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2009-08-19T13:53:00.001-05:00

Week 12: August 16-19 (return)

Well, the summer is essentially over, yet I just recently started feeling like I had arrived in Southeast Alaska. It is finally getting the rain, gray skies, and chilly air that supposedly mark every summer. August has arrived, and with it have come the pitch-black nights (that are beginning at more “normal” times now) and the death of most of the flowers around camp. I just recently that Juneau is in a rainforest, which I didn’t know existed in Alaska. I feel like I missed out a little by not getting to see the tundra that is the rest of the state, but I guess I already know what cold feels like.

It’s been sort of strange this past week. Counselors have slowly been trickling out, and I am one of the few left. I’ve been spending the last few days hanging out with the remainder of the crew. Monday night was spent in front of the fireplace in the dining hall, drinking tea and eating s’mores. We stayed up there for a few hours sharing childhood stories, talking about church, and generally soaking up what was left of our time together. In my opinion, it was a nearly perfect way to end camp.

What can I say? I am finished counseling for the summer. Looking back over the past couple months, it all just seems like a blur. People have come and gone, drama has started and ceased, and God has been moving in and through it all. I feel like I just got here, and I also feel like I’ve been here forever. It will be weird to go home and realize that nobody else will understand what this is like. But it will be okay.

Finally, it is my turn to make the journey southward. Around 2pm on Tuesday, I listened to everyone sing me “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” (as is camp tradition when someone goes home) as I gave my final hugs and goodbyes. I teared up a little as our car drove away to meet the boat at the front beach, but I guess I was mostly used to goodbyes by now. As the boat went around the cove and camp slowly faded out of sight, I wondered if I would ever see that place again.

I spent a few hours in town with Ray and Lyn, my camp “parents,” before going to the airport. Lyn and I went up Mount Roberts Tramway to enjoy the view of town from above. We watched a short film on the native Tlingit (pronounced “Klingit” or more commonly “Klinket”) people and learned words like “gunalchéesh” (“thank you”) and “I gu.aa yáx x’wán!” (“Be brave”). Afterwards, we ate at a seafood restaurant called The Hangar, which was delicious.

I checked in at the airport around 7pm (making sure to weigh my bags before I arrived this time – 49 lbs and 46 lbs each!), took some more pictures of some more stuffed bears, and then awaited my departing flight to Anchorage. I was feeling a little depressed, knowing that it was all over – but God was at work even then. One of our campers saw me sitting outside the gate and came over to say hi. I hate to admit that I have no recollection of her, but it was encouraging to feel like I never really left. I was seated next to a young Mormon man on the first leg of the trip, which I believe was God reminding me once again that my part in ministry could extend beyond the borders of Juneau. While we didn’t talk extensively about our religious views, I did get the opportunity to share with him about God’s love and faithfulness, Christ’s complete atonement for our sins, and what the Bible says about life after death. (Just for kicks, I also ordered a hot tea and asked him if he was a tea or coffee drinker. He politely said no, but that he did enjoy the smell.)

As I write this, I am on my final flight home: Chicago to Oklahoma City. (Naturally, I am well-prepared for the 100+ degree weather as I sport a hoodie and rain boots.) I am jet-lagged, hungry, and a little disoriented by the lack of mountains, tall trees, and ocean. The red eye flight from Anchorage to Chicago was 5 ½ hours of death, but I made it through by the grace of God. But I suppose that can be said about pretty much everything in life.

It’s going to be a crazy rest of the week. I’ll get home this afternoon, spend the next two days packing, and then head back up to school in Bourbonnais, IL on Saturday. I’m excited for the opportunities God is already giving me to minister, though: I’ve been asked to be a mentor for the Freshman Connections class this semester, and I’ll be helping out again with the College Church senior high group. It’s going to be busy this fall, but God is faithful, and I have faith!

Thank you to all who have been praying for and writing to me. I’ve said it before, but I really do mean it when I say that can’t express enough appreciation for all your love and support. You guys helped make this summer for me. I hope my words and experiences were encouraging to you and helped to strengthen your faith as they have built up mine.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 1:24

Grace and peace to y’all!

I Will Follow

2009-08-19T13:47:00.001-05:00

Week 11: August 9-15

Colt 3 (ages 7-9) was the final week of camp this summer. It was a little hard to register in my mind that this would be my last group of kids, these little ankle-biters that were just living and loving life. Once again, I wasn’t super excited about it at the beginning of the week, but then I came across the passage in John that says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle this week alone, but I knew I could do it as long as I was connected to the Vine.

The Wizard of Oz was the theme for this week, and I’m serious when I say that I would be alright with not seeing that movie again for about five years or so. The kids seemed to love it, though, and the chapel speaker (a.k.a. our head cook, Pat) based her messages off the different characters. My girls and I also decided to give our cabin an “Oz” theme by creating a “yellow brick road” out of paper, hanging up our life-sized drawing of Dorothy, setting up a little garden outside one of the doors, and decorating the inside with colorful streamers and gift bows. And our hard work paid off – we won cabin clean-up that day!

I had only eight girls this week – three of whom I had previously during soccer camp, including the one who gave me hugs every 25 seconds. For some reason this time around, however, I was much more welcoming of the clinginess and actually enjoyed it most of the time. I guess I just needed a little more love than usual (or maybe God gave me an extra love language for that week). I only had a couple of “problem children” – one who was terribly homesick all week and almost painfully difficult to understand and another who was just painfully difficult. All in all, though, my cabin was fantastic. I had a blast hanging out with my girls as we skipped and sang, “We’re off to see the Wizard!” which happened pretty frequently after chapel. They also responded really well in our morning and evening devotions, and two of them got saved! (The only “bad” devo night was after the Carnival, when they were all hyped up on sugar. They had also spent fifteen minutes or so reading out of some Eliza Thornberry joke book and couldn’t stop giggling if their lives depended on it.)

By the end of the week, I was sad to see (some of) those girls go. I had grown especially attached to the hug-loving girl, who comes from a Mormon family. There were several times when she told me how her beliefs conflicted with the ones she was hearing throughout the week from chapel messages and my devotions. During our one-on-one time, she showed me her Mormon scriptures and told me about some of their practices. I didn’t really know how to handle it – this little girl was only nine and really didn’t know any better. I couldn’t imagine adopting a belief system different than that of my parents, let alone at her age. But she had heard the Truth all week, and all I can do is hope and pray that the seed produces a harvest someday.

The night the campers left was one of the strangest times I’ve experienced this summer. Now that it was all over, I felt almost as if it were the very first night I got to camp, and I was about to start all over again – I was lost, lonely, and seemingly purposeless. My work here was finished, and I had no idea what to do with myself. I get that feeling to a certain extent nearly every weekend, when I have little responsibility and no schedule. But it was different this time. I had come out to camp for a reason, and that reason was to serve God and love on kids. But the kids were gone now, and all I could do was ask God to point out the next direction.

Thankfully, the guys felt a little more purposeful. They decided it would be a great night to burn stuff – lots of stuff. Around 10pm, they created a huge bonfire on the front beach, and several of us hung out and talked down there for a few hours while it burned. (One of my favorite parts was using a leaf blower to spread the flames.) For whatever reason, it felt really good to watch stuff be on fire. It felt almost as if I could just throw all my anxiety about the future into those flames and then stand back and watch them burn. It reminded me that our God is a consuming fire – nothing can escape Him, and nothing is beyond Him. Jon-Michael made a comment about how we should make t-shirts with this summer’s theme being: “Echo Ranch Summer 2009: Did that just happen?” God has done some crazy stuff this summer, like provide just enough guys to counsel, just enough people to be on work staff, just the right number of kids for the people we had available… Things we knew we wouldn’t be able to pull off on our own. Our God is truly faithful.

I sat down in front of the big windows in the dining hall with my Bible and prayer journal on Saturday night. My heart was exhausted, and all I could do was keep asking God, “Help me. I need You.” I felt that I had no idea where to go from here – more specifically, after I was finished with school in December. I have been wanting a clear calling and direction from Him, and it just hasn’t been happening. Jon-Michael saw me there and came over to chat. He told me about how it sounded like many of the counselors have been struggling with this same thing – wanting to know the will of God. But he explained that we are not supposed to know God’s secret will; we’re supposed to “just do stuff,” and God will illuminate different situations in which we can serve Him along the way. His will is ultimately that we love Him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength – everything else will fall into place from there. “Just focus on God, that’s all.” It reminded me that that was the way of the righteous in the Bible – they did not need to ask God for direction each and every time they made a decision; they just lived lives that were pleasing to God because they followed His commands. When He wanted them to follow a particular path, He made it abundantly clear. And when they disobeyed Him, He still worked through it to bring about good. It gave me a lot of peace about the days to come; I love the way God uses people to speak truth and give comfort.

Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World

2009-08-17T00:53:00.001-05:00

Week 10: August 2-8

The final Maverick (ages 12-14) camp of the summer was this week. If you didn’t catch it from my last post, it got off to kind of a rough start because I wasn’t expecting to counsel. When I learned that I would be after all, I had fairly mixed emotions. I felt excited about sharing my passion with an age group that I already knew I loved, but I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to spend as much time with the counselors who would be leaving that week. As mildly frustrating as it was, however, I was fired up (in a good way) and ready to go Monday morning. I could hardly contain my excitement during my quiet time with God that morning – I felt like I was flying through the Bible, finding passages that related to why Jesus died and why that matters and how much He loves us and all those kinds of things. I knew it was going to be an awesome week.

I had nine girls in my cabin with four who had been in the same cabin during Maverick 2 week. I had become pretty good friends with their previous counselor (Nikki), and I knew she had had a strong connection with that particular cabin, so I was a little intimidated when I got them in mine. (But you get used to hearing “my last counselor did…” and “last time I was at camp, we did…” after awhile.) Overall, though, it was a great week.

It started off on a pretty discouraging note, though. During our first evening devotion of the week, I got grilled by one of the girls on how it could be that Jesus was the only way to heaven (and whether this or that or the other thing was a sin), though it seemed more for the sake of making me frustrated than because she really wanted to know the answers. Everyone else seemed to either be sleeping or just not care. (This was after a guys vs. girls version of Capture the Flag played out at horse camp, in which one girl severely gashed her lip and one of mine lost her shoe somewhere in the woods. The only fun part was when the counselors all stood up on the tractor on the way back to base camp, doing the Hokey Pokey and nearly falling off several times. Jon-Michael was right when he told the campers that we would be losing our minds this week.) This attitude seemed to carry on for the first few days, reflected by their responses to chapel messages and the questions I asked to try to stimulate some discussion.

By Wednesday afternoon, I felt completely hopeless. I had come into this week so ready to get these girls on fire for Jesus, and in response I was getting meaningless questions and blank stares. During free time that day, I sat down with my journal and Bible, trying to find some encouragement. I wanted someone to talk to, with whom I could share my frustration, so God thought it would be a good time to send Nikki over. (He has done this at several points this summer. When I needed an encouraging word or someone to lean on, He would send just the right person almost immediately.) She was there to listen to me vent, almost to the point of tears. When it was time to round up all the campers for a big group game, I was in tears. I just wanted the girls to care, to realize how important God is, to fully grasp that He is everything. On a more selfish note, I wanted to “click” with my cabin, and I felt like we still hadn’t up to that point. Once again, though, God had it under control. They dynamic seemed to change completely that afternoon, and I felt for the first time like I was part of the group. Devotions that night put the icing on the cake – Nikki came over to help lead, and the girls were a lot more responsive.

The theme for the week was “Wild, Wild West,” so the chapel theme was based on the idea of being free – what those who traveled West were looking for. By the end of the week, several of the girls had felt challenged and spiritually driven by the messages in chapel and the testimonies of others. I got the opportunity to encourage and mentor a few of the girls in their relationships with God during our one-on-one times – the only instance in which I love being used. But there were also girls who really could not have cared less about anything related to God, and that was disappointing. But if it takes a time (or several) in the depths of the valley to bring them to Him, then so be it. I hope they remember.

