Reflections from the Summer

As the days are now counted down to less than a week till I go back to school, and I have not much better to do than watch my cats stalk each other, I figured I should look back and reflect on the past summer experience and draw some conclusions.

I worked at Camp Cherokee for the better part of this summer, about 8 weeks. I readily admitted that I never really wanted to work at camp. I never went to camp myself. I didn’t grow up around horses and canoes, archery or sailing. And I never felt a burning desire to experience these things. Therefore the thought of going to or working at camp was never foremost in my list of summer ambitions. However, through several circumstances: volunteering last year and the persistent bugging of the camp director are notable; I ended up working at camp this summer. I was hired as a counselor and craft assistant. Crafts largely involved ceramics which I had never done before. But that soon became comfortable with the presence of one of my good friends in crafts with me. By the end of the summer I was running the craft house by myself and despite breaking a couple ceramics and a window on the craft house, I did fine.

As far as being a counselor…that was an interesting experience. I am the type of person who has ideals for everything and thinks about things a lot. However, as far as practical experience, I am usually lacking.

It is interesting how satan takes advantage of our weaknesses. I alluded in a previous blog how starting the summer at camp was such a struggle in that I felt that satan was plaguing my mind with doubt. This will always happen when one steps out of their comfort zone. Camp was outside of my comfort zone in about every possible way. I don’t like being in charge. I am not naturally assertive. Being in charge of the craft house and especially as a counselor I had to be on top of things and not passive. We started with teen week and that was a tremendous struggle. In the middle of the week I was sitting on the director’s porch crying out my frustrations. However, I survived. I can never thank Kristin, my co-counselor enough for her presence that week. Junior week and adventurer week were such blessings compared to teen week. We had several incidents. Bed wetting, homesickness, girls fighting amongst themselves. It was stressful and exhausting. But rewarding. I think generally speaking I did a good job.

Family Camps were fantastic. I enjoyed them immensely. It was a welcome break from 24/7 supervising children. There was more free time and it was great to be around families. Ministering was a different concept with the families than the kids. With the kids we could essentially say “let’s talk about Jesus..” but with the families it was different. And for me, I felt that some of the families were ministering to me more than we were them. It was such a blessing to be around families which were centered on Jesus. It seems like only the families I see day to day are so messed up. And yes, there were those too at camp, but there were families where it was so obvious that the parents loved Jesus and were working to have a Godly relationship with their spouses and children. It was so encouraging and inspiring to see.

Some other notable camp memories are:

• · Doing Bible studies with the kids. One girl had absolutely no knowledge of the Bible. She didn’t know what the Garden of Eden was or who Adam and Eve were. And it was amazing to see her start reading her Bible at nights.
• · Our Sabbath afternoon activity was a walk through the 2300 days. The kids went through a walk through the woods and around campus and met people through history and different activities. I was a “deceiver” who tried to make the kids leave their path and then they would be arrested. It was hilarious fun.
• · Days off randomness: camping, eating fudge, lake placid, hiking gorge for $10, walking barefoot when my flip flop broke etc etc
• · The “Gallant Gentleman” of Cherokee had a breakfast for the “Lovely Ladies” of Cherokee
• · Salty the camp cat was the most matted animal I have ever seen. She was appalling. I took scissors to her mats whenever I could.
• · Having my eye nearly swell shut from bug bites during staff week. “Little lady with the eye problem.”
• · Running in to a door and soon after falling flat on my butt in mud when trying to enact revenge on a worthy person. Revenge is never worth it. I had not been so dirty in years.
• · Speaking of which, I was always dirty. I don’t think I was clean all summer.
• · The cinnamon sugar toast epidemic during kid’s camps. I have never seen children eat so much toast in my life. Those kids ate way more than me.
• · My first kayaking experience. Although there was much whimpering and whines, it was fun.
• · My first horse riding experience since I was 13. It’s like a slow cumbersome car.
• · My first archery experience. Though several arrows were lost in the woods, it was grand. I did manage to hit the targets. Some of those bows are hard. It’s harder than it looks.
• · The raccoons that were adorable.
• · Being a drunkard in the passion play.
• · The most amazing cherry, orange, various fruit jelly I have ever had.
• · One of my girls chewed through a glow stick and had it in her mouth.
• · Bedwetting and homesickness.
• · Lice…..and the pink eye that threatened being an epidemic.
• · CPR
• · Praying over the kilns, that they would work. (they were questionable)
• · Shooting stars and the call of loons in the night.

There are many more I am sure. So, do I want to go back to camp? Well, I don’t know. I feel like I missed out on a lot of the enjoyment I could have had simply because I didn’t know what to expect. That would be different if I returned. When people have asked me how camp was, I have been responding “character-building.” It definitely was. Christ gave me strength in my weakness. Those verses of “my strength is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness…for when I am weak, then I am strong” were definitely the promise I claimed, especially during kid’s camps. I enjoyed getting to know the staff. I wish everyone had stayed through family camps because there was definitely more hang-out time then.

Overall it was definitely a positive experience. I felt at home there. And learned a lot. I actually wasn’t exhausted when I left. It actually progressively got easier throughout the summer. However, the last week for some reason the Pastors/teachers wanted breakfast at 7am which was lovely. But besides still getting up early, the stress was minimized as the summer went on.

So in one week I will have had class today. I’m very excited to go back to SAU, my best friend and our apartment. I have very high expectations for my senior year of college. Can you believe it? I sure can’t.

I cut my hair- not the best pics
but I'm not great at posing for myself