difficult goodbye

Week 8 was amazing. It was absolute chaos in every possible way, and it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. We rocked A Bug's Life one last time. We set this week up as a bees vs. bug's feud where Stinky Pete and Sally Wee Bee were star-crossed friends caught in the middle of a long standing argument over land (it was Romeo and Juliet without the suicide ending). Throughout the week, more and more bed bugs kept showing up until the king bed bug sang an epic song to the tune of Titanium about how he was going to come and take over the land and kick the bees and bugs off of it. Bed Bugs were our leaders dressed in onesies and other sleeping gear and a headband with pipe-cleaner antennae. It was amazing. The bed bug king kidnapped Sally by putting her to sleep with a lullaby and carrying her off and he stole all the bees and bugs stuff and hung them high in the trees (yes, bees can fly, but for the purposes of the game, we needed to unlock ropes that were holding things up in the trees). The bees and bugs then united against the bed bugs. The Discovery Village went on an epic hike to find Sally and bring her back to camp and Blaze and the Ex got all the stuff down from the trees. We laked the bed bugs, everyone decided to share the land, and order was restored!

There were other things that made Week 8 nuts. All on Friday, we ran the theme-related wide game with the keys, hosted an all-camp Say So, and pulled off FNL. The all-camp Say So was on the beach and we lit lanterns (like the ones in Tangled) and fireworks after debriefing things and acting out a story book. The fireworks were so sweet. The lanterns were cool until one or two of them floated back down, still fully on fire, and landed in trees. That was great.

FNL was so awesome. It's Friday Night Live, and it's a time of staff appreciation and fun right as the summer is ending. We rewrote the lyrics of Thrift Shop to be about camp and program and then filed a music video as an intro. Hopefully, that will be given to me in some form, and I'll be able to post it here for the world to see. There were so many other great inside jokes, skits, challenges, songs, and blindfolded dodgeball made a reappearance. It was just as hilarious this time as it was last time. There was pizza and ice cream and other delicious goodies to consume. The night ended with our mayors telling a few stories of the summer, some musical worship, and our director sending us out with some encouraging words about God the shepherd. All in all, it was an amazing night, and I am so happy that we pulled it off so well!

The last Saturday of camp was hard. I've always left camp a week or two before it was over, so I never had to fully see the empty site and put everything away for the last time or witness so many goodbyes at once. It was difficult to say the least. I don't fully have a handle on all that happened this summer, so I won't try to write about it all at once. It will come out little by little as I get some distance. All I know for sure is that I am blessed beyond measure and that God delights so beautifully in Adventure Camp and all the little hearts that run around there all summer.

So, I now find myself on the program team at Fuel. Fuel is a week-long-end-of-summer camp for teens run out of the Boy's Camp site. There are a good number of AC's younger chalet leaders and LITs here as campers and some of our senior staff here as leaders in various capacities. The theme for this week is Jumanji, which I find comical because I have always found that movie terrifying, and I hated it as a child. It's pretty cool though because the camp is divided into four teams and they are competing against each other to see who will be able to make it out of the game.

I am exhausted in every possible way. I miss AC and all the kids running around. It rained for the past 24 hours. The good news is that God is good, and this will be an amazing week and just as impactful for the campers and staff here as every other week at camp has been thus far this summer.

connecting

My mother asked me a specific question the other day that I would like to write about. I'll write another post soon about Week 8 and the summer coming to a close, but, for now, you get to read my response to my mother.

She wanted to know how the themes and skits that program did every week aligned with the Bible teaching the kids got that same week. Every day, our kids go to something called Bible Adventure where they sing and dance about how amazing God is (one of my favorite songs is "Jesus, You're my Superhero") and get some small teaching before splitting off into their sections and doing a small activity to really hit the point home. Our two Bible Adventure leaders this summer were Sucre and Vyve, and they did an absolutely amazing job. There were two weeks of Bible Adventure that alternated: All Aboard! (about everyone using their specific gifts together to bring glory to God) and Little People Big Things (as it sounds, it was about little or seemingly insignificant people in the Bible who did really big, incredible things). Throughout the summer, our program themes aligned in some ways with the Bible Adventure topics. All Aboard and Shipwrecked were together and Little People Big Things was always with A Bug's Life.

For the skits of Shipwrecked, the plot usually progressed so that we were stranded on an island, we each came up with our own ideas of how to get off the island and then argued and fell apart or some villain incited dissension so we fell apart, then we would be reunited by the captain talking sense into us or having to come together against the villain, we would put our gifts together and manage fix the boat and get off the island! For a Bug's Life, there was usually a small, misfit bug who wasn't really accepted or listened to, there would be some imminent danger or a villain mucking up the scene, the little bug would come up with a big plan or unite everyone against the villain and end up saving the day.