While the spiritual aspect is certainly the most important part of camp, there were lots of other sweet parts of the week. Because the weather has been so hot all summer, we have been setting up a slip and slide in the sports field for the older kids. This week, we set it up on a hill on the beach so that it went into the ocean. While I wasn’t excited at all about going on it (it was rainy outside, and the ocean is cold!), it ended up being a blast. We also decided to incorporate the “chastity chat” into this Maverick camp, which wasn’t nearly as successful as it was for the senior high group due to the younger age and lower maturity level. But it was good for the girls to hear about modesty, “fleeing” from temptation, and healthy relationship boundaries with male friends (side hugs instead of bear hugs and saying things like “you’re swell” rather than “I love you” – no kidding).

My girls and I decided it would be a good week to prank a boys cabin, so we decided to try to carry out the same one my senior high cabin failed at completing a few weeks prior. The plan was to tie a rope to both doorknobs of the cabin to keep the guys from opening either door, put trashbags over all the windows to make it look dark outside, and wrap toilet paper all around the cabin. Around 1:30am Wednesday morning, we set out on our mission. We soon figured out that the rope wasn’t long enough, so we resorted to TPing only – and then discovered we pranked the wrong guys cabin. So we just did it to all three. No one ever figured out it was us, but they didn’t seem to care as much as we hoped when the truth was revealed. Oh well.

Counseling is always exhausting, but I have to admit that I miss these girls. Around the end of the week, I realized that some of them were the kinds of girls I would be friends with if I were closer to their age. We had a good time taking pictures, singing Disney songs, eating meals together, all those kinds of things. Oh, sweet goodness. Guess I’ll just have to keep up with them on Facebook.

The Unforgettable Fire (2)

2009-08-03T11:41:00.001-05:00

I just found out that I will be counseling this week after all. Please pray!

The Unforgettable Fire (1)

2009-08-02T20:43:00.002-05:00

Week 9: July 26-August 1

Bronco 2 (ages 10-11) camp was this week. It was weird to come full circle, back to the age group I first counseled. I feel like I have changed since that week of camp – not in personality, likes and dislikes, or level of maturity – in a way that reflects how God has been working in my life. I have seen His glory, witnessed the power of His truth. I can recall several instances of answered prayer when I thought things would never work out. I know now that God truly is trustworthy. I always knew He was, but I never really handed Him the reins in my life to the extent that He could work as much as He should have been able. I’m beginning to take bigger leaps of faith now, trusting that He will direct my path and not lead me astray. It’s all easier said than done, and I’m nowhere near a full understanding of God (who could ever be?), but even these small steps have and will continue to change my life for the better. I hope and pray that it doesn’t stop at the boundaries of Echo Ranch, the “bubble” of life lived through faith and experiencing God like never before. I know it doesn’t have to and certainly should not, but it’s going to be a bittersweet homecoming nonetheless.

Sunday was one of the best and worst days here for most of the counselors. I think it was a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion, apathy towards counseling, and the long weekend. We never really know what to do with ourselves when we have free time. Sometimes it’s nice to feel useless, but after getting used to going and going for several days in a row, week after week, the abrupt end in scheduled activities and responsibilities is always a sort of shock. I also missed my mom and hadn’t spent some real quality time with God in about a week, neither of which helped my mood at all. I knew that I had no desire to counsel this week and wasn’t ready to take charge of another group of kids. So I decided to buckle down and lock myself in a cabin to kick it with Jesus for awhile. It was awesome. I read Jeremiah 6 and came across this verse:

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16

This verse is so simple, yet so profound, and it hit me really hard that particular night. In my prayer journal, I paraphrased it this way:

“When you get to the point where you could make either a good or bad choice (or any choice at all), STOP. Look around you. Which way does the Bible direct you? Which way does God tell you to walk when you ask Him? If that is the way you choose, your soul will be at peace.”

I had been feeling convicted about some of my decisions and attitudes before that, and reading this verse just showed me that choosing the right way really wasn’t as complicated as it felt. All I had to do was look for the biblical way and ask God where to go. Waiting is difficult, but God wouldn’t leave me hanging forever. As I continued to read and pray (and after a brief visit from some of my campers who had arrived early), I could feel the stress and frustration with the past and coming weeks being lifted off my shoulders, and I returned from my personal monastery a seemingly new being. What made it even better was walking into the dining hall and seeing five people wearing ridiculous dress-up hats, drinking tea, and eating candy, chocolates, and Girl Scout cookies. Naturally, I put on a funny hat and joined them. We stayed up late talking, laughing, and playing “Truth or Truth” (since no one was really up for the “Dare” portion). Our questions to each other – both funny and serious – led to some pretty good discussion, which uplifted all of our gloomy moods. Needless to say, the day ended on a fantastic note.

Monday, as usual, was relatively awkward. And most of the counselors, though not wholly dissatisfied with life, weren’t feeling up to counseling this week. But we had 123 kids to counsel this week (more than any other week so far), so we sucked it up and did our jobs. In addition, with so many counselors who had recently left, we were pretty short on work staff (only one counselor was assigned to work staff) and had no idea how we were going to pull this week off. But God certainly provided helping hands. Several people from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other places all said awhile back that they would be available to come and help out this week, even before we knew this week would be the one we needed help the most.

I had one of the easiest cabins ever this week. Almost all of my girls had been to camp several times, and I had one girl who is a staff kid and another who used to be a staff kid. I had another girl whose mom used to be a wrangler at the camp. All of my girls were saved before coming to camp as well, though a few of them didn’t seem to understand what salvation really meant. It was encouraging to see what they had learned about the gospel message by the end of the week. My evening devotions have gotten pretty redundant in that I always focus on what it means to be saved. There is so much confusion these days on how one knows he is a Christian, how to get to heaven, and the fact that Jesus is the only way to heaven – especially among youth. I’ll admit that I sometimes get annoyed repeating the same thing over and over, but I know they need to hear it. I just hope that being able to recite all the “right” answers didn’t stand in the way of the excitement of getting to know God better, for them or me. Even though it was repetitive, I did get the opportunity to explain the gospel several times throughout the day to different girls, rather than just talking about it during devotions. The girls also had a lot of questions about God, so it was fun being able to pull from knowledge I forgot I had and God’s inspiration to give them answers. I love the childlike faith these kids have, the simplicity of their questions, and how easily they accept your answers.

The camp week in itself was pretty typical. We did Sweet Dreams again (where we “sneak” out at night to find a plate of cookies hidden in a predetermined location), which the girls loved. It was also pretty hot this week, so we broke out the slip ‘n’ slide once again. Bronco camp also includes a “crime” that is committed at the beginning of the week that is related to the theme (“Wild Wild West” this week) and a kangaroo court at the end of the week. For the crime, one of the wrangler’s “stole” Jon-Michael’s fancy belt buckle given to him by his “Grandpappy”. At the trial, it was decided that the criminal masterminds behind the plot were Skylar and Alicia (the two counselors from Texas) and Naomi (the counselor from Arizona). They were “syruped and sanded” (having syrup and sand dumped on them) as their sentence. I got called up as a suspect, but thankfully I was let go at the end.

One thing that wasn’t so typical is that about half my cabin got sick this week. One of the girls had a horribly sore throat all week and cried more than once about it. On Thursday night before chapel, she was coughing so much that she thought she might throw up, and I felt so frustrated and completely helpless. I had been asking God to really help me feel for these girls because I really felt like I didn’t care anymore, so maybe that was Him breaking me. I don’t know. But our time spent waiting around for the nurses to come to our rescue was time well spent. It gave me time to connect with her a little more one-on-one, which I probably needed more than she did.

I feel like God has been teaching me to remember the good things He has done when I feel like the situation is hopeless. After a few days of counseling and frustration, Nikki (one of the counselors) and I decided to do a joint devotion one night after our evening devos with our cabins. I let my campers make s’mores over the stove in the cabin, and I could not keep the fire going for the life of me. It was still a productive night, however. I was able to share a brief version of my testimony with them, and as a result, four of them wanted to share theirs. I loved hearing that several of them really did understand what Jesus did for them, even at such a young age. At our “big people” devo afterwards, we talked about Psalm 77. It begins with David’s desperate cry to God, who couldn’t feel more far away. “I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint.” But it goes on to say: “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.” Sometimes it’s easy to forget the victories during those times spent in the valley. During counselor devotions the following day, God brought the topic up again. Randy, the staff worker who leads our devotions, had us read Joshua 4:1-7. In this passage, the Israelites are commanded by the Lord to set up stones as a memorial to something He had done for them. We spent the whole session remembering the victories the Lord had accomplished this summer. I know it’s not a coincidence when the same topic on God keeps coming up in different places, and it’s something I have definitely needed to hear lately.

I got the blessing of seeing a clear, starry sky on Thursday night. This wouldn’t be a huge deal at home, but for the past couple months, it has never gotten dark enough to see the stars at night. I couldn’t believe how shocked I was to be able to see them as I walked back to my cabin around midnight, and I went down to the beach so I could see even more. It was strange to think that the Big Dipper hanging in the sky in Alaska is the same one I see back home in Oklahoma or at school in Illinois. After being here for nine weeks, it’s hard for me to register that I am thousands of miles from anything familiar – I feel like this is my third home now.

After hiking the kids out on Friday, the counselors were able to wind down once again. I spent the evening with Nikki, Mandy, and Alison taking goofy pictures and making peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Saturday was also very relaxing, with time to sleep in a bonfire debriefing session about what life would be like after camp. As we sat around the fire, we talked about things we missed from back home and things we would miss from here after we left. We discussed how no one from home would understand what it’s like here, try as they might. We talked about what God had done in our lives here at camp, how He had worked in the lives of the campers, and how He would continue to work in us once we got back home. It made me more excited than ever for these remaining weeks of camp – seeing what He would do and whom He would save. But I’m also excited to go back home with a more solid faith and hopefully boldness in sharing the gospel. I want my life to reflect that change, and I want others to desire the same passion that has been given to me. The change doesn’t have to stop here at camp.

I’ll be on work staff for Maverick 3 (ages 12-14) camp this week, which I’m both happy and sad about. I’m bummed that I won’t be counseling because Maverick is my favorite age group to work with, but I’m also glad because Mandy and Nikki, two of my better counselor friends, are leaving this week, so I’ll get more time to hang out with them and say goodbye. Hopefully we can make some good memories working in the kitchen and taking goofy pictures and sanitizing outhouses (or cleaning the girls’ bath house with a hose and a broom, like Mandy I did a couple weeks ago). Either way, it will be a good week if we just surrender it to God. It’s that same painful message that hits me over the head every single week, yet taking up your cross daily is something you can only do on purpose.

A Sort of Homecoming

2009-08-01T17:21:00.002-05:00

Week 8: July 19-25

Work staff week was a much-needed break for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the children, but even too much of a good thing can be bad sometimes. I was put on work staff with two other girls, and it was great. I cleaned innumerable amounts of clothes, dishes, bathrooms… But I had fun and felt productive. Maybe busy work isn’t always that bad. We actually spent about two hours the first day sitting on the couch in the boys’ dorm (instead of cleaning it) snacking on dried mango slices and talking to one of the guys about his ideal wife. It was glorious.

My mom flew out to visit me last Wednesday (July 22^nd), which was definitely a high point of the summer for me. I had said that she would be happy to help on work staff, so she was put on the schedule to prepare the dining hall for lunch with me. We basically put her to work as soon as she got here (helping me fold laundry, serving food to the kids, putting away dishes), but she seemed happy to do it. It was kind of fun to give her a taste of what real camp life is like, at least from behind the scenes.

I really believe her being here was a God thing. I have been needing a spiritual and emotional boost for awhile now. And now that the summer is just about over, I have started worrying about the future again: whether I will graduate in one semester or two, what I will do after college, etc. God brought her out here to encourage me to keep going strong and to assure me that He has everything under control. My favorite part of her visit was praying together over what I'll be doing during this last semester of college and beyond. Later that night, she left a sticky note on my laptop with Jeremiah 29:11 written on it:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I still haven't taken it off.

She said that being here for a few days also gave her some time to recharge spiritually, which was exciting to hear. It was wonderful for me to take a short break from the day-to-day camp life, hear stories and updates of life at home, and just spend time with someone who knows and loves me. We got to sleep in the nurses' apartment and go sightseeing in downtown Juneau for a day. We had a blast walking around, shopping, doing the whole tourist thing. The weather hadn’t been great Wednesday through Friday, but it was gorgeous on Saturday. I gave her a tour of camp, which included a couple of rides down the sky trolley and a trail ride. She left Saturday night.

