Lee University...the second time around

So last time I was here I had NO CLUE what in the world I was doing....this thing called camp was overwhelming and I was working with a bunch of people who I know that I liked but I didn't really know them....

Now, I have somewhat of an idea of what I'm doing (or at least I have gotten good at acting like it :-)) and I know why I like my team.

Our week of camp was really great. I did learn something though: Florida people are a bit weird...not always a bad weird (a good number of people on my team are from Florida) just a different weird. Our speaker that weeks was Sam Bhatt. I didn't know who he was going into the week but this man was AMAZING. He is a minister in every sense of the word. He cared for the students, the youth ministers and our staff. He would get up early and stay up late just to come to our staff meetings (we meet every morning at 7:30am and after worhsip every night) just so that he would better know how to help us and help the students.

The third night of camp was possibly one of the most authentic times of worship that I have every participated in. As a staff, each morning we are studying the book of Joshua together. In the third chapter, the nation of Israel is preparing to cross over into Jericho but must first cross over the Jordan River, which is in the midst of it's flood stage. In order for the people to be able to cross over, God tells Joshua to have the priests step into the water and when they do, the water goes back and the people are able to cross on dry ground. Our camp theme for this summer "The Way" taken from Acts 19:23 ("And about that time there was a great disturbance about the Way"). So, that night, Sam re-created the crossing of the Jordan River. The students, if they felt so called, were able to walk done and cross through the water, step onto dry ground and pick up a stone as a reminder of their commitment to the way, just as the people of Isreal did in Joshua 3. As a staff, our job was to line the "river area" and pray for the students as they walked through. For some reason, that week I had felt this extra burden on my heart for these students...things I had heard from youth pastors about the students just broke my heart. To be able to sit their, surrounding these students and vocalize outloud my prayer from this was...an opportunity I would not trade for anything.

Moving onto this week...today was registration day, which is normally my hardest and most crazy day of the week. But, for some reason, today was CRAZY easy! I still had hard things to deal with (toliets over flowing and needing to move people to a different room because of it, churches adding 14 people the night before camp and wanting all of them to have beds...etc) but, I never felt the desire to cry! :-) In fact, I even bought some stuff online from Old Navy today! I definatly count today as a blessing!

My team and I have started joking about the little things that we now are so much more grateful for because of the fact that we live in camp world...be looking forward to a list in the near future of these things...I think all of you will find some of them quite humerous. :-)

By the way, you should leave me a comment so that I know who all is reading this and that I'm not just typing to myself....that's too much like talking to yourself and I'm weird enough without doing that....:-)

Well...off to sleep I go!

Grace and peace!

Registration Day in Florida

Well, today is registration day in Florida. I'm sitting in the camp office waiting for one more church to get here. All in all, today seems to have gone pretty smoothly....I had a few rough spots to overcome but, don't we all :-)

Florida is....humid! We got spoiled last week in North Carolina with FANTASTIC weather and WONDERFUL food at Wake Forest and here at Stetson it is back to regular-ole cafeteria food and lots of heat and humidity. 

We got here at midnight on friday and loaded in starting at one on saturday. Most often, it seems that the production staff is up really, really late doing last minute touches on the set, lights and sound but.....yesterday....EVERYTHING was done by 8:30! It was great! Me and some of my team went swimming and then hung out at IHOP. It was great to relax and just hangout with my team.

We have just over 1000 campers this week...which is our smallest camp so far.

Overall, I'm doing pretty good. I finally feel confident in my job and like I actually have a clue what I am doing. My team has made it through the "honeymoon" phase and have become a lot more real with each other.

Office just got crazy....I'm off

Wake Forest University....Reg Day

Hey all...

Well my team and I finished camp up at SFA on Saturday, loaded out and drove to Birmingham. Spent the night in BHAM and then drove all day until about 6:00 when we arrived and loaded in at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Normally, we start load in around 1:00pm and finish about midnight but, because of the distance we had to travel, we started much later and thus finished much later. In spite of tiredness, today has been a really GREAT day. Registration was crazy as usual but went really well especially considering that this is our first time in about 10 years at this location.

