I *heart* Sabbath, part 2!

"Let me hear your one time..."
(this post-meal, pre-dining room vacating will only make sense if you've ever been at girl camp. If I hear it one more time........)

Yes, it's evening on Saturday, my wonderful Sabbath day! It's nice to relax, unwind, take it easy, not be on a schedule really! It's also different to be here instead of Ottawa during my time off, but I figured I'd get more rest that way... and also wouldn't be tempted to sneak in a game or two at No Borders (go Vixen!!).

I've received my schedule for next week, Girls II - and was quite happy to see that it was exactly the same as Girls I. For inquiring minds, it goes a bit like this:

Sunday is check-in day, campers have a swim, we go over emergency procedures, have dinner, play a game, snacks, bed.

Monday to Friday is rougly the same:
Polar dip at 7am, breakfast at 8:20, primetime at 9:10, staff meeting at 10:15 (girls do cabin cleanup during that time and get ready for their morning activities); activity 1 at 10:45 (i did cabin leader training), activity 2 at 11:45 (i thought waterski), lunch at 1pm, tuck at 1:45, activity 3 at 2:15 (free time for me!), activity 4 at 3:15 (free time for me!), free time at 4:15 (possibility of free time for me!), dinner at 5:30, a bit of free time, then evening game at 7:15, evening swim at 8:15, snacks at 9, evening devotions when back to cabin and lights out at 10:30pm. Add in the odd campfire, night game and thunderstorm... and you've got a week's worth of camp (Saturday is move-out day, and campers get picked up right after breakfast).

As you can see, there's not much down time when you're in cabin. I also slept rather lightly all week, so am quite tired now... am planning on skipping the staff movie/campfire tonight and head to bed around 9 instead. More campers are coming in tomorrow, i'm back in cabin, so energy levels have to be high!

A few highlights of the week:

• Having eight girls that went to bed when i said it was time to go to bed;
• Coming in second in the "clean cabin" contest - the girls did an amazing job every day;
• Playing tetherball with two of my campers (and getting beaten!);
• The silly evening games and their weird challenges - they really had us going on teamwork;
• A bagpipe serenade from one of the CREW kids to start off the evening game taking place in Scotland;
• Going with a zombie theme for our cabin video bit;
• The extra waterski runs i got in (and more 360s!) because all the girls wanted me to go with them;
• The "awkward questions" session at cabin leader training. Every cabin leader got asked a question that could viably be asked by a camper; we were then graded on our reply. Some questions were harder to answer than others, and some were just plain, well, awkward. I'm just happy someone else got "Er, what is a boner?" (I got "Susy called me fat! Am I fat?")
• Hanging out with my campers, chatting with them, getting to know them and getting insight on God from them. Everyone should talk about God with a 12-year-old. It's enlightening!

And two not-so-fun moments...

• Not getting a single uninterrupted night's sleep due to one of my campers speaking/yelling/screaming/crying in her sleep;
• Looking back, this is actually funny - one of the waterski staff, Pontoon (6 feet tall, slim athletic build, blond, total California surfer dude), is a bit of a hit with the girls campers. Okay, a big hit. At one point, i thought that if i heard "Pontoon this" or "Pontoon that" from my campers one more time, i was going to scream.

And now this tidbit, that i'm sure will make my workout buddies proud: during cabin leader training, we had a mini-competition between the leaders, earning points each day. On the last day, there was a tie for first place between me and Socksy. To break the tie, we were challenged to a plank-off! We had just eaten popsicles, so for me it was a rather nauseous plank - and i have no idea how long we lasted, but i won! Yay!

To finish off, two high moments on the spiritual front: the first was a great chat about God with one of my campers who dropped the "i'm not a believer" bomb on Friday; and perhaps the best was at the River (staff worship) on Monday night. I will not go into details now (if you want to know, ask me in person), but it was one of those moments where i really felt God speaking to me... and it really put me at peace.

Okay, I'll stop rambling now!

Tiredly yours,

Flick