Saturday also included a ladies’ night hosted by the full-time staff women. We all got to dress up and have a real live tea party, including little baked treats, games, and fancy teapots. Naturally, it was my dream come true. I think I drank about four cups of tea and ate my weight in baked goods and fruit. The guys, in the meantime, took the opportunity to prank our dorm room. They pulled a canoe in through the window, filled it with water, and put a live fish inside it. When a few of the girls returned, they bombarded them with water balloons. Thankfully, I missed that part. We named the fish Mohammad before he died the next day. We have yet to retaliate, but I’m sure something will happen before the summer is over.

With or Without You

2009-07-25T04:03:00.006-05:00

Week 7: July 12-18

Senior High Camp was last week. To be completely honest, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would. I don’t know if God chose that week to humble me by making me realize that the “camp experience” didn’t revolve around my sweet counseling skills or what, but I felt like my mind and heart just weren’t in it like they should have been. Once again, I had ten girls this week: nine 16-year-olds and one 17-year-old. Overall, I felt like they were the girls I was intimidated by in high school. Not that they were stuck up or rude, they were just loud, outgoing, funny, and seemingly popular. As much as I knew in my head that I shouldn’t compare myself to my campers, being around them brought up all those feelings of inferiority and shyness with which I have always struggled. It made me realize how much I had enjoyed having a position of authority and importance – how maybe I had started to let it get to my head. Needless to say, I was humbled by not being in the middle of everything.

Despite the nearly overwhelming awkwardness of the week, however, I did have fun with my girls. I also learned that you’re not really supposed to sleep at night during that week; instead, you prank other cabins. On Tuesday night, I woke from the “twilight zone” to an air horn being blown into our cabin. After yelling at whoever it was to get out, I got up and saw “HA HA” written in shaving cream outside on the ground. (I learned later that one or two of the guys had urinated into bottles and poured them all over our porch.) The next night, we decided it was our turn to prank a guy cabin. Our vision was to wrap toilet paper all around a cabin, tie a rope to both door knobs to keep them from getting out, and tape black trash bags over all the windows so they couldn’t see daylight. We left our cabin around 1:30am with our supplies and hid out near the boys’ cabins, waiting for them to fall asleep. Unfortunately, our plan failed. A group of guys found us hiding and chased us down the beach, spraying us with shaving cream along the way. We then returned to our cabin, grabbed some balloons, and headed to the bath house to fill them up with water. Soon after the water balloon battle began, we were all instructed to go to bed by another one of the counselors (who had learned that two other water balloon battling cabins had woken up some of the staff workers). Thankfully, we were not bothered for the rest of the week.

These girls were competitive in the games as well. They had been talking smack against the boys all week, so we decided to compete against a specific boys cabin for Mission Impossible (a night game in which you sneak around to different locations and try not to get caught by guards). We dressed in all black, painted our faces with camouflage colors, ran fast, crawled through horse poop, and beat the boys! For their punishment, they had to eat breakfast without hands or utensils the next day. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

In all the chaos and madness of the fun and games, I really wasn’t sure how to incorporate spirituality into the group. I had shared my testimony with them during our first evening devotion, but they weren’t as responsive as I had hoped. But once again, God showed me up. He really hit (most of) those girls at the very core during chapel as Jon-Michael was speaking. We did our evening devotions in the gym on Wednesday night. At that point, I had thought that the girls hadn’t been listening at all in chapel or devotions and couldn’t care less about God. To my shock, however, every girl expressed what God had been revealing to them during the messages. One of them broke down and surrendered her life to God again after the Lifehouse skit the next night. As I talked to a few of them later on in the week to learn their testimonies (an event that, in itself, was a major answer to prayer), they expressed how they wanted to keep each other accountable for their actions and spiritual lives once they got back home. It was so awesome to see Him work – without my (intentional) help.

Another element of the spiritual growth in these girls was the death of one of their close friends before camp (http://juneauempire.com/stories/070709/obi_460685120.shtml). Cameron Clark died on July 1st at the age of 16. He was hiking up Mt. McGinniss with some friends and then dropped his backpack off a cliff. He suffered a fatal fall while trying to retrieve it. This event deeply impacted many of the Juneau teens. While it undoubtedly made many of them angry at God, it drew some of them closer. It got them thinking about God again. It raised discussion. It helped them realize how important it is to remember that you’re not invincible, follow God, and share the Good News with those who haven’t accepted it.

At the counselors’ praise and prayer session on Saturday night, I expressed how I felt that I had failed at my task that week because my heart and mind just weren’t in the game. I felt drained in every area, but God had worked in my girls’ lives nonetheless. I was approached the next day by one of the staff workers while I was helping to clean up the dining hall.

“Reagan, you know what you said was a lie, right?”

“What did I say?”

“When you said that you failed in your cabin. God did work through you, just by you being there for those girls… You did exactly what He wanted you to do.” (paraphrase)

I tried my best to keep down the tears but failed miserably. Maybe He gave me those girls because I was just meant to listen and encourage rather than be actively involved in their spiritual lives. Or maybe He just wanted to show me how His power is made perfect in my weakness. Maybe it was both. I may never know the reason that aspect of the week went the way it did, but I do know that His ways are certainly higher than mine.

I left quite a bit of detail out, like how my girls dropped me after my “trust fall”, that I finally learned how to play ultimate Frisbee (and loved it!), that we spent most of our “rotations” time napping… Just ask me about it later if you care to know the extended version. For now, though, pray that God would give us all renewed strength in Him, passion for His truth, and love for the kids. We’re all tired, but the work isn’t done yet.

Bad

2009-07-21T23:02:00.006-05:00

I apologize for the delay in update posting. I got assigned to work staff during Colt Camp this week, so I knew I’d have some extra time on my hands. Now, instead of chasing around little kids and trying to keep them from drowning in the ocean or falling off the sky trolly, I am a dishwasher and bath house cleaner and meal prepper and the official Laundry Queen (what we call the lady in charge of doing everyone’s laundry for the week). I won’t lie – it’s nice to get a break. Unfortunately, my break time has yet to be used for writing a real update, so this is about it for now. I'll try to post one about Senior High Camp sometime tomorrow.

My mom is coming to visit me this week! Big up to moms who fly to Alaska to visit their daughters who work at summer Bible camps.

Yahweh

2009-07-13T00:04:00.003-05:00

Week 6: July 5-11

Wow, what a week. What an incredible week.

It started off pretty rough. Kirk, one of the guy counselors, got sick in town over the July 4^th weekend. We left him lying on his death bed in Auke Bay on Saturday night so he could recover before coming back to camp. He ended up in the hospital, having been diagnosed with both pneumonia and anemia. He had to get three blood transfusions. The kids from Maverick 1 who had returned to Maverick 2 this week noticed that he was gone because he had led worship for them the last time, so we were all pretty worried. Once again, though, I can’t deny that God answers prayer. We prayed for his recovery during chapel, and he came back Wednesday! He made a glorious and pretty epic entrance into the chapel while Jon-Michael was speaking. As he walked up the steps and into the room, Jon-Michael announced, “Hey, everybody, Kirk is back!” And the crowd roared. What better way to demonstrate the power of prayer right in front of these kids? God really does work in all things for the good of those who love Him, all to glorify Himself. Awesome.

Mondays are always interesting for the counselors. The first time you meet your kids is generally pretty awkward. You unintentionally form your opinions of each girl based on how much she talks to you or what she looks like or whether she offers you a piece of gum when she gets unpacked. Those impressions never last. Just another lesson to be learned.

The counselors are expected to talk with each camper one-on-one at some point during the week to gauge where they stand with God. After talking with each kid, we’re supposed to fill out evaluations for each one so the camp can know how many kids are unsaved, saved this week at camp, or were already saved. We had received a new survey to give the kids along with their evaluations. This survey included questions like What is sin? What are the Ten Commandments? How can you know right from wrong? Where do you think you’ll go after you die? Why should God let you into Heaven? How sure are you that you’ll go to Heaven? It was really interesting to see the results.

I had ten very different girls in my cabin this week: three 14-year-olds and seven 12-year-olds. One of the 14-year-olds was the poster child for “troubled teen”. She dressed the part, came from a verbally abusive home, and didn’t have a much better experience at school. She made friends by telling perverted jokes and had no problem with swearing. She had no interest in God at all; in fact, she hated Him. One of her friends had recently committed suicide, and she blamed God for not saving Him. When I looked at her survey by the end of the week, I was heartbroken by the answers she gave. What is sin? “Me.” How sure that you will go to Heaven? “Not sure at all.” In spite of her answers, she had some really interesting religious views. She believed there was a God, but she didn’t care at all. She believed that everyone would be forgiven in the end and that everyone would go to heaven. She viewed Christianity as a crutch for those who needed someone to blame or a reason not to be scared of death. I prayed like crazy that God would break down the walls of her heart and reach into those crevices. But I’ll get back to that in a little bit.

I had several other girls who were struggling spiritually as well. Many of them wanted to be close to God, but they didn’t know how. I forgot how dramatic middle school is. A few of them gave me the rundown of every friend problem they are currently dealing with, and all I could do was nod and try to be empathetic (empathic?). Most of the girls came from non-Christian and/or non-church-going homes. In fact, I don’t think any of their parents went to church. If the girls went at all (and very few of them did), they went with grandparents or friends. I can’t even imagine how hard that would be. One of my biggest questions about my life is whether I would be a Christian if I hadn’t come from a Christian home. I guess I will never know, but I am so thankful that God blessed me with those circumstances.

So, back to Monday. I clicked pretty well with my girls, which was awesome. In fact, the only dramatic thing that took place didn’t involve my cabin, thankfully. A girl got a stick stuck in her foot. It was impressive, too. It was probably half the thickness of a pencil and about two inches long. It was in the top side, running from between her big and second toes to between her fourth and pinky toes. Ouch. She had to be taken to the ER in town to get it removed, but she came back on Thursday.

Tuesday was when the cabin drama began. A few of my girls (including the one I talked about) were or had become good friends with one of the guys at camp. One of the girls got really upset when she hung out with that group because they all made perverted jokes. Another girl felt caught in the middle between the girl who was upset about the jokes and the one who was making the jokes. While the first girl was outside crying, I listened to the side of the girl who felt like she had to choose between friends and the girl who “wouldn’t change who she was”. Sweet. It was all okay in the end without my intervention, thankfully.

The counselor skit team performed the Lifehouse “Everything” skit (look it up on YouTube!) again on Wednesday night, and the response was about the same as last time. Jon-Michael, the chapel speaker for the week, talked about death and how important it is to know where you’ll go when your life comes to an end. Many of the kids, including about half my girls, spent that evening crying for various reasons. Devotions that evening consisted mostly of stories about how loved ones had died. These girls had a lot of pain to deal with. A couple of them experienced some awesome spiritual wake-up calls, though, which was incredible to witness. One girl talked about it during devotions, and another borrowed my pen so she could journal about God for around half an hour. They realized that they needed and actually wanted Him. Oh, sweet goodness.