Before I left for the summer, many of us joked about how I was going to become an expert at which cafeterias had good which and which had.....really yucky food. Well, so far this summer, I have had some NOT good food but this week....the food is AMAZING! When my team walked in for our first meal today before the campers arrived, we got so excited when we saw all of the fresh food that we started hugging each other. MaDe much of the sleepiness go away.

Well, it feels like my summer is really officially in swing. We don't have a day off until the end of summer. Each day will either be spent at camp or traveling to a camp. Normally, this would not sound fun at all but my team is really great to travel with. We have kind of un-officially divided ourselves into vans and the people that I have been spending most of my time with in the vans are GREAT. 

I would love to hear what's going on in everyone's lives whether in form of an e-mail or a letter. A phone call would be great, but I am not really able to spend much of my time on the phone.

Well, it's almost time for a quick group meeting so off I go.

Grace and peace to all!

Stephen F. Austin Day 3

Hello all...

Well, camp at SFA is over half over. This has def. been a very crazy week. We have just over 1700 campers this week and a very large campus; both of which make life interesting. On the upside, next week we will be doing camp in North Carolina and for what we have seen so far, that week will be much easier than this week, even though it will be Student Life's first time ever at that location.

One of the highlights of this week so far was most certainly last night when one of our guys put at turtle in one of the girls showers.....needless to say, she freaked out just a bit....VERY funny!

I got to see my grandmother yesterday. She was in town and called me and I was able to go to lunch with her. Tomorrow, my parent's are driving to see me :-) They will be here just in time to help make nametags for next week of camp! I will take all the hands I can get when it comes to name tags. I'm really excited about seeing them because I will not see them again until I come home August 11th and then I leave the next day for RA training.

Well, today is my day to help lead a FTO (free time option) so I'm off to get ready for that!

Grace and peace!

End of Lee University week 1

Greetings from Birmingham!

Today, we wrapped up our last week of camp, loaded out, drove three hours to Birmingham (I slept the entire way :-) ), loaded yet MORE stuff into our trucks for the next few weeks of camp, headed to our hotel and then ate fantastic Mexican food for supper. Now, I sit here in my hotel room (my roomate for the next two nights isn't back yet) and am enjoying the peace and quiet.

Tomorrow, we have one of our very few days off and I plan on enjoying it to the fullest. I will get more than 5 hours of sleep, do some housing work (which I don't mind cause I get to do it in my PJ's) and then head to a minor league baseball game. We leave on Sunday and drive from here to SFASU in Nacodoches (sp?) Texas for our second camp where we are expecting around 1500 people. It is also there that I will get to see my family which I am VERY happy about!

This first week was a great week. For the majority of our team, this is the first week of camp EVER for us to be staff. Lots of us (the majority in fact) have never worked for SL before. This had made for some rough patches as we figure out what in the world we are doing but our team has fantastic leadership who do a great job of teaching us how to do our job. Without them, we would be a mess.

Well, I think I'm going to go read a book because I can :-)

Grace and Peace!

Michelle, Alyssa and me at a mall in Tennessee two nights before camp started.

Lee University day 2

Hi blog world friends!

Today is day two of week one of camp. Yesterday was registration day and I can honestly say that I have never worked so hard in my life. Oddly enough, I really enjoyed it! (I guess there is a reason I am doing this job). 

We have just under 1200 people at camp this week. I got to worship late last night so I sat in the very back and as I sat down I was overwhelmed as I looked around the room and saw the students and it hit me....all of these kids have a place to sleep....it might be on the floor, but it is still a place to lay down their pillows. It was another "insignificant" moment in that there was NO WAY that I would have done that on my own....only through God taking the rooms and multiplying them (my theme verse for the summer is from Matthew 15 where Jesus has compassion on the people, doesn't send them away and feeds them). I am also blessed to be working with an amazing staff. Our products girl did housing last year and our event coordinator did housing her first year. They have helped me in SO many ways!

Well, I'm off to work again!

Grace and Peace!