It's been awhile

Wow, I’m not very good at writing blogs anymore. France, it must have been you who got me to write so many blogs when I was in BC. So much has happened in the past four weeks. Four weeks of camp has come and gone. Every year its so different, but so good. New kids, new coaches, new assistant coaches, new churches, as well as seeing the familiar faces, which I love. I’ll try to give you a quick summary of each week:

Orangeville: This was a new church, but an old billet. My billet this year in Orangeville was one of my billets in my first year. It was really cool to reconnect with them. At camp we had 16 kids and they were great. We all knew the kids names before camp even began and it was such a relaxed atmosphere throughout the day. We had a couple of hours in the gym because of rain, but for the most part, I would look up and see dark clouds all around the field, but blue skies where the field was. The parent’s reaction to the camp was really cool as they didn’t know what to expect and were very impressed with the camp and what we taught their kids. Yes! We did our jobs properly!!

Bolton: Love Bolton. It was great going back again, although this year we had two teams, as Travis’ team helped us out. Since there were 8 coaches, more campers were allowed. We had 69 campers registered. It was really cool to hang out with another team and see how they do camps. But even better was seeing the familiar faces and catching up with them. Sonya and I stayed with Victoria, our photographer for camp, and she spoiled us the whole week, leaving something on our pillows every night.

The Creek: Was a little bit different. Monday, the campers didn’t really listen at all, and something felt off all day. So we went to the fields early on Tuesday morning and prayed. That day went so much better. The church sponsored 10 kids from City Kids in downtown Hamilton. They were really cool to hang out with. Tiffany and I had small groups together for a couple of days, just the two of us. She was really interested in the Bible and always wanted to read it. On Thursday, I told her that we were going to give her one to keep and she was so excited, constantly asking if she could have it right now, even though all the coaches still wanted to write in it.

Pioneer Camp: This week we didn’t have a church to go to so we went up to Ontario Pioneer Camp to be counsellors. We helped out with Adventure Camp and Jeremy, Sonya, and I were in Blaze (the 7-8 year olds) while Darren was in Explorers (9-10 year olds). It was a very different week as we didn’t really see each other, we didn’t do any soccer, and we were living in chalets with our campers. Bedtime was 8:30 which was really nice. The first couple of nights I was asleep before the campers were! Sabine was my highlight from the week. I didn’t really think that the campers were getting a lot out of the week from a spiritual point of view, but Friday night Sabine mentioned that she wanted to do her ABC prayer, but had a few questions before she said it. She had some pretty amazing questions and it was really cool to see her so interested and really thinking about what we were telling her.

Lakeshore St. Andrew's: This was also a different week for us, as we only had three coaches: Jeremy, Sonya, and myself as Darren had a wedding out east. It was also different because it was only ages 10-14 instead of 6-13. We had 14 kids and at first it was really hard for me as I let all their negative comments get to me. But then I realized what was happening and I gave it up to God. When I did that, I felt better and it felt like camp went a lot smoother. The billets were amazing. I just loved them. He was the youth pastor and was so honest about so many things and whether he knew it or not, challenged me, plus their kids were great. They were both adopted and it was really cool to hear their stories and it was such a reminder that every single kid is a child of God and deserves to be loved.