I’m not sure I had ever prayed so much in such a short time span. I came to a much better understanding of what it means to “pray without ceasing.” I told many of my girls that, as you get to know God better and better, prayer just becomes natural. I pray when I’m walking around camp, sitting in the bathroom, lying in bed, everywhere. There’s nothing like having a true, growing relationship with God – when Christianity is a lifestyle rather than a label. Probably as a result of talking to God so much, I could tell that He was talking back through me. There were so many times where I was convinced that the words coming out of my mouth were not from me. As I told my girls my story during devotions or answered their questions about God or gave my testimony in chapel on Friday, I knew that my words were not my own. I got so pumped up during my testimony that I was out of breath! I focused a lot on the times I found God during times of deep loneliness and how He worked through those trials of my life to bring me true joy and satisfaction in Him. At the end, I read Psalm 73:23-26, which says, “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

I also don’t think I’ve gotten so much water dumped on me in such a short time span. Since it was a hot and sunny week, we played a lot of water games outside. One of the games involved being blindfolded and searching for a water gun in the sand. Once you find the water gun, you squirt other people with it until you find theirs. In a round with all the other counselors, I never found mine, so I got shot by everyone and then a hose to the head. A popular phrase around here is “for the kids” (or “FTK” for short). It’s the only response there is for the times you find yourself looking ridiculous while dancing in chapel or wearing tacky outfits on themed dress-up days or getting a pie smashed in your face for losing a cabin competition. This was one of those times, I guess. Another one of those times was the day I decided to read my mail before doing the ritual Gray Squirrel dance after dinner. I said that I only wanted to read it and that I would do the dance anyway, but I guess that didn’t cut it. They made those of us who were impatient get on our knees while singing the song, and then we got water dumped on our heads. FTK. I guess I’ll know better for next time. I also got water thrown at me by a kid who didn’t appreciate me chasing him down with a noodle (the swimming pool kind) during Storm the Castle. That was only for him, though.

Friday was my favorite day of the week. It was the day of Crud War, which was something I hadn’t participated in since I went to church camp in high school. The whole point of Crud War is to throw lots of gross stuff at other people. I got shaving cream smeared all over my face, potato/cheese/cream/noodle/meat slop in my hair, and flour in my ear. Nice. We all ran into the ocean to wash the gross off before showering. It was the first time I had actually fully submerged myself in the Pacific Ocean, so I guess that was epic. After chapel, we had the campfire. Unlike the last one, where we sang silly songs and talked about all the good times, this campfire included worship and testimonies shared by the kids. One of the kids who shared was the guy that all my girls loved hanging out with. We learned that he had struggled with some pretty intense depression recently and had wanted to kill himself before being turned in by a friend from school. He wasn’t sure where he stood with God now, but he knew he wanted to come back to Him. This hit four of my girls right at the core. When we got back to the cabin that night, three of them really wanted to share their testimonies, so we stayed up until just after 1am doing that. One of them talked about how she had struggled with self-image. Another talked about how she had cut herself, and battled with depression, been abused from her stepdad, and had dealt with suicidal thoughts. Finally, the girl I talked about earlier shared. Before sharing, though, she prayed aloud for the previous girl. I couldn’t believe it. I thought this girl wanted absolutely nothing to do with God, and here she was, sincerely praying for one of her friends! After telling her life story, she said that she now believed in God and had a greater respect for Christianity. Unbelievable. There is a God! Needless to say, this was the highlight of my week. I had prayed so hard for this girl to let God in, and I saw it right there in front of my eyes. God answers prayer.

Even though this girl wasn’t ready to accept Christ into her life at the end of this week, she told me she might start reading her Bible. Since she didn’t have one of her own that wasn’t a children’s Bible, I gave her one of the camp’s. On the inside cover, I wrote a note that told her about how much God loved her and would always stand by her side and that I hoped she would really get into the Word and eventually put her faith in Him. She was so grateful. I hope and pray that she actually reads it. If you think about it, please pray for her.

God answers prayer. If it seems like He doesn’t, then keep praying. “For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:10. So pray big.

Speaking of prayer, the only senior high week of this summer starts tomorrow. I will be counseling again. Please pray that God prepares the hearts of the campers and counselors. I expect nothing less than greatness.

Zoo Station

2009-07-05T17:04:00.003-05:00

Week 5: June 28-July 4

Blog update, blog update. I never really know how to start these (or continue or end them). I always try to mentally note everything I want to write throughout the week, but I usually forget most of it, and the end result is never the same as what I expect. So we’ll see where this goes. As you will see, it’s pretty long and a little disconnected because I wrote it over the period of a couple of days. Hopefully it all makes sense in the end.

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As I am writing this, I am sitting in the dining hall, in a chair, with my legs propped up on a windowsill, facing the front beach. It’s a beautiful day outside—probably in the 70s with clear blue skies—as opposed to every other day this week, where it was probably in the low 50s and overcast and drizzly. There’s a slight breeze outside, and I can see the ocean water moving with it. The mountains are a pale bluish gray against the greenish blue of the water. The hummingbirds are swarming around the feeder as usual. I forgot to mention how many hummingbirds are around here. I’ve seen probably fifteen or twenty at a time around one of the two feeders, and Pat, our cook, has to fill up each of them about four times a day. Last weekend I got to stand outside with the feeder in my hands while the little birds landed on my fingers and drank the sugar water.

The first Colt camp week is over. In case you forgot, Colt camp is for the 7- to 9-year-olds. To be completely honest, I wasn’t excited at all about counseling this week. I was tired of getting assigned to little kids, as it often felt more like glorified babysitting than spiritually guiding. On Monday morning, I was tired, the weather was yucky, and my heart just wasn’t feeling the joy that it should have been. And I was called out on it. And it was humbling. I was asked why I was tired—since I had essentially gotten the weekend off—and whether I had prayed about it. I realized at that moment that I hadn’t prayed about it at all. So after I finished mopping the dining hall after breakfast, I headed to my cabin for the week and prayed. I asked God to help me be joyful, that He would bless each of my girls, and that He would give me the strength, endurance, and wisdom to do His work this week.

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It’s a little later now. We just got done with our praise and prayer session for the week. The adults have now taken off their “counselor” suits and given full vent to the wild and crazy that has been building up inside of them for the past few days. It happens every weekend after the kids leave. Tomorrow the group is going to town to sight see, shop, and be in the July Fourth parade. It’s supposed to be a pretty big deal around town, so it should be a pretty good time.

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It is now Saturday evening, and we just returned from town. It was a blast. The weather was hot (80s) but absolutely gorgeous. We drove into Auke Bay/Juneau on Thursday afternoon. Half the group decided to hike up to the Mendenhall Glacier, and the other half did the tourist thing downtown. I chose the latter. We did get to see the glacier from a distance, though (and a little black bear cub wandering near a neighborhood on the way there!). There were icebergs floating in the water around it. It was probably the most Alaskan thing I’ve seen so far.

When we got into downtown Juneau, I walked around with a few other counselors and hit every souvenir shop ever. I spent a pretty decent amount of money on Alaskan gear for my family (and Ashley). The highlight of the day was probably hanging out at Heritage Coffee Company and ordering coconut/chocolate gelato and a London fog. I haven’t chilled in a coffee shop since I left home, and it was glorious. I also had the opportunity to make a bunch of phone calls, so that was refreshing as well. Ashley and I did our usual hour-ish conversation, and I talked to each of my family members for varying amounts of time. I ate at the Twisted Fish for dinner and had Alaskan lox and salmon on mini bagels. It was kind of gross.

That evening was interesting. We gathered with the rest of Juneau near the docks to watch the fireworks. It doesn’t get darker around there until 11:30 or 12, so they started around midnight. The people there are fascinating. I told a couple others on staff that this was not the Alaska I expected. Whenever I thought of this state, I always pictured snow and Eskimos. I wouldn’t expect “real” people to live here. But there are emo and goth and punk rocker kids here in Alaska, just like anywhere else. There are also the adults who walk around drunk, high, and/or scantily clad. And there are also the “normal” folk, the granola, the tourist. You will find every type of person in that city. It was neat to see the natives as well – they have very distinct features, almost like a mix of other, more familiar races. Anyway, the fireworks were good. Not the best show of all time, but nowhere near horrible either. We had fun. Being out in the “real world” makes you homesick for camp, though. I think I mentioned this last time I went to town. You get accustomed to the “bubble” of camp life – free of excessive distraction, loud noises, “worldly” people. You learn to love being immersed in an authentic and spiritual environment with people who lead that kind of life. It’s stimulating, refreshing, reviving, food for the soul. You learn that the world is none of those things. It’s good to get a taste of it, though. You find out what kind of life those kids go home to. Your heart breaks for the souls of the lost. You become all the more driven to do the work the Lord has set before you – to go forth and make disciples of all nations. It’s a beautiful and yet sweetly bitter task.

Today was the Juneau parade. Like I said, this thing is a big deal. Echo Ranch made a “wild, wild West” themed float, and we handed out candy and camp brochures to the spectators. There were so many people! People were watching from bar entrances, rooftops, balconies, sidewalks, everywhere. It was awesome hearing so many people cheer for Echo Ranch as we walked by. This place has more of a reputation than I had expected. I’m pretty sure about every kid ever got a brochure. As we walked down the streets, I prayed that God would use this opportunity to bring all kinds of new kids to camp to hear the Good News. I hope our work was not in vain. We ran into several kids who had already been to camp this summer, including a few of my girls. It was great to hear the girls yell my name, and a couple of them even ran up to give me a hug. I guess I wasn’t the worst counselor ever after all.

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And now, back to our story. I had the privilege of toting around six little girls Monday through Thursday. (One of them was named Arwen. When I asked her if her parents named her after the elf from Lord of the Rings, she said that she was given the name because she was born with pointy ears.) I also had a JC (junior counselor) in my cabin, so naturally it turned into a good cop/bad cop situation. Oh well. Emily, my JC, did a fantastic job with the girls, and I don’t think I could have survived the week without her. The girls were sweethearts, but they were a little wild sometimes. Someone made this observation: “The thing about Colt campers is that they’re alive. They’re not dead.” These kids move. They talk. They fidget. They don’t really understand the depth of the Father’s love or the magnitude of salvation, yet the faith of a child is nothing to scoff at. While I can’t remember any specific comments, a few of my girls said some very simply profound things about God. It was incredible to hear their perspective, to get a taste of the simple and endearing faith that they had in Jesus. Three of my girls were already saved, so three weren’t. One of them prayed on Wednesday night, “Dear Jesus, I want You to come into my life. Amen.” And did those angels in heaven ever rejoice.

Passion for the gospel and service was a big theme this week for the counselors. It seemed like that passion had already fizzled out, and people were turning into robots. We brought it up during our daily counselor devotions. One guy told a story about how he could have shared the gospel with a new friend he met at basketball camp when he was 12, but he didn’t. Two weeks later, he learned that his friend’s dad had shot his whole family and himself. The story really brought the urgency of sharing the Good News to the forefront. It’s nothing to be shy or embarrassed about; as Christians, we are supposed to go out and sow the seed, and the Lord is the Lord of the harvest. As if I wasn’t already, I felt like I shoved the gospel down my kids’ throats every night during devotions this week. It probably got redundant and maybe even annoying, but I hope they don’t forget it.

That was another of many lessons God taught me this week. He didn’t stop there, though. I let my guard down this week and decided to go all out for the camp songs. You see, the camp songs are all super cheesy kids tunes with motions, and they were probably created to make you feel ridiculous while singing praises. Kind of like the Bible story about David dancing before the Lord. So I gave up looking cool and just went crazy. My girls loved it, and it helped them get into the songs too. And I actually did have a blast.

Colt camp includes a carnival in the gym on the last night. All the counselors wore funny hats and were put in charge of different stations. I ran the single-holed mini golf station, which was a good time. Everyone also got lots of free popcorn and cotton candy. As far as I know, only one camper experienced her cotton candy consumption in reverse.

The girls had been excited all week about getting to ride horses on Wednesday. When we got there, though, one of the younger ones became scared to death and started crying because she thought she would fall off. After much coaxing, she finally got on the horse and was led away for the ride. When the group returned about twenty minutes later, however, she was beaming from ear to ear. She had a blast and wanted to go again – only this time she wanted to go faster than a walk. It was pretty cool to see such a little kid successfully overcome a big fear.

The worst part of Colt camp was definitely when the girls had to pack up. They got distracted every five minutes and could never get it all knocked out at once. I discovered that one girl’s mom packed her five pairs of shoes into her giant suitcase: sparkly pink flats (which, of course, she wore all week long), tennis shoes, rain boots, and two pairs of the same shoes (different colors). Nice. I can’t even count how many times I heard, ‘I can’t find ____!’ before they actually looked for it. I think we probably spent somewhere between one and two hours packing Thursday.

