Wesley Woods Week Monday June 24th

Aight time to start the Wesley Woods Church Camp blog posts!! But, some background info first.

Each summer (for many years now) I have volunteered as a Junior High counselor for my church's five day long bible camp. Honestly the "bible" part isn't incredibly prominent, the camp part is. This means I am responsible for children from ages 12-13 each June while they swim, run around, cause chaos, horseback ride, and everything else in between. It is exhausting and I love it! So now audience let's dive into the 2013 Wesley Woods experience. Forewarning, these posts are going to be lengthy.

Monday morning I found myself at the First United Methodist church in DG ready to go to church camp. This year I decided to not drive up myself since we had a light staff and it would be better for me to take the bus with the kids. Need to look after them. Plus we only had fourteen junior high campers on the roster, much lighter than our typical 40-50 count.

The ride up was smooth enough and only lasted for two hours. I sat next to Esther a girl I've known since she was three years old who was now also one of my campers. She insisted on decorating my nametag on the bus with colorful duct tape. The duct tape nametag thing became popular a few years ago with the campers, it hasn't died yet. It's better to surrender your nametag early since then it's done.

We arrived at camp on time and everyone began to unload the two buses. I called out to the Junior High campers to help assist in the unloading process. A chunk of them didn't. Heh, those girls were going to be whipped into shape. Least some of them, Outrageous was a handful to say the least. For the privacy of campers I have taken the liberty to call some of them by their "adjectives" from the name-game icebreaker. Thus this particular girl will be known to you all as Outrageous. Clever I know.

So the first day's schedule was different from the others since we didn't have a morning rotation. It was essentially shorter. We had the kids go around to various stations that lasted thirty minutes. The first on the schedule was nature.

Some of my adorable campers playing with mold.

Now nature was an interesting activity for the kids. Rather than being outdoors (only the obvious) it was inside. Being the Junior High group we were a few minutes late. The nature leader Miss Kay made sure to remind us that tardiness is not tolerated, at camp. She kept reminding us throughout the kid's activity (they grew mold) and at the end. It's camp! No one cares except you if a group is two frickin' minutes late!! This type of behavior towards Junior High would continues throughout the week, joy.

The other stations went much more smoothly. Art was making mailboxes for "care card" notes (mine said House Scale on it which only Jason understood). Swimming and boating followed where the kids took the swim test and learned some kayak basics. I would not be joining them on water related activities due to my recent metal addition to my body, heh heh the perfect plan to avoid the scummy swim area water.

Becky (mermaid) and Maddie (artist) two of my fellow JH counselors

It was then time for dinner, finally! As a counselor the highlights of the day are always meal times. I swear after eating a full plate of food I am never full, not even close. Instead it is as if my stomach reverted into a black hole and absorbs absolutely everything leaving me empty and starving once more. Ah well, part of being a counselor. Sides I frequently steal blueberry muffins as in between snacks.

We then had the "All Camp Activity" which was my least favorite one, counselor hunt. Here's the thing about the counselor hunt, I don't want to go out in the woods just to sit among poison ivy/oak while waiting for children to find me just so I can initial their check-off sheet. It's not fun for me or my skin. This year I did the smart choice and climbed up one of the old high-challenge walls and sat there far away from the bugs and toxic plants. Sure several kids found me but what do I care? They love racking up points and I'm happy to have helped.

Now afterwards was probably one of the most memorable events of camp, like ever. It was nearing seven o'clock meaning time for the six game of the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blawkhawks Stanley Cup Finals! Most people gathered in the mess hall eager to watch the game. I was one of them as was Jason who was appropriately decked out in Hawks gear (I stupidly forgot my Corey jersey at home). Unfortunately we all hit a snag; we couldn't stream the game through the projector.

We tried every method we could think of, I even called my dad for the Slingbox username and password, but it was all to no avail. The game had started and we decided to see if the TV in the corner received NBC. It did. Phew, that was lucky. I know what you're thinking audience, why did you use the damn TV in the first place? Well we had a crap ton of people in the room and the TV was rather small in comparison. It ended up working out fine mainly because Jason and I shouted multiple times at the young children gathered in front to, "Sit your butt down NOW!" I'm pretty sure we terrified them for life.

The game itself was spectacular. I mean one of the most heart pounding exciting nervous and ferocious few hours of my life. I swear I'll die young due to hockey giving me a heart attack. A worthy death though. In any case many of the kids the next day told me that I was more exciting to watch than the game. Heh, I had slightly lost my voice due to all the shouting and yelling. Oops.

Church Camp's first day ended after Andrew Shaw lifted the Stanley Cup while blood dripped down his face. Oh Andrew your beautiful face now has a gorgeous scar that marks you as an NHL champion for life. If only I had been able to sleep that night. Sadly the weather did not allow me that happiness.

Until Tuesday.