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.

smelly

Y'all. This summer is halfway over. Today marked the official end to Session 4, and there are only 8 sessions, which means that we are on the downhill slope. This information is blowing my mind. I've never been able to stay at camp for the entire summer because school in the States is on a different schedule from Canada. I usually only made it through Session 6. There was that one summer I made it through Session 7 and then fly home and moved into my dorm to start classes in a 48 hour period. That was a nuts transition. So, I am really really excited to be able to stay this whole summer at camp and experience all the joy and shenanigans that Session 8 has to offer.

A Bug's Life was phenomenal this week. We decided to introduce a friendship/love triangle because who doesn't appreciate the drama of a good love triangle? The week started with the Stink Bug trying to get the Queen Bee's attention and her brushing him off. The week middled with learning that the Queen Bee had a history with the Stick Bug as well, so, naturally, the Stink Bug and the Stick Bug had to have an epic sing off to see who would ultimately gain her affection. For this sing-off, I re-wrote the lyrics to A Whole New World. Here is a sample of some of the lyrics:

"Unbelievable smells!

Indescribable odors!"

Best thing I've ever written. The Queen Bee chose the Stink Bug and they went off to cause mischief together. Sally Wee Bee eventually bested them and laked the Stink Bug and was then crowned the new Queen of the Hive! It was a busy week.

The LITs came to Adventure Camp for their placements this week and will be here for the next week as well. LIT stands for Leader in Training. The LITs are each paired with a senior leader who has been in a chalet for a while and knows the ropes. It is the hope that the LITs would learn from watching their senior leaders as well as acting on the job. They refresh us. They come in right at the middle, so the AC staff have had plenty of time to get tired. The LITs bring a new energy and new excitement for what is happening (especially theme, which the senior leaders have seen several times by now). They are a gift. And it's so amazing to watch them learn and figure out what their strengths are. They reminds me to keep learning.

His voice

One of the greatest things I have ever seen arrived today in the mail. The wonderful Anna Reynolds managed to somehow find a Jane Austen Devotional book. In case you don't know, a devotional book is a collection of entries so that you can read one a day and reflect on some scripture or a part of God's character or how faith in Christ affects daily life. The Jane Austen devotional pairs passages of Jane Austen books with scripture to help the reader "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus, who through his death and resurrection woos you with the declaration, 'Surely, you must know it was all for you.'" (The "Surely" line is something that Mr. Darcy says in Pride and Prejudice.) I am actually so excited to do a daily devotion now because I've never sen anything so wonderful as a Jane Austen devo book.

Week 3 ends tomorrow. This has been a really great week and a really challenging week in a number of ways. Unexpected situations come up that must be dealt with. The program team employs immense amounts of creativity in order to make sure that everything comes together. Given the threat of rain this week, we brainstormed normal activities and alternate activities for several days. We had to make calls about which we were going to do and then ensure that there was adequate time to prep for those activities. This afternoon, there was an absolute monsoon outside. That's fine. We set up a number of indoor stations for the hour so that kids could move from one indoor location to the next. I was manning a stations where kids decorated small fabric patches for our sail as it had gotten torn in the crash.

Then we were told that we needed to keep the kids inside indefinitely and not even let them move outside between stations because the storm was so bad. I got the really neat opportunity to read the kids stuck in my activity the story of Jesus calming the storm (I read it out of the Jesus Storybook Bible, which is my most favorite children's Bible of all time). You know the one: Jesus and the disciples get in a boat and set sail, Jesus falls asleep, a massive storm rolls in, the disciples lose their minds in fear and wake Jesus up, and Jesus calms the storm with a few words. I love the way this children's Bible put it because it says Jesus spoke:

"And the strangest thing happened... The wind and the waves recognized Jesus' voice.

(They had heard it before, of course - it was the same voice that made them, in the very beginning.)"

There us something so amazing and warm about the way that's written. Creation obeys the Lord because it recognizes His voice. Another leader helped me debrief it with the kids, so we talked about how God is bigger than our fears and how He is in control. It was a really awesome moment.

I can't believe Week 3 is over. This week went by so quickly. It's back to A Bug's Life next week. Who knows what new shenanigans the bugs will get into this week...

water water water

In case anyone was wondering, the little bee and her bug friends were able to best the stink bug, and he went the way of most theme villains: we laked him. This week, theme is back to Shipwrecked. We made the excellent decision to start theme coming in from the water. Here's how it worked: During dinner, we played this radio static sound effect followed by the S.O.S. Morse code beeps and then had the captain of the ship make a mayday call. The kids always head down to the beach after dinner on Sundays for the waterfront safety talk, so we all hid along the shore and behind the boats tied to the docks. Once the talk was done, the program team slipped out of our hiding places and swam into shore to ask the kids where we had ended up and lament the fact that we were shipwrecked. The overarching concept we are going for with this one is community and the importance of everyone putting their God-given gifts together.

