't go to church very often/were unsaved, etc. I had one whose family is part of a bus ministry with a rough family background, so she really tested my patience all week. :) She wouldn't listen to me the first, or second, or even third time, usually... Then I had one camper who says her family goes to church most of the time, but based on some things she told me, it seemed inconsistent... So I had struggles with her too. And you know how it goes when two get together and the others follow. :) It was a rough week, but the Lord was definitely teaching me patience and reminding me that I can do nothing on my own. There was nothing I could do to change the campers' lives, but He could. None of my campers made professions of faith or any major decisions this week, but the groundwork was laid, and they've all heard the gospel clearly now. We're praying that the Lord will continue to work in all the campers' hearts as they go home. 

I have a lot more pictures this week, since I was counseling, buuuut blogger won't let me upload but 4 right now and I've run out of time, so you'll have to wait until next week. I'm sorry!! :)

Me and Keren, a primary camper in someone else's cabin

Ashley, Keren, and Bethany

The girls at the counselor meeting on Saturday

Me with my cool door sign before my campers came :)

Next week is Teen Camp 2. I'm not counseling, so I'll try to find ways to keep myself busy... :) Pray for the campers' and staff's hearts!

Family Camp 3

We just finished our last week of family camp. It was much bigger than the two previous ones! I worked with Junior church (1st-6th grades) in the morning, and at night, I worked in infant nursery. For Jr. church, we had 46 kids! There were 2 guys that preached and led music, etc. and another girl and I helped with crafts and games, etc. It was pretty crazy! In the nursery one night we had 6 kids! Usually there were at least 4. And there were only 2 of us assigned, but one person would kind of rotate around the three nurseries helping wherever she was needed, so she usually took one crying baby out. :) I must say, I'm getting a lot of experience working with babies and young children this summer! I also baby-sat a few times throughout the week. The kids were very cute. :) It was a pretty busy week, but I enjoyed having stuff to do all week for once!  And since I'm sure you're all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for pictures, here they come! (Sorry there aren't that many again... :( )

On Monday, since it was July 4th, we had a cookout down by the horses. This is Julie and I.

Hannah Hatchett and I 

Clara and Levi

The 2 Abby's (although one spells it Abbey:)) 

Second night in the nursery. The baby on the left would cry if I let her go, so I had to hold her the whole time. Then the one on the right started crying, so I picked her up. Then, Brooklyn got jealous and wanted up too! :)

Poor kids...trying to escape!

Got one of them to sleep!

Jr. church. The boys sat on the left, and the girls on the right. 

Playing dodgeball with the kiddos. They loved it! Although they were more interested in just throwing the balls at each other. They didn't follow the rules too much. :)

One day I baby-sat down at the lake when it was family lakefront time, so that the parents could do their own thing. These two girls were hard to keep up with! Don't be deceived by this picture- most of the time they were running around! :)

Skit night with a few changes :)

View from the top of the super slide. On Friday, I was assigned to the top, but only one person and a video camera went down! I stayed for about an hour and a half and then I came down when the water quit working. So we opened up the rope swing, which is way more work, because lots of people wanted to go off of it!  

Next week is a Junior/Primary Camp. I will have juniors, and probably a lot of them! :) I'm normally on the blue team, but next week I'm going to be on the red team. :/ haha :) They need all of the girls to counsel, and there are 5 on the blue side, but only 4 rooms. And one of the girls on the red side won't be here next week, so they put me in her room. And that is why I will be on the red team. I have no red shirts. I don't know the cheers. This is going to be good. :) I have to switch my loyalties pretty fast!

Please pray for patience, wisdom, and strength for me this week, and pray that my cold goes away soon! I've had it for about a week already... There will be a lot of kids here next week, and I'm sure many of them will need to be saved. It would be great if we could see many of them saved by the end of the week! I appreciate all your prayers for me! 