At the end of every week, either in their separate villages or all together, the campers would have something called a Say So Campfire. It is a time to reflect on the week, debrief Bible Adventure and all the true stories, and debrief theme. It often becomes a discussion of how the stories in the Bible are true, and, even though the story of theme isn't true, it holds a truth in it. So, the kids are able to see the parallel between the story of how God gave Moses, Aaron and Miriam special gifts that they used together to lead their people out of Egypt and how each one of the ship's crew had special gifts (navigation, ship repair, strength, etc.) and they could only succeed and get off the island if they put those gifts together.

Though it was tricky at times to make sure that everything was aligned and made sense, it was super rewarding when it worked well. It was a lot easier for the kids to see the continuity and make connections between what they were learning about God and what they were seeing in our skits. Learning things that are immediately applicable is the best kind of learning.

being a villain

It was back to Shipwrecked for one last time this past week. We decided to really switch it up and go for more of a Robin Hood of the Seas plot line with some similar mishaps and ship wreckage throughout the course of the week. I played the role of Admiral Nottingham, the meanie who was taking things from the people. We staged this whole thing where I took the candy from the people (aka campers) and Robin's crew came in fooled me, and got all the candy back and returned it to the people. For my grand entrance, I met the kids on the waterfront right after their rules talk. My lines included,

"I only have two rules: Rule #1 What's mine is mine. Rule #2 What's yours is also mine."

I was putting on a thick Southern accent and really channeling Anna Reynolds and the deep country. This is a conversation that happened immediately after the kids met my character between a Disco camper (age 6) and the Discovery mayor D'Brev:

D'Brev: What's wrong bud?

Boy: It's just really sad. We won't be able to go swimming this week.

D'Brev: Why not?

Boy: You heard her. What's ours is hers. She's gonna take our bathing suits.

Why he immediately assumed that I would steal his bathing suit is a mystery, but D'Brev managed to clear that up with him pretty quickly. 

There were times when I really liked being the villain. I got to sink the other crew's ship and kidnap Robin. At one point, the good crew was feeling so low that they had to express themselves through song, which is why Wynd-it and I rewrote the lyrics to Taylor Swift's "We are never ever ever getting back together" to sound more like "We are never ever getting the boat back together." I pretty much cried with joy throughout the entire performance as I was on tech rather than singing myself. I got to be super sassy and cranky all the time, and the campers would try to prove that I was the bad guy. I (as myself, Rogue) covered for a leader's hour off one day, and this chalet of boys spent the better part of the hour discussing how I could or could not be the robbert (yes, that is robber with an extra t at the end). One line of evidence that was presented was that the robbert was a girl and that I too was a girl. They definitely had their thinking caps on for that one. Blaze boys are amazing. 

At the end of the week, the whole camp played this game where I as the Admiral had challenged them to see if they could scare off my crew, the toughest, roughest crew on the waters. To the Discovery Village, I issued the special challenge of having to find me (I hopped on an open topped boat and paddled out to hide behind one of the large voyageur canoes we keep moored out in the lake). Disco flooded into paddle boats and a canoe and chased me all around the AC waterfront. They eventually caught up to me, circled me, and trapped me in a paddle boat prison. It was so awesome! When they got me out of my boat and brought me to the beach, they buried my feet in special sand traps so that I wouldn't be able to get away. There was even one little boy who tried to encourage me and cheer me up as my character was upset that she hadn't won the challenge: "It's ok. Everybody has to lose sometimes." 

I can't even believe that Week 8 starts tomorrow. A number of my friends from previous camp years are up to be part of camp this week, like Pipes and Daffi and even a few more. We have an extra set of hands on the program team this week, which we are definitely going to need. Program next week is going to be insanity because there are so many things that we will be doing: Glow Show, all-camp campfire, regular theme but pumped up beyond belief, preparing for and executing Friday Night Live (FNL- an extended time of staff appreciation for the end of the summer). I am so excited that all of this is happening and that I get to be a part of it. I've always had to leave camp early (the latest I made it to was the end of Session 7) because school starts earlier in the South than it does in Canada, so it is such an incredible gift that I get to stick it out til the end this year!

Disco D for the D

There are a few vocabulary terms that you will need to master before you will be able to understand this post:

Village- the name we give to each section where the kids are placed based on age

Discovery Village- the youngest kids at Adventure Camp, ages 5 and 6

Mayor- the head of the section that handles all the big stuff for that village

Deputy- a specific member of the program team assigned to tailor activities to one village 

L-Team- this is our Leadership Team made up of senior staff

Activity Staff- usually also a part of L-Team, they lead the activities and handle site work and cover chalets when leaders have an hour off (they run this place)

The majority of L-Team have their days off during the week, so other staff are pulled to fill in the gaps for the evening when that person is gone. I have my day off during the week, and so do all of the deputies. Usually, when a deputy has a day off, one of the activity staff affiliated with the village that deputy is from will take over for the evening and do those announcements and make sure that programming continues to run. This week, we are a little low on spare activity staff, so I became the Discovery Deputy for the Day as Parker took his day off. It was magical. Disco has all of our youngest kids complete with their lack of full motor control and outrageous capacity to laugh and love. I have actually never worked with Disco before, so it was really fun to step in for the day not knowing exactly what we would do. 

