Camp: day 3 - Tangents

Work was a bit long this week, then add in the travel times since all but one of the jobs I have been doing has been at least a half-hour away. Today, in fact, coming home took over an hour for what should have been a half hour before traffic. Sigh. So without further interruption, here is installment number three of camp 2009.

Some of you may recall that the week I was away was the first week of summer, in more than one way. That is, starting Tuesday it was h-o-t. This would have been a far better day for us to have all the water games! The start of the day went pretty much like Monday, so I won’t bore you with that. The first highlight was the up-front game before the morning teaching session. The lesson was going to be on the eyes (see the picture below of Pastor John and his special glasses… 😀 )The “game” therefore involved an eye chart which the kids read as if they were in an optometrist’s room. Did you notice I put the word game in quotes? That’s because there was no winner. As soon as one of the four read the lower lines, “if you can read this you are about to be pied,” WHAP! All four of them. But don’t take my word for it- look below for the picture of one of my guys.

So lesson, then small group- the memory verse for this day was from the book of Psalms: Ps 119:37 “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” See? Eyes. Pun intended. Okay then. This time, after the session for the big game, we had the same two games as yesterday but switched. While the other two teams played the wipe-out wiffleball game, we played the same team as yesterday morning in human foosball. I am sure to have mentioned this game before as it is a standard for camp and winter retreat. It is a life-size foosball game where each team is divided into lines, holding hands, like on a foosball table. Multiple giant balls are thrown in (more added throughout the game) and the kids have to kick them over the other team’s heads into the goal. The lines can bend, but not break. This game was so close in the end 70-something to eighty-something. Sweating from the direct beating of the sun, we had a break from action with crafts. The kids worked on pouches the first had to stamp with leather tools before tying two pieces together with a needle and plastic thread. Among the different bevel, letter, and picture stamps were a couple of crosses- you can see one below.

We continued to maintain a fairly clean cabin and added open bibles on pillows, key verse highlighted to the mix. Unfortunately another cabin thought of this too (or was a spy listening in at the right time (!) ) so they won the award. Cabin S, the dirtiest cabin of yesterday with proof on video was much improved, but they still weren’t the winner- that went to the team that would be our nemesis all week- the Biohazards. Well, tomorrow we would add something new. While they were inspecting our cabins, we were at our afternoon instructional- tennis. To get there we would have to travel over a huge mountain in the woods (well, it was a hill with a stairway, but it seemed like a huge mountain at the time!). The weather continued to be brutal with a hot, sunny sky so I spent much time in the few shaded areas while the kids went through their instructional. When it was done, we hiked back over the mountain hill and went right to the swimming front for afternoon canteen time. I had given kids the option of getting in swim gear before we headed to tennis to save time since tennis was almost on the way to swimming, but only one heeded the advice so most would not be going in the water. None in fact, as the only one who prepared still didn’t go in. One who didn’t prepare ended up looking longingly at the water as the heat continued. He was sure to get his trunks on next time.

Well, there really isn’t much more to add. The rest of the day was pretty much like yesterday. I don’t think I mentioned that the evening session started with some youtube-esqe video with a puppet voiced by a falsetto voice talked about movies. I could only understand maybe half of what was being said and don’t know the name of the video, but it ended up Friday with revealing the number one hit movie of all time. If someone could help here I am curious. Anyway, these shorts “introduced” our video of the day- a five-minute-or-so video of all of us throughout the day. The next heart talked about in the lesson was the shallow heart, the heart that receives the Word of God, but not deeply so that when things go sour one turns from, instead of to, God. Now that really is it- tune in next time. All pictures in this thread by the way have once again been selected, or in some cases edited, to help keep from revealing identifiable faces. I shouldn’t have to say it again, but click for larger pictures. 😉

EDIT: I skipped over the evening game! Of course, after most of the hot day was over, only then did we get a game involving swimming trunks and getting wet. So the kids changed into their trunks once again and headed to the game field after dinner. Smack in the middle was a large inflatable pool filled with objects in water that the kids had to find. This was a summer-ized version of the classic “steal the bacon,” the version where the kids are told what to find and bring back. They were told such things as, “three chickens, two pics, and one noodle,” which of course they had to bring back one at a time. Several kids were called at any one time so that made it less work, but more chaotic. The boys and girls each had their own game going- gee, I wonder why? 😀 )We won this game despite the odds-evening attempt against us (we were doing too well by this time) by giving us less numbers so when #10 or 11 were called we couldn’t go. Well, at first we did pick someone to go for those numbers as normal for when one team has more than another, but were “corrected” when caught and accused of cheating. Well, we really did what was normal so we weren’t cheating, but in the director’s mind the number we had was it, no extras to be given. I think he should have explained this better. Well, it was still all good fun and the kids enjoyed it.