A five-page letter from Ashley brightened that day for me, though. I started reading it in the Trading Post while my children were running wild with their most recent purchases. I had just turned on the coffee maker to heat up the existing coffee and produce a fresh brew (free for the counselors!), so I got through most of it while the coffee brewed away. I felt like I was in a movie scene, where the main character is standing in the middle of the picture, still and silent, in the midst of the chaos and madness around him. I decided it was a good time to check on the coffee – and then I came to the realization of my terrible mistake. The pot was already mostly full when I started brewing a new one, so the new coffee had filled up the pot and then started spilling over onto the floor. Sweet. I let Emily handle the crumb chasers (another endearing term for our Colt campers) while I ran to get some towels. I guess I should start saving the letter reading for nights and weekends.

So that was the camp week. The previous Sunday was awesome, although I didn’t get to see a bear. The counselor group canoed along the cove out to Sawmill Creek, which is a beautiful creek that runs through the woods and has an incredible waterfall. When we got to the creek, we crossed a log that went over the water to the other side and then hiked up to the waterfall. When we got to the fall, I decided I wanted to see it from the other side of the creek, so I tried wading along the edge of the water (in my rain boots) to see if I could find a shallow place to cross. Bad decision. I slipped on a rock while stepping through the water, and fell in, waist deep. That water was cold! I had a minor freak out moment as I tried to catch my breath and find an actual foothold (and then slipped again), but eventually I made it out. And then I just walked through the water to the other side since I was soaked anyway. It made for a funny story, however, even though I had to pour the water out of my rain boots more than once.

In addition to counseling, I have been asked to lead worship for Maverick II camp (12- to 15-year-olds) this week, which is crazy. I like being able to provide background vocals every now and then, but I’ve never led before. I’m a little nervous, and it probably won’t get better come Monday. But, as it has been said, Echo Ranch is a place where someone becomes someone they weren’t originally because they learn to do all kinds of new things. Maybe this is one of those things. God has a funny way of working out that kind of stuff. I’m a lot more nervous about counseling, though. This will be my fourth week of counseling but my first week with “big” kids. These girls will probably have bigger issues than not being able to find their towels or needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of chapel. As deeply affected as the counselors were during the last Maverick week, I can’t imagine how this one will go. But God will move. And I have a lot of praying to do.

I think that basically wraps up the longest post ever. Thanks to Ashley, Nina, Mallory, and Bethany for the letters last week! And happy (late) birthdays to Maddie, Morgan, and Mom!

Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own

2009-06-29T00:00:00.003-05:00

Week 4: June 21-27

Well, another week down. Soccer camp was much different than what I expected or what I had experienced that first week of Bronco camp, but it was good. God continued to show His faithfulness, despite my lack of faith. It never gets old, does it?

I had seven girls this week, and they were crazy. There were two 11-year-olds and five 9-year-olds. A few of them bought stuffed animals at the camp gift shop (Berner’s Bay Trading Post/Trading Post/BBTP), and they thought it would be a good idea for two of them to get married. So Monday night was the official engagement ceremony. They laid out a blanket in front of the romantically lit stove, aligned the eager stuffed animal spectators on each side, made a ring/bracelet out of yellow thread, and the frog proposed (or “purposed”, as they spelled it on the sign they made to commemorate the event) to the pig. Or maybe it was the other way around. The wedding was the next day, but I missed it. I think they were more excited about the proposal than the wedding.

My girls were all very different but got along great as a cabin. One of them liked to give at least one hug every five minutes or so. It drove me crazy. I think God did it on purpose, since physical touch is one of my lowest love languages on the scale. Two of them were good friends and pretty rambunctious, running late to just about everything. One reminded me of my ex-roommate Bethany because she loved Twilight, Harry Potter, and reading overall. Another was kind of a loner and pretty quiet. One of them had a fantastic attitude all week and was very mature beyond her years, and the last one was a sweetheart but always had a problem with interrupting everyone.

The girls all seemed pretty eager to talk to me individually. One in particular poured her heart out to me as we walked all around camp after the others were in bed. She told me about how her sister and parents were always screaming at each other and how her friends weren’t making very good choices. She always worried about her family and didn’t enjoy being home. I really didn’t know what to tell her. All I knew to do was offer her hope—that God would get her through this and make her stronger, all for His glory. I told her she just had to hang in there and pray. It felt very much like a Sunday school answer, and I could tell that what I said didn’t seem to resonate very much, but she said that it was always a relief to be able to talk to someone about. She told me she felt like a bottle, that all her emotions were just building up inside with no way to get out. After we finished talking, I prayed that God would give me wisdom to know what to say to her later. Once again, He was on the ball. During one of the devotionals led by the head coach, he talked about how God wants us to endure through different kinds of trials, one of which included problems at home. He said it a couple of times, and I hope that the girl caught it like I did. I felt encouraged because he said basically the same things I did the night before.

Oh yeah, I finally caught the Plague (cold/congestion yuckiness) that has been circulating throughout the staff. And then I gave it to two or three of my girls. I’m the best counselor ever. It’s pretty much gone now, though I still have kind of a nasty cough.

The kids had soccer practice in the morning and in the afternoon. In the evening was tournament play, where all the kids were split up into teams of four or five players each. The games usually went pretty smoothly, though the horses wandered out into the field and between the soccer goals a couple of times. I wasn’t around for most of the practices or tournaments, but they needed a coach/extra player during the last tournament, so I was the goalie. Thankfully, I didn’t have many balls come my way. It was fun to reminisce about playing my senior year, and it made me wish I had stuck around for more of the skills instruction this week so I could have learned a few things. The coaches were incredible. The head coach, Tom, was born with cerebral palsy. While he had to use a cane to get around, he interacted great with the kids. He was very inspirational, both on the field and during devotions in the chapel. His wife Nicole and assistant Emily also helped coach the kids during the week. In addition to soccer skills, they also taught the kids cup stacking for coordination practice. I got to learn too, which was pretty sweet. After the kids left on Friday, the coaches and a few of the counselors spent about two hours playing with the cups. We built a giant triangular tower of cups that was probably eight feet tall or so. It was awesome.

Our devotions before bed were awesome. Much like my last cabin, these girls had a lot of questions, many of which I didn’t know how to answer. One of my favorites was: “Does God ever have fun? In the Bible, He always sounds so serious.” I didn’t really know what to say. I’m sure God does have fun, and I guess I could have said things like He delights in us and in pouring out His love on us, but I couldn’t think of anything in the Bible that proved that God has fun.

Cabin clean up went a lot better this week than the first week. The girls got really into it, and we even won one day! I took a bunch of party decorations from the program office, and we decorated the cabin with streamers, balloons, and hanging beads. I had also saved some cookies from the day before and set those and two cups of Gatorate out for the cabin cleanup checkers. The girls were stoked, so I rewarded them with brownies and milk while they were playing on the playground the next day.

On Thursday night, the soccer group had a campfire out on the beach. We all sat around for a couple hours and reflected on the events of the week. The coaches then had the group say nice things about each person. When it came to me, one of the nine-year-old boys stood up and said, “I think Reagan is really pretty.” When everyone started laughing, he went on: “That’s right! I said it!” It was hilarious. Too bad he couldn’t have been about 12 years older.

The kids walked out Friday, so Saturday was a wonderful day of rest and relaxation for me. I spent a few hours talking to some of the counselors about different spiritual issues. Once again, the Lord answered my prayers for Him to reveal Himself to me. For various reasons, I had really been struggling in my faith this last week and wanted evidence that God was really there. I started reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis—which has been fantastic so far—but I still felt like something was missing. But hearing about the ways in which God has acted in the lives of others was the most effective way to get the point across, and He knew it. It is so refreshing being around the people here. Everyone is so genuine and open about their faith. Talking about God and spirituality seems almost as natural as breathing, and I feel like I’m learning new things every time I talk to someone about it. I’m hoping that won’t be lost once I leave “the bubble” – one of the three in which I live at this point.

Today was also a glorious day, but I’ll get into that in the next post. Thanks to all of you for your letters, prayers, and many words of encouragement. Next week I’ll be counseling for Colt camp, which is for the 7- to 9-year-olds (the “ankle biters”). Good times.

Love and Peace Or Else

2009-06-21T20:15:00.002-05:00

Week 3: June 14-20

Happy Father’s Day, and big up to my Dad back in Oklahoma! I miss you.

Work staff week is over, and now it’s on to camp #3. We have four different camps this week: basketball, soccer, wilderness, and horse. Here’s the best part: I’m counseling girls in soccer camp! Those of you who know me well are aware that I have zero athletic ability and have only played/hated soccer my senior year of high school. As far as I know, though, I won’t actually be playing, just herding the girls from place to place and leading devotions. The schedule is supposedly more lax than regular camp, so I will probably have a little more free time, and it won’t be as stressful. But I guess I’ll know for sure when the time comes.

Maverick #1 (ages 12-15) week ended yesterday. Even though I didn’t counsel last week, I still got to be involved with the kids during my free time station hours (inflatable boxing, sky trolley/zipline, etc.). They seemed like awesome kids, and the counselors could attest to that. We all heard amazing stories from each other about how God used situations or chapel topics or evening devotions to work in the hearts of the kids or the chemistry of the cabin. He never fails to carry you when you just surrender everything over to Him. That continues to be the biggest lesson I’ve learned (over and over) so far.

Friday was Crud Wars day. This game is basically an organized outdoor food fight. Two teams at a time grab one substance at a time (flour, wet dog food, spaghetti noodles, shaving cream, etc.) and throw it at each other. Once everyone is finished throwing one kind of thing, they move on to the next one. The kids were told that morning that they wouldn’t be doing Crud Wars this week; instead, they would be playing a “better” game called Madness. At dinner that night, Jon-Michael got up to make an announcement. He said that Pat, the head cook, had forgotten to save food throughout the week for Crud Wars, so that was the reason we wouldn’t be able to play. Even though she had made this frustrating mistake, he had decided to forgive her and we should too. When he turned around to announce that we should all forgive Pat, she threw a pie in his face, and the madness began! The cooks had just set out huge bowls of slop on the tables, and Pat threw the first handful at a camper’s face. A massive food fight ensued for about the next five minutes and then moved outside and morphed into actual Crud Wars. Only a handful of people knew this was going to happen in advance, so it was definitely a shock to most of us. The dining hall was a disaster, and it took about two hours to clean up. We all had fun doing it, though, and it was worth it. Apparently it was the first food fight ever at Echo Ranch. We made a memory!

Friday night chapel was one to remember. Several of the counselors performed the Lifehouse skit (look it up on YouTube), and it really hit home with most of the people there. After the skit was over, Tim and Kirk (the guys counselors who lead worship) got up to sing “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”, and Kirk couldn’t get through it without crying. This started a chain reaction of tears among the kids, which lasted throughout all of Jon-Michael’s message afterwards. Many even left during the talk and then came back at the end. At the end of the message, he played the song from the skit (“Everything” by Lifehouse), and the kids and their counselors just sat and wept. Honestly, I’m still not sure what I think about it all. I believe that many of those tears where a genuine cry out to God after realizing what He had done for them, some were a form of empathy for friends, some stemmed from indirect peer pressure, and others were the result of physical and emotional exhaustion. Some were probably a combination of all of the above. Jon-Michael explained it well: these kids are so tightly wound all year long between camps, and they needed a way to release it all. That night was the night to do it. Whatever the reason, I’m glad the kids got the opportunity to let it all out. It seemed to provide a great way to present the gospel and show God’s love and comfort to those who were hurting. I hope decisions and changes that were made last beyond camp, as I hoped with my girls from the week before. But that’s not in our hands – all we can do is give it over.

Yesterday was a good day. The counselors had their “praise and prayer” session in the Loft after all was said and done. Most of us practically fell asleep during the prayer part, but it was still great to finally relax with people our own age. Afterwards was chick night with the nurses (Denise and Laurie), a few counselors (Nikki, Amber, and Skylar), and the work staff head person (Erin). We spent the next couple hours gabbing and eating ice cream and sharing funny stories… and just having a blast.

Like I kind of touched on in my last post, I had a much harder time feeling connected to and hearing from God this week. It was frustrating, but this is the way we grow. He continues to teach me, even when I’m not aware of it. Jon-Michael told a story on Friday night about a man talking to a woman on an airplane. He asked her, ‘If you got to Heaven after you died, and Jesus weren’t there, would you still want to be there?’ Following that story, I realized that I have come to the point where I truly want Him above all else. It came to me while I was talking to Him at the top of the sky trolley, and it made me cry. It’s an indescribably wonderful feeling – blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. What else in this life really matters apart from Him? How could I desire a life on earth or an eternal life in Heaven without Him there? I couldn’t.

