Camping Next to Water

Got back from Junior High camp friday night, and never really going to any camps growing up, it was nice to experience the fun that they are. Plus being part of the staff included such luxuries as not really having any rules to follow, $12 tab at the snack shack, stay up as late as we like, take naps during free time, not sleeping in tents but a rather luxurious lodge, getting to go first in the food lines, and being part of the band allowed us to not have to wake up for the staff meetings (which I kind of feel like we should have gone to anyways, but oh well), as well as the luxury/awkward feeling of junior highers thinking you are rock stars or something and wanting your autograph. Luckily the junior high girls seemed to pay much more attention to Scott and Caleb who interestingly are the 2 taken guys in the group. The last day Caleb had to hurry out of the chapel to avoid any more crazy junior highers wanting his autograph and to shake his hand. I mostly just had to answer the question, "what is that little guitar thingy you play?" a million times. Its a mandolin everyone. Scott and Kate had to leave a day early, so leading worship the final morning was up to Chad and I along with a few new recruits. There were a few disastrous moments of us looking at each other wondering what the heck is going wrong with the song, but we made it through ok. I am very thankful that we weren't counselors as well cause if there is one thing I am not good at in life, its talking to and dealing with junior high aged kids. Maybe I could have used the learning experience.

I didn't get a chance to do the any of the fun camp things like the zip line, lake, floating down the river, or archery, but I did play lots of cards, and made a few new friends which is always nice. I was rather tired through most of the trip probably due to getting hardly any sleep the first night due to the heavy snorer in the room, but luckily I seemed to sleep ok the rest of the week. I even heard the suggestion of myself moving to Portland. Pastor Jim, the speaker of the week who is a Pastor in Portland, put it this way, "when did you say you were moving to Portland again?" All I could do was laugh and say, "you never know, maybe someday." It would be nice knowing I already have a small group of friends in the area as well as a really amazing church that does amazing things in its community, but I don't really see that as too big of a possibility in the very near future. Caleb told me its not really an option anyways, so all I can really say is, maybe someday. The message of the week was quite a challenging one that is probably deserving of a blog of its own.

It was weird but also kind of nice to not have cell phone reception for the week. Whenever I wondered where someone was, I couldn't just call them to find out, but had to go searching over the large camp. Haven't experienced that since I lived in England.

Now for a few small stories from the week:
It was fun to relive the old dormlike life and share a room with friends and sleep in bunk beds. Caleb and Chad however shared a big bed which is how this dialog came to be:
Chad- Caleb, I woke up last night and our knees were touching and intertwined
Caleb- so did you leave it or move?

That response just really got to me. Maybe you just had to be there.

Other notable one liners:

Scott- she stooled on my stool.

That has a story of its own to go with it, but you probably don't want to hear it.

And the story of the week was probably this:

First night there we have a big staff meeting to learn about everything and meet the other staff people.
As an introduction, we were to give our name, what our part is for the week, what church we are from, and as an ice breaker, the camp director Rich tells everyone to tell a story of your worst personal injury or worst injury personally witnessed. Scott immediately jokes to Caled and I and says we should make up stories of seeing our grandmas die to just really bum everyone out. So after going through a few people telling standard stories of broken legs and such, we get to this one special middle aged character. He starts off by saying, gosh, I've seen so many I don't really know which one to tell, but the one that really stands out, that still gives me nightmares to this day is... He then proceeds to tell this story. I probably don't use the same wording, but its something close to this.

My wife and I are in our car which is like a first aid kit on wheels, and we see this young kid (bout the same age as our campers) jumping off a ramp on his skateboard into the street. As he jumps, with his friend and girlfriend watching, this car comes out of nowhere and hits the kid. My wife and I jump out and call the paramedics. I go see how the kid is doing, and my wife goes to the friends to comfort them. So I try to help the kid, and as we are waiting for the paramedics, the kid dies in my arms. The end

The room is then silent and awed by this story until someone says, jeeze, nice question Rich. It was an awful story, but also almost hard not to laugh at the fact that guy would actually tell such a story to a room full of strangers.

So that was my last week. A rather fun time indeed.