Quite Time and Small Group

The first session is just after breakfast. We have our students broken up into small groups and have them get into their groups and have personal quite time and group devotions. Each day the leader speaking in the evening service put together this session for the students. For example, during my session I had them read Acts 6 and 7 during their personal quite time and go through these questions

1. Read: Acts 6 & 7 (You can take some notes here)
2. In Acts 6:1-7 what does it say about Stephen? What was his job?
3. In Acts 6:8-11 Why did they arrest Stephen?
4. What surprised you about Stephen in Acts chapter 7?

This was in the handy dandy notebook that we put together for each student. This tied into my sermon in the evening. In the group devotion I had them go through this

1. If You Had a Super Power, what would it be?
2. Let’s say the most powerful person in the world called you and told you that they would do anything you asked, what would you ask for?
3. Read Matthew 25:14-28
4. What does the master say to the servants that invested their money?
5. What does he say to the one that hid his money?

Each leader handled theirs a little differently, but we did have some basic guidelines for the quite time.

Evening Service

You might call it chapel or something else, but this was the time just after dinner when we had a service that somewhat resembled a traditional church service. Each night we had a different speaker, but planned our topics together so everything would flow nicely.

• Sunday: Real Life Real Faith – Series intro from a local church pastor.
• Monday: Guys and Girls – Teen Dating
• Tuesday: The Title Fight – Christianity v. Atheism
• Wednesday: Live Out Loud (this was mine)
• Thursday: Transform Not Conform

With mine I provided a short fill in the blank for students. Each of these “lies” and “undeniable truths” were blank.

Lie #1: I’m OK, so I don’t need to do anything

Undeniable Truth: You are good with God, which is why you should do something.

Lie #2: Living a good life is enough; I don’t need to do anything extra

Undeniable Truth: Living right is only half the way, bold speech is the other half

Lie #3: I should keep my mouth shut and not offend others

Undeniable Truth: Letting people suffer, die, and go to Hell is much more offensive

Lie #4: The problem is too big

Undeniable Truth: God is Bigger

Lie #5: I’m just one person, I can’t make a difference

Undeniable Truth: God always uses one person to make the difference

Lie #6: I can do it all on my own

Undeniable Truth: You need God for any long term change

I used Stephen’s story in the chapters the students read during their quite time to illustrate the points.

Camp Fire

Camp fire is a lot of silly fun. We sing stupid songs, mostly things that have various gestures, and a shocking amount of pelvic thrusts (seriously I’m not sure how much pelvic thrusting is too much at youth camp but I think every single song requires at least one “ugghn” accompanied by a pelvic thrust. Also, I have said “pelvic thrust” way too many times so now this post is gonna get visit from someone looking for porn, so I should apologize to that person … sorry no nekkid people here, but feel free to look around anyway.) Eventually the songs become more worshipful and less pelvic thrusty and then a leader will often share or we open it up to student testimonies. I shared my testimony on my evening with an emphasis on my conclusion from the sermon, what are you willing to sacrifice to follow God. After the camp fire one student accepted salvation and several more rededicated their lives to God. The girls cabin ended up staying up crying, sharing, and praying till 2:30 in the morning. The next night students started sharing their testimonies till 2am, and we had started earlier. That is the most powerful part of camp, when students really start opening up and letting God use them to help each other.

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Lame Pranks

As I said, there were many lame pranks. I had some left over bacon put in my bed, a stolen trophy (the golden plunger of power) places under my pillow, and the cabin was messed up with bedding pulled half way out or flipped up. One of the other leaders had his stuff moved into the bathroom, the stuff on his bed moved to the floor, stuff under his bed moved to the top of his bed or just disappeared. The guys hung the cow tongue outside the girls’ cabin and the girls stole all the guys’ stuff that was hanging outside the cabin to dry. I could go on and on, but honestly … lame doesn’t even begin to grasp just how boring these pranks were.

Staff Pranks

I’ll admit, some of the staff pranks were … pathetic. A few were pretty good though. I posted a video of once student getting mayonnaise instead of ice cream during an ice cream eating contest. One of the female staff, who was right hand to the camp director, let it be known before camp she would have to leave if her sister went into labor. Half way through the week she got a call from her sister and told the director “I just got a call from my sister and need to go talk to …” With the information available the director made the logical leap that the staff person had to leave because her sister was in labor … oops. There was some fall out from that, but once it became known it was just a prank the director took it in good humor.