Evening program (fun times after dinner before bed) was supposed to be outside, but the weather has taken a turn for winter here apparently, so I decided to keep them inside since their little bodies really can't handle the cold. Instead, we went into the Lodge and occupied the upstairs living room. I put Disney music on the boombox, closed all the curtains so that it would be a little darker, and gave every kid a glow stick. It was the most beautiful kind of chaos I had ever seen. There were 17 little ones and probably 5 to 10 leaders all dancing and running around in circles, screaming with joy. If there were ever a moment when I was sure that God was delighting in something, it would be this one. Yes, a number of them did run directly into one another, and yes, more than one person was whipped in the face with a glow stick, but these are minor details compared to how amazingly wonderful the glow stick madness was.

This past weekend, the program team went to WalMart and all got Duck Dynasty shirts. I don't know how it happened, but it became a competition where we are all wearing our shirts every day at all times and the one who keeps his/hers on the longest wins. If you are ever caught without your shirt, the person who catches you will count to 30. If you can get the shirt on before that person gets to 30, then you are safe. If not, you are out. I am in it to win it. This shirt doesn't even smell that bad yet (thank you early Canadian winter times).

people I know

Lat summer, I was working in Richmond, Virginia with a Christian non-profit named CHAT (Church Hill Activities and Tutoring). The way the summer internship works is that ever intern lives in the home of one of the families who has moved in to pursue urban ministry in Church Hill. There is one family who not only hosted an intern for the summer, but also hosted all the interns in their home more than once for meals or hang outs. I can't remember how we found out, but, at some point, I figured out that the dad had grown up coming to Ontario Pioneer Camp and that one of the boys was going to be at camp that summer. The best part of this story is that all the kids are here this week at camp! The two boys are at Adventure Camp and their daughter is at Girls' Camp as well as the daughter of one of the other CHAT staff who was my caregiver last summer. Seeing their whole family on Saturday and getting so many warm, Southern hugs felt like getting to see a little piece of home. Given that the boys are both at Adventure Camp, I see them all the time! I get to eat meals with them, hang out with them at the playground, and I am planning to take them to go see the chickens one afternoon this week. It's so fun to have people I know from home be at camp.

I also talked with two different people who remember working with my mother when she was at camp. It's incredible to me the connections and lasting memories that people create here. Every week, I feel like I meet some older staff who tell stories about running into their old campers. Then I have conversations with staff who remember my mom working here in the 80s. Then one of the young LITs who was here at AC for her observation day hears my name and says, "Oh, Rogue. You were my leader!" (The best part is that I actually remember this one!) It makes camp feel like this big, never-ending, multi-generational family.

I've been singing a lot. Yes, I do sing in theme for program from time to time, but mostly, I've just been singing as I walk places or wherever I'm sitting. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it must be good. I used to sing a lot when I was younger, but I stopped singing at some point. It feels good to hear the melodies I make.

chickens

This story ends with chickens, but it doesn't start there. As some of you may or may not know, one of the activities at Adventure Camp is called Early Settlers, and kids get to make candles, cook over a fire, make wooden spoon dolls and other fun things that pioneers may have done in the olden days. The Early Settlers activity has a coop of chickens for the kids to feed and collect the eggs and see what taking care of animals was like in the olden days. Almost no one at camp actually likes the chickens, and there is definitely no one at camp who likes the chickens as much as I do. I could easily sit outside their coop for an hour just hanging out and intermittently throwing food in for them to nom on and gathering the eggs.

In my role as Assistant Program Director, I don't get to spend too much time one on one with campers, which is definitely a big transition from my days as a chalet leader where I was always one on one with the kids. The other day, there was a camper in the nurses station and not too many staff around, so I was responded saying that I was free to walk her back to her chalet. I turns out that she was having a bit of a meltdown in the nurses station and was refusing to lay down, sit, go back to the chalet, really to do anything but stand in the corner. I exercised all my good leader skills and tried to distract her with various talking subjects or options of what we could do other than stand in the corner, but she wasn't having any of it. So, I called in one of her section heads thinking that I must have forgotten something or that she just didn't want to talk with me, but he had pretty much verbatim the same conversation with her and she was still refusing to do anything.

Then I decided to go for random. "You know what my favorite part of camp is? It's the chickens. Did you know we have chickens?" I could tell that she wasn't ready to move yet, but that I had piqued her interest. I talked about how you can feed them and collect the eggs and I just let the option of walking to visit the chickens sit in the air. Eventually, she decided that she wanted to walk with me up to see the chickens, so we went and had a lovely visit with the chickens eating out of our hand.

"Can we come back tomorrow, Rogue?"
"As long as it's alright with your leader."

So, we went back the next day. We collected the eggs and gave each one a name. We let the chickens pinch our palms as they ate and ate like they'd never been fed before. We have plans to go back tomorrow.

The best part of this story is not the victory that it was to get her out of the nurses station (though I was pretty proud of myself for that) but that a camper knows my name. She calls and waves to me every time she sees me. And I got to share one of my favorite things about camp with a little friend.