It has been unbelievably hot here for the past week. The program team has been running around manning water stations everywhere. These kids won't go down on our watch! We've been brainstorming how to incorporate water based games into every hour of the day and giving the kids popsicles. I couldn't even fall asleep last night because I was so hot. It's been challenging to make sure that everyone has enough water, but we are doing a pretty good job thus far, I think. The Blaze Village has a pretty epic sponge fight the other day. It really just devolved into kids throwing sponges at their leaders until somebody grabbed a hose and all bets were off.

Today  is my day off. I don't have any big plans. I went for a swim in a futile attempt to cool off. I did some laundry and then took a cold shower in a second futile attempt to cool down. This evening, if the bugs aren't too bad, I may put up my hammock and write some letters in the shade. That would be so lovely.

The stars have been amazing up here at night. I would never in my life break curfew (haha.... ha), but when I am out late, I always make sure that I look up at the sky. The stars are so vivid and incredible. God is so vast.

and know

This week's theme is A Bug's Life. In case I haven't said it before, I am the Assistant Director of Program, which means that part of my job is to help organize and play a part in theme, which is like a week-long set of skits that the kids get really excited about. This week, I am Sally Wee Bee, the littlest bee who doesn't really fit in at the hive. I've left to go find somewhere I fit in better, but little do I know that Stinky Pete, a stink bug, has kidnapped the Queen Bee, and I am desperately needed back at the hive so that I can help get the Queen back. It has been really fun thus far and the kids are really enjoying this week's theme. The very first time that I was supposed to make an entrance and be introduced to the kids as my character, I was running excitedly into the dining hall and hit the puddle that exists under the big water coolers. I bailed so hard. I absolutely face-planted, but I wasn't hurt beyond my pride and a bruise on my knee. Most people didn't see me fall, but I was laughing so hard as I got back up and proceeded to the stage. I was a mess, but I got through my lines!

Some things here at Pioneer never change. One of my favorite of those things is the nurses. The same nurses have been coming to Adventure Camp for years, so, even though they switch out every week or two of the summer, you get to know the returning ones over the years. Two of my favorite nurses are here this week that I remember from my years on staff in the past. I spent a fair amount of time in their office today trying to restore moisture to my dried out feet. We shared stories and laughed and generally had a lovely visit. The two of them are currently hosting a spa for some of the staff, which they've done every year. They set out cookies and foot baths and wonderfully smelly things. It brings a smile to my face to think about it! Then I think about my grandmother who used to be a camp nurse here. I think of the ways she might have cared for or encouraged the campers but especially the staff while she was here. It may not have been a spa, but I think it must have been wonderful.

I got to feeling discouraged at some point. I wondered what I was really doing and if I were doing enough and feeling the separation from campers that can happen when one is a part of the senior staff instead of a chalet leader. It's so amazing to me the ways that God gently reassured me that he delighted in what I was doing. One of my favorite campers showed up on the first week of camp and has stayed for this second week as well. He is always game for a hug or high-five, we danced to one of the worship songs at Bible Adventure together, and he puts a smile on my face every time I see him. I sat down to breakfast on Monday all bleary-eyed and loopy and immediately made friends with the little girl across from me who was asking the silliest questions and laughing so hard. I got to go out in a paddle boat with a few boys at the waterfront where an entire paddle boat armada (4 boats) raced around trying to ram into each other. I got to cover a chalet during quiet hour while the leader had Bible Study, and I proved my merit by being the one who could make the best paper airplane and the fearless killer of flies. The Lord is quietly saying, "You are trying so hard, and I just want you to be."

One of the year-round staff is from North Carolina. He and his two sons recently road tripped to NC to visit the grandparents and returned a few days ago with a fresh stock of Tar Heel gear. His littlest one was wearing an awesome Tar Heels outfit today, and it warmed my soul every time I saw him!

I feel old.

The other day, I was walking to the dining hall when one of the younger staff called my name.

"Rogue?"
"Yeah! What's up?"
"You were my leader when I was a camper at Adventure Camp."

What... After another conversation, I found out that she was one of the first campers I had when I did my placement through the LIT program in 2007 (LIT is camp's Leader in Training program and everyone spends two weeks at one of the sites learning from a senior leader). How insane is that?! I am one of those leaders who has been around long enough that my campers are now showing up as staff. That is nuts.

Today I was able to participate in the wide game that the oldest section of campers was playing after dinner. This was one of my all-time, favorite games, Capture the Human Flag. This game is very much like capture the flag, only the flags are leaders entirely painted in a color so as to be a human flag. Here is a picture of me being a human flag way back when I was a young leader way back in 2009, maybe:

I'm the one in red.

Even though that was a long time ago, you can now visualize what I am talking about. It is one of the best camp games ever invented. Capture the Flag is already awesome, but when the flags are actual leaders that the kids recognize and interact with on a daily basis, that really just kicks it up a notch. Today, I was a green flag, and, after an hour of running around in the woods being chased by kids and leaders alike, myself and the other flags headed down for a quick swim in the lake where we were able to wash off the paint. I was left with a slightly greenish complexion, but it should all wash off in a day or so!