The funniest staff prank was when this same counselor quickly hid in a chest freezer and one of the leaders was sent to the freezer for more ice cream. My only regret is I wasn’t informed before so I could have the camera at the ready. He poured water on his pants and claimed it scared the pee out of him. Personally I think the water was just to cover up a real accident. (safety note: you should never climb inside a freezer, but if you do make sure that you let someone know so they can film the girlish scream of the West Virginia hillbilly youth leader.)

Creative Prank

The only prank from a student that really impressed me was done on my bunk. They took some “invisible” fishing line and strung it above the mattress, then put my sleeping bag and pillow on it. From a distance or in the dark it really looked like it was floating. All day they were waiting for me to see it, and even asked if I had. I did see it earlier in the day, but kept pretending I hadn’t. At the end of the night I walked in and they started talking to me, so I stood with my back to the bed talking to them, then walked out the back of the cabin so I couldn’t see the bed. When I came back I started talking to them again and backed into the bed without looking. The guys were so frustrated that I never looked, then I started laughing and congratulated them on what I felt was the most original prank done that year. Of course they’ll try and up it next year … so long as they put some thought and originality into the prank I’ll be happy.

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Actually I can’t complain too much about the sleeping arrangements. While I got less sleep than any of the guys (I think some girls got less than me) I did get more sleep this year than any previous camp. The dorms had huge attic exhaust fans, which really helped with the heat. One night I even considered zipping my sleeping bag, but then just rolled over and went to sleep. I am usually the last to go to sleep and was teh first up in the guys dorms all week. That’s just how things go at camp though. I got about 5-6 hours a night though, which is way more than the 2-4 hours I’m use to at camp. This left plenty of energy for fun at camp, not that a lack of sleep ever kept me from the fun. We played plenty of great games, so I figure I’ll kick off this series by talking about some of them, and a few other things we did in the “fun” category.

Soccer

Soccer is a lot of fun by itself, but we add to the excitement by using a 42″ ball. I’m not sure how many goals there were on each side, but getting such a large ball moving is tough, stopping it is even tougher. The highlight reel (if I had remembered to use the video camera) would surely include several of the smaller students being completely run over by the ball. Before you feel too bad for them, I let my own kids play with the ball and it was bigger than most of them.

Swimming

You can’t have camp without swimming. We did that every day. The pool was the nicest of any camp we ever used, between the bunks, pool, and cafeteria I really want to look into this camp again. Mostly the students just enjoyed chilling in the pool, splashing, and generally having fun. One day we went on a very short hike to a nice swimming hole in the river than ran along the camp. Students were given a choice between swimming in the river or in the pool. In the end most went to the pool, but the river was actually really nice. It was probably nicer since the adults in the river had much fewer students. The other really fun thing we did was a midnight (actually it was 2-3am) swim on the last night of camp. I cracked out about 150 glow bracelets and we had a great party. So worth the loss of 3 hours sleep.

Frisbee

Ultimate Frisbee is a super fun game, made even better by camp. If you aren’t familiar, the basic rules are:

• Two Teams
• Football like end zones
• Football like “throw off”
• Once you catch the Frisbee you have 3 steps to stop or throw the Frisbee
• Incomplete, out of bounds, or interception/knockdown results in a change of possession

There are several more rules, but that should give you some sense of how it plays. Of course, we can’t leave well enough alone, so the last 10-15 minutes was played with a frozen (but quickly defrosting) cow tongue. It is amazing how the students get into that. If you were wondering, you can’t really toss a tongue like a Frisbee, more like a bola since the tongue gets kind of stretched out.

Kickball

Again, with the giant soccer ball. I was surprised at how far the students could kick the ball, but more impressive was the manner in which some of the students were taken down. One was running for home when the ball completely bowled him over, another was running for home when someone ran into him with the ball. he tried jumping, but the ball just bounced him into the air, then he supermanned off the ball. I made sure he was ok before laughing … well I at least didn’t laugh to hard till I knew he was ok.

Gestapo

Three teams play at a time, running across an open field to try and put tickets into a bucket. The only thing stopping them, a tired group of adults looking for a bit pf payback holding tube socks with a cup of flour. The adults had to throw then recover the tube socks. Once a student was hit they had to return to the starting line before they could try and cross to the buckets again. Several of the students developed some great strategies to avoid getting hit, including sacrificing slower players as shields and jumping over the thrown socks. In the end I think I needed some O2.

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I wish I had more camp vids. There were so many great moments, like cow tongue Frisbee, Gestapo (a crazy fun game in which the adults pelt students with socks full of flour), and kickball with a giant soccer-ball. Oh well, maybe next year I’ll think of the camera more than once.

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Camp was this week and everyone survived. We had a great time. I’ll try to write on this when I get some sleep. For now, we could use prayer about the camp finances.

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