 

Teen Camp 1

This past week was the first teen week! I didn't manage to come up with a whole lot to do, so I just followed the campers around a lot. :) I helped out with some of the activities during free time, and worked in the office a few days for a little while. The messages this week were amazing! I think I was initially thinking, "this is just going to be for the campers", but the Lord definitely worked in my heart as well! Even during the Junior week, a lot of the messages were really helpful for me too. I was able to counsel after the services 4 nights. The first night, I was scared to death as I walked to the back, since I've never done that with teens before. I was praying the whole time before the kids came back, "Lord, give me wisdom!" And He did! Two of the nights especially I was excited to see the verses the Lord gave me, and it was exciting to see Him work in the hearts of the two girls. It was also neat that they were problems I struggle with myself, so I was able to find verses for myself as well. It was a good week! There were a few campers saved, I believe, but there were many that left without getting saved. We're praying that the Lord will continue to work on their hearts as they go home. A lot of them came from really bad backgrounds, and it was hard for them to trust anyone. 

I have to apologize for the lack of exciting pictures this week...since I wasn't counseling, and therefore wasn't very involved, I don't have very many good pictures. So you'll just have to live with these few. Sorry! :) 

Julie and I didn't counsel this week, so we hung out a lot. This was on registration day- I helped with the sports table, and she helped announce which counselors should come pick up campers.

Pyramid Panic! The goal of this game is for the guys to get a big ball over the top of the pyramid, and then the girls try to score it in one of the big goal things. :) It was a pretty intense game!

This is what I do when I'm bored... :) Sarah and I didn't have anything to do in the office, so we did arm wrestling. I lost to her, but I won to her sister! (who is 11 :))

During teen weeks, some of the guys can participate in Iron Man competitions. Every day, they do a different contest. This was before the canoe race started- the whole camp comes to watch it. :)

Skit night! This is Mr. Ream explaining "She'll be comin' round Honolulu" :)

And this is me cracking up during that song. It is so hard to remember the melody when Mr. Ream's being crazy and the campers are all singing loudly! But it's SO much fun! 

The Camp Joy quartet - Mr. Shelton, Mr. Stephen, Ben, and Mr. Todd. They sing a barbershop quartet-type piece every skit night about a goat. It's pretty funny :) I would put up a video, but blogger won't really cooperate with me... 

And this is another skit that I play for. Ben and Mr. Ream sing a song about an Indian, but before they actually start singing, they do a lot of arguing :) And I start and stop playing a lot. You'd have to see it to really get it. :)

So Julie and I operated the bungaline every day during girls' free time. The bungaline is a trampoline with a harness, so you can jump really high and do flips and whatever. Well on this lovely day, we got off to a great start! We figured out how much the girl weighed, got the ropes all set up, got the harness attached to the ropes, got the girl on the trampoline, and released everything....without the girl in it! We were cracking up. :) Forgot the one minor detail of actually putting the harness on the girl! And it is HARD to get the harness back down especially without anyone in it! Never doing that again... :)

Last day- the Navigators won!! Ashley and Allison did a cabin challenge- whichever girl's cabin said the most verses got to put a pie in the face of the other counselor. They've done this challenge twice so far, and both times, Ashley's lost! This is right before the pie throwing while Allison's cabin did their cabin cheer.

And there she goes! I sacrificed a lot to get this picture! I ended up with whipped cream on my clothes because it went flying, as you can see in the picture. :)

Every Saturday, the housekeeping girls mop the hallways, so they put all the shoes in one room. Isn't that ridiculous?! :)

We girls have WAY too many shoes. And my ___ pairs of shoes don't help for sure. :)

Next week is the last Family camp for the summer. They're expecting around 160 people, which will be like the biggest camp we've had yet! I know already that I'll be working in infant nursery at night again, and I'll be helping with games for the Juniors at night. Other than that, I'm not too sure what else I'll be up to...maybe painting again? Who knows... :) I think it's going to be a good week, though, and I've heard that the speaker is really good! Pray for all of the staff here, as many are sick, and all of us are really tired. We're going to need energy! :) And pray that the Lord works in our lives and the families' lives this coming week.