I can hardly believe it's week four already; this is the second to last week of Project Destiny 2012! Training felt like months ago, yet the beginning of camp felt like yesterday.
Here are some very quick updates, because it's very late at night. Actually, sometimes I sleep later than this, but it just felt like a long day because we spent nearly 16 hours at church today!
Skits
We just finished our Jacob and Esau skit series, and we are beginning our Jesus skits now. Today, one of our counselors (who will be leaving us tomorrow :c) put in a huge burst of energy to write a skit about Jesus's crucifixion and the events leading up to it. It's full of important events and information, and the Senior Counselors just spent about four hours practicing and ironing out details. We're all very tired and most of us are sleeping, except me because I want to put down my thoughts before they disappear!
Field Trips
Museum of Fine Arts
This field trip was a very quick walk-through of several America exhibits. The tour guide had us stare at paintings and furniture and then tell him our observations. I thought it was sort of interesting, but some of the kids had a hard time staying still for more than 10 seconds, so there was a bit of wandering and boredom. However, overall our campers stayed together and were relatively patient, even though the bus arrived almost an hour late!
While we waited for the bus to arrive, we took our small groups outside to play in the grass. One of the security guards kept watching us, so I went to ask him if everything was okay. He smiled and said he was just making sure none of the kids were getting lost or hurting themselves. After I asked him he looked less intimidating and more relaxed, so I wonder if he thought we were a bunch of troublemakers! :)
Canoeing
Canoeing was FUN! The lifeguards there didn't allow more than 2-3 campers per boat, and we wanted at least one counselor per boat. We ended up sending a group of three of the oldest boys out in a canoe themselves, which worked out fine; they were very responsible!
In my canoe, it was me and three of my small group girls. Two of them didn't paddle correctly, and of those two, one was very weak and the other got a blister halfway through and stopped trying. The third one tried very hard and kept yelling, "LEFT! RIGHT, RIGHT! OKAY SWITCH, EVERYONE ON THE LEFT!" I was in the back doing the steering, and doing most of the work too. I don't think my girls noticed! :P At the end of the day, my roommate, Kat, said that our lives are like being in a canoe with God. God does all the work and steers us, and sometimes we think we're doing all the work. All God needs is for us to try and He will do the steering for us. It was a simple field trip, but such an important reminder came out of it!
Roger Williams Zoo
It rained. As a result of this, several animals were not present in their exhibits (understandably-- who wants to sit out and get drenched in the rain? :c) which meant there were less things to look at. This also meant that the kids got a lot more bored in a less amount of time, so there ended up being about an hour of finding things to occupy their attention while we waited for the bus. The bus ride ended up taking longer than usual too, because of traffic.
The kids seemed to enjoy the animals though. They were especially interested in watching a giraffe-birthing video at the giraffe exhibit, and watching an elephant defecating in its habitat.
In short, the field trips seemed to have helped my small group girls grow more closely together. Plus now they have more experiences to share with each other! Even though there was rain, or boredom, or impatience, they are experiences nonetheless, and I'm sure they'll look back on these field trips in five years or so and say, "Remember that time we couldn't turn our canoe in time and crashed into the trees and got slapped by the tree branches?"
Lab: Watercoloring
At the time of this update, there are only 3 classes left in my lab. I've actually misjudged how quickly they would work! I thought that we'd only be able to finish five pages of their children's book (the final project) by the end of the ten classes, but most of them have surpassed that limit already. In the next class I will be working with them to put their text on their pages, and by the last two classes we will be working on the cover and back pages, as well as putting the whole thing together.
I'm extremely excited about their books! They are very creative and I'll be putting up a table at Family Night (more information about that later!) so visitors and supporters can look at them.
Staff Team
The staff team is tired, but still plugging through very determinedly, and most importantly, we are still together. We're still in one piece, as far as I know! :) And it always helps to constantly recenter ourselves on God, because it's easy to begin crediting things to ourselves once we see something good starting to happen.
Usually, the senior counselors are so tired by the time we get back to Emerson dormitories, we just go to sleep or continue prep work. Most of us are introverted, meaning we are inward and need alone time to "recharge". This means that spending lots and lots of time around people with barely any time alone to think and process, alone, is incredibly draining.
The interns and junior counselors have been working diligently and faithfully, supporting the camp directors and us in all the little things. The little things are incredibly important, because without them we would all fall apart! They have been doing things such as running around the building to grab things that senior counselors forgot (oops!), making sandwiches for our lunches, packing things away, helping us clean, tracking and organizing our support, and many other things that I might not even be aware of. They go far beyond what they've signed up for, constantly asking how they can further help other counselors and then doing it. It's also a reminder to me that we are all part of one body. Our different roles doesn't determine our value on the team. Each team member is what they are-- a member of the team, all doing a different part of the work!
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If you are reading this, you've either skipped to the end, skimmed this, or read through the whole entire post. But it doesn't matter, because if you've clicked on the link leading to this site it must have meant you had some sort of interest, and for that I thank you for! I'll see if I can include some pictures next time for you to look at, but in the meantime please pray for us, as a camp, as a team and for our campers. Thank you so much for your support!
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