Week One is Done

One week week of Junior Camp, one whirlwind weekend, and we're ready for week two! Not a lot of sleep has happened in the last week, but I'm the good kind of tired, and teens should be easier, right?

This last week I had the privilege of hanging out with "The Butterful Girls of the Centipede Slayer." I'm the Centipede Slayer, btw. I killed three this week, two with shampoo bottles and one with the end of a toilet brush. (Lesson learned: it never hurts to have your campers see you be brave. You'll get a cool nickname out of it.) The "butterful" part came from a discussion of a cupcake delivery service that we'll be starting soon. Stay tuned.

The Butterfuls are 10, 11, and 12. They love Minecraft (not Mindcraft, as I previously thought), mac n' cheese, and talking about boys. I taught them the proper uses of "y,all" and "all y'all" and they taught me all the many ways you can eat Spam. Our whole cabin was drafted to play the parts

of an Egyptian princess (that would be me) and her servants (the girls loved that) in a sermon illustration. They asked really good questions, and when I didn't have answers, which was a lot of the time, we looked for them together. I learned that discipleship can happen during a game of Frisbee golf or when doing an Elsa braid. I learned that girls struggle with the same things whether they're 10 or 20. I learned that when the girls ask what you're reading and you say Hosea, you'll have some major explaining to do, but it's so worth it to see them get their sin and see their Savior. And then they may teach you a thing or two.

On Wednesday night one of my sweet girls came back during the invitation crying. She was burdened for an unsaved friend and wanted help, first with her walk with God and then with her relationship with others. I don't remember the time I cried over a friend's salvation, and her emotion and deep love for the world around her was rebuking. Together we found out what God says about grace and how to live in a way that points to the Cross. It's still incredible to me that God brought me to such a beautiful place with such beautiful children to teach me His truth.

This week of camp was hard. There was a lot of work to do to get the campground ready, so we all started camp tired, but God was more than enough this week. After a relaxing afternoon Friday, we spent Saturday touring the island in an Amazing Race competition. The Blue Beard Buccaneers may have lost the week, but we counselors crushed it as a team this weekend. We ate a 30-scoop sundae in 7 minutes, jumped off a 35-foot rock into the ocean, conquered the world's largest maze, and lei'd a random stranger at the airport. Then we went back to the house and crashed before two Sunday services and two potlucks. We eat a lot here in Hawaii.

Michelle's basically an older, wiser, blonde version of me. She reminds me to laugh at myself and always knows what I'm thinking. You need friends like that at camp, so I'm pretty lucky to have her.

We're leaving for week two pretty soon. This week is teen camp and I can't wait. Please continue to pray for strength and open hearts. God's going to do amazing things.