God's Got An Army, Jr.Camp 2012

Yes, I am still alive.

I made it home, with all of my stuff, my kid, and all limbs in tact!

No small feat people.

This is the first time in 11 years that I have been to Jr. Camp. And it was at a camp that I had never been to before. Different directors too. I had no idea what to expect.

So, Monday afternoon, I dropped Bud and Aria off at my Mom's house and drove me and Aubrie on to Pilgrim Pines. Since this camp didn't seem to be so far off of the beaten path, I figured it would be less campish. I say that as I sit here scratching at my more than a dozen mosquito bites.
We check in and I introduce myself. I am given my cabin assignment and my folder containing my schedule and my list of girls. I find out that my cabin is at the TOP of the hill. The last one in the line. The farthest cabin.
I get up to the cabin, fall down on the floor trying to catch my breath and wonder how I am going to make that hike 800 times a day for the next four days. One of the first positives that I notice is that the cabins have bathrooms. Inside of them!! Yeah! There's no shower, just a toilet and sink, but still. This is a HUGE plus. I also notice that there are 6 sets of bunk beds. That means 12 people. I wonder who else is going to be a counselor with me in this double cabin. I look at my list of girls. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 girls. Scratch that. I am obviously in this one alone. So, I figure that since I have to deal with 10 girls, all by myself, in the farthest cabin that there is - I should at least have the most comfortable bed. The bed test proved that all of the beds are equally hard, flat, and appearing to be stuffed with cardboard. I picked the bed closest to the doors. I figured that would be the best one for the counselor, so if any of them got all crazy and tried to sneak out I'd have the best chance of hearing them.
One of the first things I heard when I got to camp was the whispered word 'bears'. There were bear sightings almost immediately, which I at first assumed to be fake. Not so. Crazy kids, mosquitoes, and BEARS, oh my!
All of my girls finally arrive, all of them are from my church except for two. I ended up with one more by the end of the day, upping my responsibilities to 11 girls. I had a very good group of girls. But, you know, there is always one. I have taught Sunday School for a handful of years now. And no matter how many sets of children I go through, I have found that in each group there is always one. You know, the one who makes you wonder whether or not you are cut out for this. Who pushes the limit. Who tires you out. Who asks the questions that no person, genius or not, could answer. The one who has a limitless amount of energy. And when something goes down, even when you are trying to find the problem elsewhere, it usually ends up coming down to that one.
For her sake, I will limit my sharings about her. She was an absolute mess! I couldn't believe how quickly she 'unpacked' all over the cabin. From that point on she couldn't find anything. It's pretty tough to get 11 girls to get dressed and ready, and inevitably she would be on the bed tearing through a bag looking for her shoes or something when everyone else was ready to go.
Camp food is never really good. Lets just say, I lived off of the salad bar. I got my plate of spaghetti on the first night, and you know what. I didn't even try it. I mean I tried to try it, but I couldn't. I just couldn't make myself eat it. And meatloaf? C'mon. Who makes meatloaf for that many people. That can't be tasty. Whoever had the bright idea to feed these kids beans, well, we need to talk about that. The nighttime musicals were impressive for sure.
By the end of the first day, which was really only half a day, the cardboard bed was looking pretty good. So, we all get up to the cabin and crawl into our cardboard beds. One of my girls is coughing, coughing, coughing. And coughing. Notice I didn't include breathing in that list. So I take her to the health center, and that's when I find out that she's got a prescription for antibiotics and cough syrup. She gets her medicine and I do my best to make her comfortable, but we're at camp, and I don't have all my stuff from my box of magical stuff for making kids feel better. Unfortunately, this kid coughs all night long. So, were all settling down again, and I am laying there in the cardboard bed starting to drift off........ and I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder. "Sister, my stomach hurts, and I feel like I am going to throw up." Thank God for bathrooms in the cabin. I sure wouldn't want to take this kid out for a walk with the bears to go to the bathroom. We sit in the bathroom for a while, but all this poor girl can do is be miserable. She's eaten a bunch of junk. I give her some tums, move a trash can by her bed, leave the bathroom light on for her, and don't go to sleep until I am sure that she's sleeping. This is pretty much the routine, every single night. Different kids, same song. They weren't drinking enough water and most of the stomach ailments were due to dehydration. My girls got tired of me hounding them to drink water, real fast.
We swam, we crafted, we did water fight, we ate junk, we sang, we played, and we PRAYED! Camp is truely a life changing experience. You'll notice that I did not include sleep on my list of stuff we did. We didn't sleep enough to include it on the list. But at every church service, and every altar call, when I saw those kids up there praying, well, it makes it all worth it. For one week, these kids can come to camp and be kids. No matter where they come from. No matter what they deal with at home. They can be kids, just like all the rest of the kids. There are people there that love them, people they can talk to. People who will pray with them, and for them. They make friends and build relationships that will last a lifetime. The difference between the first night and the last night was huge. God can do wonders in just a few days!
Something happened in my heart at camp too. Something crazy. I bet I will be back next year....