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.