I posted Denise Pritt’s “ERBC 2009” album to my Facebook profile. Make sure you check it out to see pictures of Echo Ranch Idol, the food fight, and other junk.

Miracle Drugs

2009-06-18T22:47:00.002-05:00

Week 3: June 14-20

I've been loading up on Vitamin C since I got here, so I have yet to get sick like almost every other counselor here. Sweet. I have also continued to abuse the free coffee/tea bar. It is a glorious thing.

This week I have been cleaning bathrooms, washing dishes, setting tables, painting walls, and hitting kids with swimming pool noodles. Tomorrow I will be cleaning outhouses! Despite the drudgery of the busy work, God has been teaching me to have a servant's heart. I'm not sure whether that is something you learn or something you just make a conscious decision to have. The Bible says to do everything for the glory of God; in this way, men will see your good works and praise the Lord. Maybe joyfully scrubbing toilets will have that effect. Maybe not. If nothing else, maybe it will elicit my praise.

When someone gets mail at camp, they are required to stand up in front of everyone in the dining hall and sing (and dance to) “Gray Squirrel.” If you are not familiar with that song, it goes like this:

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Shake your bushy tail.
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Shake your bushy tail.

Crinkle up your little nose.
Stick it down between your toes.

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Shake your bushy tail.

Good times. I’ve done it two or three times now. The “shake your bushy tail” part requires you to turn around and shake your rear end at your audience, but it’s not so embarrassing anymore. Keep on sending that mail!

I have gotten to help lead worship a few times in chapel, and that has been a blast. Our silly skit night also went really well, including my part as Susan Boyle in “Echo Ranch Idol.” I wore a frizzy-haired gray wig and drew bushy eyebrows on my face. There will be pictures someday.

Hope everyone back on the homefront is doing well. Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers! Love to all.

Crumbs from Your Table

2009-06-15T22:20:00.002-05:00

I accidentally posted content from "Vertigo (1)" into "Vertigo (2)", but the second one is, in fact, updated. So make sure you read it!

It's a strange experience, being thrust back into civilization after hiding out in the woods for two whole weeks. I felt a little like Thoreau in his value of Walden Pond. Once you get to this kind of place, you get used to living simply. There are more important things to worry about than seeing movies or hanging out at Target or getting stuck at traffic lights. You learn to appreciate the company of others who have nothing to hide, or the beauty of the sun setting behind the mountains, or the magnificent bald eagles you see flying overhead, or the fingerprints of God on the faces of the children you meet each week. These are the things that make life on earth worthwhile.

There wasn't a whole lot to see back in town, to my surprise. Juneau has a very "small town" feel to it. The streets are lined with little shops and restaurants, probably to attract tourists. The scenery is breathtaking. The mountains are a lot farther away back at camp, but you are right next to them once you get to Auke Bay/Juneau. Two other girls and I spent about 20 minutes searching for an open coffee shop before the concert, but to no avail. We had to settle for coffees at McDonald's, but I guess it was worth it. Everyday Sunday did a pretty good job, though I didn't know any of their songs. After the show was over and I had successfully withdrawn cash from the ATM machine (yay, now I finally have real money!), we all headed over to Fred Meyer to purchase our respective necessities. I finally bought some eyeliner to replace the one that disappeared into the abyss of nothingness and shampoo to replace the bottle I never had. I also picked up the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Best Of" album because it was $7. Who could pass that up, right?

Camp has started again, this time for 12- to 15-year-olds. I'm on work staff for the week, so I get to do things like mop floors and wash dishes and paint ceilings and scrub bath houses. It's not always the most fun thing ever, but I'm doing my best to have a good attitude about it. The Bible says to be joyful in all things. Lord, help me!

Vertigo (2)

2009-06-14T18:36:00.002-05:00

Week 2: June 7-13

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesday was Crazy Hair Day. I didn’t do anything too wild, but a couple of my girls stuck sticks or other foreign objects in their hair. Since we failed miserably at cabin cleanup the day before, we made all kinds of decorations for the cabin, including a welcome sign on the front door, verses posted on the walls, and some Famous Amos cookies for the cabin cleanup checkup crew. I gave my 3-5 minute condensed testimony in chapel that morning, which went pretty well. I included a verse that has been significant to me over the last several days:

“…we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:3-5

I read it Monday night, and it encouraged me every time I felt like I just wanted to give up – which was just about every night as I sat in chapel with loud music and rowdy girls. If this kind of work doesn’t blow some suffering, perseverance, character, and certainly hope right into ya… Then something is wrong. And God was faithful to answer every desperate prayer and guide me through the whole thing. It was incredible to see Him work right in front of my face time and time again. But I’ll get to that.

I had been feeling really discouraged about the lack of connection I had been making with the girls. I wanted to spend quality time with each of them, to find time to get to know them on a personal level. With all there was to do, it seemed like it couldn’t be done, and I felt like a failure. After the girls were dismissed to their skills classes, I went back to the cabin and started crying. Then I really felt like I should just pray for my girls. I prayed over each bunk in that room and bawled my ever-lovin’ eyeballs out. I felt such a burden for them—I knew that, even though I could try teaching them as much as I could this week, I couldn’t protect them forever. I knew that struggles would come in their future. I wanted to be able to guide and shield them from the oncoming storm of life. And then I realized that that wasn’t my place. So I surrendered it to God. I told Him that I knew I couldn’t protect them and guide them through life’s troubles, but He could.

After my breakdown, I decided to run back to the dorm to get ready for bed before free time and chapel. Feeling a little more encouraged and empowered by God’s touch, I really wanted to tell someone about what had been going on with me and my cabin. I prayed that God would provide someone to share these things with. I walked into the dining hall, visited with people for a couple minutes, came back down, and then ran into the girls’ CA (camp assistant), Alison. She asked me how I was doing, and I said I was alright. Then she asked if she could pray with me, and I told her that would be great. Almost as soon as she started, I started crying. She knew the exact words to pray and the condition of my heart. When she was finished, I told her about everything that was going on with me and my girls: I was worried about connecting with them one-on-one, I had just prayed for each of them, and I felt lost as to how to give them spiritual guidance. She was so encouraging and told me I had been doing a fantastic job. When I went downstairs, I realized that God had just answered another prayer within 5 minutes of it being uttered, and I started crying again! I probably looked ridiculous brushing my and wiping tears from my eyes at the same time, but I couldn’t help it. He didn’t leave me hanging.

I had “lifeguard” duty that night during free time. I wasn’t too excited about going to sit on the beach by myself for an hour, but it turned out to be one of the most refreshing times of my whole week. I sat on a log, stared at the water and the sky, buried my feet in the sand, and scratched the letters of “Reagan <3s>

I had my “mom” Lyn come talk to the girls during our cabin devotions that night. It was great to hear her testimony and way of telling the girls what each of their memory verses meant.

THURSDAY:

Thursday was definitely my favorite theme of the week: Tacky Day. I rocked a blue dress with a floral shirt, a bright beaded necklace, polk-a-dot rain boots, and sunglasses. It was also a great day for connecting with each of the girls – I was a little more lax than usual and made sure to talk to almost all of them about where they were spiritually. I talked to one girl who believed in God and Jesus Christ but who had never asked Him to live in her heart, so I told her I woul be happy to pray with her whenever she wanted. I thought she had forgotten about it after awhile, but she came up to me later to say that she and one of the other girls (to whom I had also talked) would like to pray with me later that night. I was ecstatic.

I had promised them all week that we would make s’mores as a cabin, so for “cabin time” I grabbed the supplies from the pantry, started a fire in the stove, and let them go crazy. It was a blast. They also won both of their Quiz Quest matches that afternoon, so that was a plus as well.

It’s a camp tradition to have a bonfire on the beach the last night of camp, so after chapel everyone headed down to the waterfront, sang worship songs, and listen to Jon-Michael share the gospel. At our cabin devotions that night, I asked the girls what they thought about what was said. Naturally, they had a lot of questions that I can’t really remember now, but that wasn’t as important as what happened a little later. Two of my girls became Christians that night. We clapped and cheered like the angels in heaven. (One girl then asked us to quiet down because she had ‘sensitive ears,’ and I very nicely told her to get over it because this was more important.) I wanted to find the Bible passage that talked about the angels in heaven rejoicing each time a sinner repents, and after I found it, the girls asked me to read some more. We stayed up awhile later reading the story of the prodigal son and the one where Jesus healed the paralytic. The girls ate it up. I loved seeing the eagerness in their faces. Where does that joy over the Word go as you get older?

FRIDAY:

The last day of camp had finally come. I was in charge up hooking kids up to the sky trolley (zipline) that morning during free time, and I had a blast talking to the other campers who weren’t in my cabin. Very few of them were ready to head back home. Several of them were scared to death of being 50 feet off the ground, and it felt awesome to encourage them to the point where they finally took that leap of faith. I only almost fell off the platform once. Good times.

I had the chance to give each of them a Bible before they were all packed up. The girls absolutely loved them, and two of them asked me to sign theirs. A few of them just sat on a bunk, flipping through them and reading verses here and there. Their zeal for the Word will never cease to amaze and inspire me.

It was hard to see those girls go. I didn’t think I would be too sad to see that tractor pull away with all of them on the trailer in the back, but of course, after all the hugs, waves, and goodbyes, I started crying. (It didn’t go unnoticed. Just before they were out of earshot, I heard one of them yell, ‘Reagan’s crying!’) It got worse as I did the final cabin cleanup. What now? What would the new believers’ families think? Would they read their Bibles? Would they make good choices when they got older? Would their love for growing in the knowledge of God continue? Once again, I had to remember that I wasn’t put in charge of their future. God would protect them.

That night, all the counselors from that week and those on work staff gathered together to discuss our respective “highs” and “lows” of the week. It was a great time for “soul-grabbing” and being authentic with everyone, which is right up my alley. I shared about how God had been faithful to answer my prayers that week and the ways He had taught me that I could not handle everything on my own. Others had similar testimonies. After everyone had shared, we prayed together. It was such a powerful experience to hear the things the Lord had laid on people’s hearts.

SATURDAY:

Jon-Michael talked the night before about how counselors take off their “counselor clothes” when the camp week is over – and then go crazy. Saturday was the culmination of the madness. We all went into “camper” mode yesterday, which was pretty funny. It was definitely a good day to practice our “silly skits”, which we will be performing this Tuesday night. One of them is called “Echo Ranch Idol,” in which I will be playing the part of Susan Boyle. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up on YouTube.) I’m pretty excited about it.

While having free time was wonderful, I was feeling a little bummed about being “useless” – without real responsibility or accountability to anyone. I also felt very distinctly that I hadn’t really grown in my relationships with the other counselors, so I prayed that I would be able to connect with them. When God answers prayer, He answers prayer. It was awesome. Everyone gathered in the dining hall that night to play games, eat corn dogs and pretzels, and just hang out. I sat and talked about God, the Bible, and personal/spiritual weaknesses with four other counselors that night. I don’t remember any other time in my life where I had truly experienced such fellowship with other believers. We weren’t being forced into a Bible study; no one had told us to go talk about Jesus in a small group with our list of required questions; we were just being real with each other. I don’t know what could be better than that.

SUNDAY:

This morning I got to help lead worship in chapel, and tonight we’re heading into town to attend an Everyday Sunday concert, go to Fred Meyer (the local Wal-Mart), and make a zillion phone calls. Should be a great break from living in the middle of nowhere.

I received a letter from Ashley, a CD from Josh, and another letter from Nina this week. They were great – thank you! And keep sending them!

I have learned and grown so much this week. Among many other things, I have become entirely convinced that God is faithful to complete the work He has started in and through us. When you pray, He will answer you one way or another. And when He answers, talk about it! This is how we bring glory to His Name. I have loved being able to share answers to prayer with others over the past few days, and I don’t want to stop. I hope this has encouraged you to do the same.

Vertigo (1)

2009-06-13T20:21:00.007-05:00

Week 2: June 7-13

Wow. So Bronco I (first camp for 10- and 11-year-olds) week is over. I can now say that I succeeded in being more tired this week than I was during my last post... But it was all worth it. This is going to be long, but I'll just start from the beginning.

MONDAY:

I could not start a fire in the stove inside my cabin to save my life. I had to get help from my teammates more than once on getting a fire going that day, and I had to endure the ridicule of my girls. Oh well. It builds character, right?

The campers showed up in the late morning. I had 8 girls in my cabin: Chandler, Jimmie, Michaela, Samantha, Laurel, Maggie, Kelley, and Ashlee. (One of them sounded exactly like the babysitter from The Incredibles – no joke.) I also had a JC (junior counselor) named Lauren, and she was a huge help. After getting a group picture, we all headed over to the opening rally and then had lunch. We then did lots of other activities and things that I can’t remember now.

After chapel that night, we all came back, and I had one of my teammates make a fire for us. The counselors are required to lead a devotional before the campers go to bed, which was actually my favorite part of the day. When we were all ready for bed and had the fire going, I had my girls drag a few mattresses off their bunks and onto the floor around the stove so we could talk. I asked them what they thought about the message in chapel and if they had any questions about God or the Bible. Let me tell you, kids can think of the craziest questions. “What if the people who wrote the Bible were wrong?” “How do we know it’s real?” “How did God begin?” It was a great time to connect with the girls and get a feel for how many of them were familiar with the church and the Bible. The night wasn’t so pleasant after bedtime, though. I had told the girls it was okay to wake me up if they had any problems during the night or needed someone to take them to the bath house. I had been informed earlier by the nurse that one of the girls was a bed-wetter, so I let the whole group know to let me know if they needed a new sleeping bag or anything else in the middle of the night. One of them woke me up around 1am to take them to the bathroom. Right after I got back, one of the girls walked up to me to say that she had wet the bed. Awesome. I had her put her wet clothes in a trashbag, took them to the laundry room, and made sure she was squared away before I went back to bed.

TUESDAY:

Each day following Monday had a theme, and Tuesday was Camo Day. I was excited because it meant I got to wear my new camo shorts for the first time, though I think I was the only one in my cabin who dressed up.

There’s a time during the day that is specifically set aside for “cabin cleanup.” According to the rules, you are supposed to have your cabin sweep the floor and outside porches, clean the shelves, make their beds, and hang up decorations on the inside. The “cabin checkers” walk around about an hour later to assign points to each cabin for the quality of their work. I did a rough sweep of the floors and had the girls make their beds, and they made a welcome mat out of leaves, sticks, and pine cones, but that was about it. We failed cabin cleanup and got the lowest score of all the cabins. My girls and I were pretty bummed, but I told them we would just do an awesome job for the next day.

After rotations (scheduled activities), the campers did a scavenger hunt, in which each cabin team raced all over camp. Instead of hunting for items, though, campers had to complete tasks as a group, such as doing the hokey pokey or making a pyramid. Those of us from the lower 48 (as they call the U.S. mainland) learned very quickly that Alaskans don’t do too well in the sun and heat. It had been pretty warm and sunny all week, and it wore the kids out. I couldn’t believe how much more energy I had than all these kids. Most of my girls couldn’t run at all after 2 or 3 minutes of playing. One of them in particular was always last and refused to walk more than about 11 steps per minute. She complained the entire time, but it got to the point where I actually wanted to strangle her at the very end of the game. She had been whining and dragging her feet the entire time, but she somehow found the energy to sprint to the end when another team was right on her tail. I was fuming but glad it was finally over.

Throughout the week, Bronco I campers play a game called Quiz Quest. This took me back to the glory days of Bible quizzing, so I was pretty excited about it. Each cabin competed against each other and quizzed over questions about their memory verses they learned at the “flag raising/lowering” at the beginning and end of each day, their skills classes (canoeing, cooking, sports, horsemanship, etc.), and morning devotions. They were also asked questions about the chapel messages, testimonies, and the people who spoke. Like Bible quizzing, the campers sat on a bench and had to stand up when they wanted to answer the questions. If cabins wanted extra points, they could memorize verses from a list given to them at the beginning of the week. My girls memorized 10 verses total, so we got 1000 extra points (100 points for each verse) that day. That definitely helped, in light of our failed cabin cleanup and the fact that my girls weren’t that good at quizzing. Two of my girls actually choreographed a dance for Genesis 1:1, which was hilarious. It will be posted to Facebook later this summer.

“Sweet Dreams” is the name of a kind of stealth mission that each cabin performs when they are “supposed” to be in bed. Earlier that day, a staff worker told each of the counselors to pick a place to hide a plate of cookies, and they would take their cabins to find them later that night. The idea is that the counselors are supposed to trick their campers into thinking that they had gotten one of their friends to hide some cookies for them, and they were supposed to sneak out of their cabins to obtain them without getting caught. My girls loved it. I told them that I had told Jon-Michael (one of the camp directors) how well they had done during the game, so he stashed some cookies for us on top of the swing set. We sneaked around the outside of the cabin, through the forest, ducked in the trees because “someone’s coming!”, and sprinted down the beach along the treeline to the swingset. After finding the plate of cookies by the slide, we went back the way we came. The whole thing kind of backfired a little while later when my girls went to the bath house. Girls from another cabin said that they had just gone on a mission to find their cookies, so I had to do much more lying than I would have liked afterwards to convince them that the game was real and that maybe Jon-Michael wanted to reward each cabin for doing well. I think they bought it for the time being, which was fine with me. I thought it was sweet that they really wanted to thank him for the cookies, which I made sure he knew about before they did.

Devotions that night were pretty intense. I stayed up for a couple of hours with the girls, explaining the how Jesus’ death saved us, how Catholics can be Christians too, how to become a Christian, and other things they had questions about. One of the girls wanted to tell me that she had just asked Jesus to forgive her sins (though she was already a Christian), and I learned later that week that another one of the girls asked Jesus into her heart that night. The faith of children truly amazes me. It seemed that a few of them couldn’t even fathom the idea that God might not exist. They laughed as they said, “If God didn’t create the world, then how else would we be here?” Their innocence and assurance of the truth was incredible to witness.

While the Lord saw fit to bless me with a non-bed-wetting cabin that night, I guess He thought it would be good for me to get woken up three times by a girl who couldn’t sleep. After about 20 minutes of lying in bed, she came up to me and told me she couldn’t fall asleep. I told her that she just needed to try. The second time, I got up and prayed with her and tried to comfort her. The third time (in my infinite patience), I told her that I couldn’t help her and that she just needed to go lie down and close her eyes. She finally fell asleep a little while later.

This is good for now. I’ll try to finish this week’s recap later tonight or tomorrow.

Do You Feel Loved

2009-06-07T17:00:00.006-05:00

Week 1: May 31-June 6

I'm not sure I've ever been as consistently tired as I am right now. All the staff have hit the ground running since we got here. Best part is, I know it will only get worse! But I think there's something to be said for finding God in the midst of exhaustion. When it comes down to the point where you physically have nothing else to give, God will sustain. And while I'm not excited about that process, I am eager for the outcome.

The progressive dinner was a blast. The counselors were divided up into 5 groups, and we traveled around the campground to different staff workers' homes. We ate their delicious food and talked with them about camp and where they're from. It was fun getting to know each of them a little better.

A few days ago, each counselor was assigned a "parent", or staff worker here at camp. My "mom" is a woman named Lyn, and her husband is Ray. They are two of the sweetest people I have ever met. And she had me make a list of all my favorite things so she can buy them for me when she goes to town. I made sure to include that I love coffee, hot tea, chocolate, and mugs. This is going to be a good relationship.

Last night was the counselors' graduation from orientation. We were given a small Bible, staff t-shirt, and lanyard that had keys and a CPR mask attached. Afterwards, we sang worship songs and then listened to a short message on when Jesus washed His disciples' feet. The theme was humility and servanthood here at camp. After the message, all the "parents" washed their "children's" feet. Many of you know how much I hate feet, so I felt sorry for the workers - but I couldn't believe how joyful and willing they were to do it for us. It really was a beautiful way to get the message across. Lyn prayed for me and gave me a huge hug. I realized then that it had been a week since I had hugged my real parnets goodbye.

Today is our last day before camp officially begins. The counselors are going on horseback rides at 2 and 3pm, which I'm pumped about. The kids will get here tomorrow around noon, and then I'll get to play "Mommy" to a bunch of 10- and 11-year-old girls for the week. I'm feeling more excited than nervous right now, but that is certainly subject to change over the course of the day!

Oh, yeah, we also got trained in first aid and CPR, so now I'm certified to bring people back from being almost dead. And tonight each of the counselors were assigned our "JC", or junior counselor. The JCs hail from Scottsdale, Arizona and are part of a ministry team of high schoolers who will be helping out with camp this week. My JC's name is Lauren, and she will be shadowing (stalking) me all week long.

Thank you all for your continued prayers. I really can't say that enough. They are so needed. God is going to do great things.

Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of

2009-06-05T20:19:00.002-05:00

Week 1: May 31-June 6

So, camping, right? Talk about building character. In order to promote a teambuilding experience, all the counselors went on a two-day hike (Monday-Tuesday) through one of the state parks of Alaska. It was also so we could see the Sourdough camp, which is a “fringe” camp of Echo Ranch that focuses primarily on hiking and living out in the great outdoors. We walked for maybe 20 minutes or so from the place we were dropped off to the Sourdough campus, and I thought, with joy, that we were done for the day. I soon found out that we had a long way to go. I have no idea how far we actually hiked (in miles), but I recall jokes about ending up in the U.S. mainland. As bad as I’m making it sound now, I really did enjoy it for the most part. I got to see God’s creation in the raw: I walked over it and under it and climbed on top of it and tripped over it and got stuck in it. And the nature was absolutely beautiful.

After a couple of hours of hiking (and swatting off 259 mosquitoes or so), we took a lunch break next to a lake that had a floating dock and rope swing that was suspended from a tree. While I opted not to swim in the water, I did swing on the rope. I did not die, even though I thought I would.

After spending a couple of hours by the lake, we continued our hike to the campsite, which was unfortunately reserved by someone else (whoops). So we hiked on a little farther until we got to a second campsite, which basically consisted of a fire pit, and that was it. Bathhouse? Please. This was my first true camping experience, and needless to say, I will never forget it. Yes, I roughed it for real. I made my bed in a tent; I peed on the ground; I slept without a fan. And I had a blast with the other counselors. We roasted hotdogs over a big fire, talked, laughed, made s’mores, and sang worship songs. We also prepared our testimonies that we would be giving over the next couple nights, which was kind of a challenge for me. As most of you know, I haven’t had the most dramatic life, so my personal testimony is anything but exciting. But, as I was told to do, I just wrote down what I knew.

We got up the next morning around 8:30 (about 5 hours after sunrise, believe it or not), had breakfast, and continued the journey to the horse camp, another one of its “fringe” camps. Thankfully, I did not feel as if I were hiking uphill the entire way this time, and the hike itself was much shorter. We arrived at horse camp around noon, ate a scrumptious lunch that consisted of chili, cornbread, honey butter, and oranges, and then learned about that camp. When we got back to “base” camp, everyone took a shower and was very happy. They say it’s been oddly warm and sunny up here lately (in the 60s and 70s, zero clouds). While it’s nice for us counselors (especially those from down South), they say it really messes with Alaskans, who are more apt to get dehydrated and suffer from heat exhaustion. So, while I selfishly hope the sun stays out the entire summer, I guess I really should start praying for rain—for the sake of the kids. Maybe rain can be a form of suffering for Jesus too.

That evening, the counselors with last names A-L shared their testimonies with the other counselors and staff. It was a really powerful experience—it’s amazing how many different kinds of people God chose to bring together for His purpose. Everyone had a different story, a distinct background, a separate experience to bring to the table. I’m excited to see how all the parts of the body end up becoming one.

Wednesday was pretty chill. We learned about “canoe safety” and how to save canoe-faller-outers from the icy Alaskan waters of death. The water is about 40 degrees out here. Sweet. The rest of the counselors and I shared our testimonies that evening as well—which was pretty intense once again—but great to see the way God has moved in people’s lives.

Yesterday (Thursday) was busy! We learned special camp songs and their motions, discussed the camp’s “philosophy and goals”, and talked about how to best share the gospel with our campers. It was a great discussion and prayer time for those of us who are pretty nervous about being Jesus to a bunch of rowdy kids. Bu He tells us that, if we trust in Him, we will never be disappointed—right? Then we practiced the sky trolley/zipline, which was a complete blast. Hopefully I will be a little better at putting harnesses on the kids than I was last night. Pray for me. Afterwards, we practiced our “silly skits”. I volunteered to be Susan Boyle for the “Echo Ranch Idol” skit. I’ll do my best to get a lot of pictures.

Today is the second-to-last day of orientation, praise Jesus! We got our training in first aid and bathroom/kitchen cleaning, practiced puppet songs, and will be going to a progressive dinner in the staff workers’ homes tonight.

I would just like to say that I really enjoy the bottomless cups of coffee and tea they give you up here. You can walk into the dining hall at any hour of the day, and it’s right there waiting for you. They also offer a “free corner” where they leave all the extra dessert. Awesome.

I decided to include a few travel tips for everyone's benefit:

1) Make sure that the thing you thought was shampoo when you bought it is actually shampoo. My turned out to be a giant bottle of conditioner. At least I'll have really soft hair.

2) Spent that extra $1 on the "nice" towels. I bought the cheapest towels ever at Target, and you would know it as soon as you saw their lint all over my body.

3) Weigh your suitcases before going to the airport. My giant one was 61.8 lbs (you want to keep it at 50 lbs and under for the standard rate) and therefore an extra $50 of baggage fees.

That is all. Thank you for the prayers, and please keep them up as the campers will be arriving next Monday. Love you all!

Where the Streets Have No Name

2009-05-31T22:43:00.004-05:00

Week 1: May 31-June 6

Well, here I am at Echo Ranch Bible Camp. I arrived in Juneau, Alaska around 9:30pm (local time) last night after 12 total hours of travel time. They have a really tiny but neat airport, including stuffed grizzly and black bears on display. After picking up my baggage, my counselor-picker-upper person and I made the 30ish mile drive down one of the few roads in Juneau. I couldn't believe how much green they have here. If there aren't buildings, there are only forest, mountains, and ocean. It's incredible. I didn't even want to talk during the drive because I just wanted to look around. It seems like the trees never run out up here. We had the thickest forest you could imagine on the right and the ocean and mountains on the left. I also saw my first glacier ever, which I guess we'll get to explore more when we go into "the magical land called town" on July 4th.

After driving 30 miles, we reached the ramp that led to the water, where I was picked up by a skiff to take me the remaining 2 miles to Auke Bay. It was pretty chilly by then, probably in the 40s. Once I got to the camp, I took all my bags (I narrowed it down to 2 suitcases--one of them was 62 pounds--a duffel bag, and a backpack) down to the dorm and met my fellow female counselors. They are all sweethearts, and I'm really looking forward to getting to know all of them better over the course of the summer. After dropping my bags and unpacking a little, I headed outside to "see Alaska" (as a couple of the girls put it), but it was already a little too dark by then (around 11pm), so I came back inside to chat and unpack some more.

The camp is literally situated in a forest. The beach is probably 150 yards or so from the dorm/dining hall, where we live when we aren't in the cabins with the campers. If you stand facing the bay, you can clearly see the mountains in front you, as if they just sprout out of the ocean. Behind you is the forest, which encompasses the dorm, cabins, bathhouses, barn, and various other buildings of the camp. The horses are herd horses, so they just wander around at night and are wrangled up again in the morning to be used for the horsemanship classes or riding. There's poop everywhere, so you have to make sure to avoid it when you're walking from place to place. I don't know my way around here at all since I missed the official camp tour yesterday, but I figure it shouldn't take too long.

Today was my first official day of counselor orientation. After getting a whopping 4 hours of sleep last night, I spent breakfast talking to several other counselors and trying to remember everyone's name. There are about 11 other girls and about 5 or 6 guys (I think). The rest of the day included chapel (Olivet wasn't enough - just kidding), counselor devotions, a talk on what being a counselor was all about, and puppet practice! I'm going to be part of the puppeteers, which is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Our puppets will be singing and dancing to a bunch of kid Christian-reworded songs like the Gilligan's Island theme song, "I Love Rock and Roll", "Sk8er Boi", and others. Then we came back and had calzones and crab for dinner. Tomorrow we're taking an all-day hike to Camper's Cove and sleeping in tents. Good times.

Again, there is zero cell phone service up here. The counselors are allowed to be on the Internet 6-9pm on weekdays and most of the day on the weekends, except from weeks that we are with the kids. (When we aren't assigned to be counselors for the campers, we will be on the work staff--cleaning and all the rest of the grunt work).

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the newness of everything, but I'm hoping this will start to feel familiar pretty soon. It's amazing being in the middle of God's creation. I can see him both in nature and in the other counselors and staff workers who are here. Every person at this camp clearly loves Jesus, and it's so awesome hearing them express that love so candidly. God is definitely going to mold me through the examples of these people and through the campers themselves. I know I have a lot to learn, and I can't even imagine how much of a struggle it will inevitably be, but I eagerly anticipate the challenge.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. I will update as often as I can.

The Fly

2009-05-31T22:40:00.003-05:00

I wrote this on the plane on the way up here yesterday...

So after my iTunes-imported movie Into the Wild cut out after 1 hour and 17 minutes, I thought the best way to further kill time was to write some more! I’m currently en route to Seattle, WA from Chicago. We took off around 3:30pm CST, so it is anywhere between 5:35 and 3:35pm now. According to the handy dandy map in the back of the Alaska Airlines magazine, this flight goes through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Canada (Manitoba, Katchewan, Alberta, British Columbia), and then Washington. I haven’t been to any of these places other than IL and WI, so this is exciting to me.

Air travel—and layover travel, for that matter—has been interesting so far. It’s been quite a workout lugging my duffel full of anvils around various airports. I gave up carrying it on my shoulder after awhile and decided to drag it on the ground. On my flight from OKC to Chicago, I found a note on a napkin in my seat from a somewhat secret admirer (it had his name but no way for me to identify him) after I got back from the “lavatory”. On this flight, I got the outstanding privilege of sitting behind two screaming toddlers and beside a mom and her 11-month-old son (who was, thankfully, significantly quieter). Good times.

My dad got to come home from his business trip last night instead of after I left today, so it was really great to have the whole family together right before I had to take off. It was still hard, though. I was already crying when I hit the middle of airport security. I will really miss them, but I look forward to keeping in touch via snail mail. This is how a technology-spoiled college student can work on her penmanship skills. I’m going to have to draw the line at cursive, though.

One Step Closer

2009-05-30T01:03:00.002-05:00

So I'm less than 12 hours away from the great departure, and all I'm thinking is that I wish I could pack like a normal person. I know I'm bringing way too much stuff, but I just can't help myself - just in case I happen to need every single extra thing in my suitcase.

This is going to be an epic summer. God is going to do great things. I have no idea what else will happen, but I'm doing my best to just hand it over and have no further expectations. All I can be sure of is that He will do what He will do and that I don't want to miss out on the ride.

Please keep us in your prayers as this journey begins. I love you all.

In a Little While

2009-05-23T03:43:00.000-05:00

For those who have already seen my Echo Ranch page, I thought it would be good to post something a little different.

Seven days out, and I am scared to death. Alright, maybe not quite to that extent, but saying that this will be a completely new experience for me would be an understatement. I fully expect to be challenged, humbled, and frustrated. More than anything, I fear that I will be ineffective as a counselor and example to these kids. Despite my doubts, however, I know that I will also be filled with joy, rewarded, and awe-filled. God has called me up there for a reason. I look forward to seeing His plan unfold, however unsearchable His ways are.

I read something in Isaiah 51 that I found very encouraging.

¹² "I, even I, am he who comforts you.
Who are you that you fear mortal men,
the sons of men, who are but grass,

¹³ that you forget the LORD your Maker,
       who stretched out the heavens
       and laid the foundations of the earth,
       that you live in constant terror every day
       because of the wrath of the oppressor,
       who is bent on destruction?
       For where is the wrath of the oppressor?

¹⁴ The cowering prisoners will soon be set free;
they will not die in their dungeon,
nor will they lack bread.

¹⁵ For I am the LORD your God,
who churns up the sea so that its waves roar—
the LORD Almighty is his name.

¹⁶ I have put my words in your mouth
       and covered you with the shadow of my hand—
       I who set the heavens in place,
       who laid the foundations of the earth,
       and who say to Zion, 'You are my people.' "

If the Lord lays it on your heart, please pray--among other things--that...

I will allow the Lord to use me however He sees fit. It will require a great deal of patience, humility, and perseverance. You can never know how much of those qualities you have until they are tested.
the hearts of the other counselors and camp staff will be open to instruction and full of love and effective teaching for the campers
the campers will also come with open hearts that will be receptive to God and His love for them

Thank you for the love and support so many of you have already shown. I really appreciate it. This is going to be an amazing experience, and I can't wait to share it with all of you.

I've been asked a lot of questions about camp, so I'll try to list the FAQ here.

What kind of access will you have to the outside world?

I will not have cell phone service, so I'll get to go through a nice detox from text messaging. I will have Internet access (obviously), but I won't get to heavy bandwidth-hogging things like uploading pictures or videos. Those will have to wait until I get back home in August.

When are you leaving/returning?

For all who are interested in the nitty gritty travel details, I will be departing from Oklahoma City on May 30th at 12:40pm and arriving in Juneau at 9:39pm (local time). I'll be starting the journey homeward on August 18th, flying overnight, and arriving in OKC at 12pm on August 19th.

What is the time difference?

There is a three hour time difference between Juneau and CST - they are three hours behind.

What will the weather be like?

Highs should be in the 50s and 60s. It rains a lot.

What kind of camp is Echo Ranch/What kinds of kids go to Echo Ranch?

Just check out the website: http://discoverechoranch.com/default.aspx. You'll find a lot of detailed information there that I don't care to describe in detail myself. I'm too lazy. And it's 3:30am.

I think this is about it for now. Feel free to leave questions, comments, complaints, cookie recipes, music recommendations... Just whatever you feel led to do.

Reagan Taylor: A Passion to See Others Discover Christ

2009-05-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

Written by Jon-Michael Gwinnell

http://discoverechoranch.com/reagantaylor.aspx

It has been said that the purpose of missions is to create worshippers of God around the world. Reagan Taylor has a desire to do just that. She has a passion for Jesus Christ and a desire for others to know him.

Reagan’s motivation for serving at Echo Ranch is simple, “I hope to fall even deeper in love with God and help others do the same. I want to be able to give answers and encouragement to kids who are searching for Truth. More than anything, though, I just want to help kids know how much they're loved.”

Reagan grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and is currently attending college at Olivet NazareneUniversity in Bourbonnais, IL. Reagan is the oldest of four and has much experience ministering to her younger siblings and youth of all ages. “I have helped out in children's Sunday school classes and played with kids at the Mother's Day Out program at my home church. I am currently a youth leader in the senior high group at College Church in Bourbonnais.”

During the fall of 2007 Olivet held a missions conference and Echo Ranch Bible Camp was in attendance. There were so many opportunities to serve but something about Echo Ranch caught Reagan’s eye. “I visited the booth, got a brochure, and knew I had to go!” This is the first official missions trip that Reagan will have ever been on. What made her choose Echo Ranch? “I would like to serve there because I know it will be the most amazing "God experience" I could ever have. I love working with kids and showing them the love they may have a hard time finding elsewhere. Ever since I discovered the awesomeness of knowing the Lord myself, I have wanted to help others discover it too.”

Only God knows what’s in store for Reagan as she serves at Echo Ranch in 2009. But what can be certain is that it will be a transforming experience. Reagan has plans of being a high school counselor and youth worker. She hopes that this summer in Alaska“will give me further experience with kids of all different backgrounds.” The most important thing is that the young girls of Southeast Alaska hear the gospel and someone showing them the love of Christ. Please pray that the Lord will prepare Reagan’s heart to serve effectively for Him.