Alive

This summer I had a wonderful experience. At the beginning I was really unsure of how it was going to go and even what it was that I was really going to be doing. I met some really amazing people who have become great friends, or yet family. I can't find the words to describe how wonderful these people are. Each person has taught me something about life, God, or myself. Since I can't put into words how awesome these people are, I guess I will start talking about what I have learned and my thoughts on things.

Life. What does it mean? Our theme this year was being alive. So I heard a lot about being alive in each of the wonderful messages. There are many things I learned about life and I think the biggest is that we tend to take being alive for granted. There are so many things that God blesses us with and we don't even think twice about all the stuff He has given us. There are people in other countries who have lost their life because their beliefs in God and even though we are in a free country I feel like we often time forget how much of a blessing life really is. Sometimes we take for granted the little things that we are able to do like walk and talk. Some of our His Kids campers struggled with those things, but we just do them like it's no big deal. With our life we need to be thankful for everything we are given because we don't know when we aren't going to be given anything anymore. We need to share the love that God has given to us and spread His word to others. Life. It is being alive and living in the most Christ like way that we are able.

God. Who is He? God is our creator. He made everything and made each one of us the way we are because of His purpose for us. We each have different talents and gifts from God. These help us work together to get things done and makes it easier on us because there are others that can help us with the things that we are not that great at. We at times have to persevere through things that are challenging us in certain ways, but we are never alone! God is always with us and He won't ever give us something that we can't handle without His help. He is always by our side and will never let us fall. God is our Heavenly Father. He is always looking over us and protects us. He is almighty and all powerful. God is our Lord. There is no one else that we should put before our Lord. We are showered with so many blessings from God and we should never forget all the things that He does for us.

Myself. Who am I? I am a sinner. A messenger. A believer. A child of God. I am all of these things and so much more. Even though I am a sinner, God still loves me and does so many things for me. We are all sinners, but God sent Jesus to die for us so that we could be forgiven and one day live with them in Heaven. Every one of us is supposed to be a messenger for God. We are to share His love and His word to others so that they know the good news about God and might too believe in Him. I am a believer in God and that Jesus died for us so that we can live with them once our time on earth is done. I believe that God placed everyone that I met this summer at the exact time that they were there for a certain reason. A reason that we will never be able to understand, but a reason that we need to trust is exactly what He wanted done. I am also a child of God. He is my Heavenly Father and I have done everything in my life that I have done because it is part of His purpose.

My relationship with God has definitely changed this summer. It has grown immensely and has been strengthened. There isn't anything else that I would have enjoyed doing more this summer than the experience  I had at camp. Thank you to everyone who had a part in my summer at camp. I'll leave you with a poem that I wrote the last night that I was at camp.

Summer has started again

And I've got nothing to do

And no place to be

But that changed because of You

I didn't understand the things

That happened that led up to this

But it was all a part of Your plan

Something you didn't want me to miss

So I packed up a lot of my things

And left not knowing a whole lot

About my journey ahead

But knew it was what you sought

At first I felt like I didn't belong

I didn't feel like anything was going right

But I had to keep reminding myself

That this is what you had in sight

It took a little bit of time

But things started to come around

You picked me up from the bad things

And placed my feet back on the ground

I grew closer to the other people

But more importantly I grew closer to you

And I started to realize

That this experience is what I needed to do

I learned so many things

And learned more about me

I don't want to go back to who I was

I want to try to continue to be like Thee

I began to look at smaller things

And realized that sometimes

They mean the most

To those with silent chimes

Now I'm leaving this place behind for now

But I am taking everything with me

I want to live the way I've been

And I hope that others can see

Looking back at everything

There is no where else that I would

Have wanted to be this whole summer

Even if at the beginning I thought there should

~ "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9

Camp Cleaning

Friday night we ate as a staff at Pizza Ranch. I ended up at Dairy Queen with Josh, Kendra and Rachel B. We got ice cream and sat outside while we ate. The company was really nice since there wasn't a lot of time where all four of us were around each other at the same time. We had a lot of good laughs and thought of some pretty funny things. When we got back to camp I hung out in the main lodge for a little while before I headed to bed.

Saturday morning I got up really early so that I could go with Rachel B. and Josh so that he could take some of her senior pictures. It was a really early morning, but I was glad to go along and watch the photo shoot. Josh wanted to try taking pictures underwater and Rachel agreed so they were in a pool taking under water pictures and it was really cool to see how a few of them turned out. Then we headed back to camp so that we could get ready to do our jobs for the day. Before lunch we cleaned the main lodge and the cabins and had a staff meeting. Those of us who were staying decided that we wanted to continue to work after lunch so our job was to weed a hill by one of the cabins. There were volunteers there doing a job already and they were using all of the shovels. So this meant that we had to find other tools to weed the hill. We had an ax, a hatchet, a putter and clippers. This was fun to do with these tools. My parents had showed up to camp not to long before we finished the hill so once we were done I went with them to town to hang out. My cousin met us to eat and after my family went swimming at the hotel pool. It was nice to swim in pool water after a summer of lake water.

On Sunday morning I went to church and sat with the remaining staff one more time before we all went home. After church LeAnn came with me and my family and we ate lunch. Then I headed with her to her house to visit her family. It was fun getting to know her family and spending time with them. I had a great time and a lot of laughs. We watched some of the Olympics with was awesome since we hadn't been able to see any of that yet. When we were back to camp we watched Holes with the rest of the staff.

Monday morning we had job cards with several jobs to do in an area. We had a short little meeting then we headed off to get our jobs done. I chose the card with the picnic shelter area. My jobs were to pick up trash around the shelter, take the trash up to the dumpsters, sweep the shelter and place railroad ties that were lying nearby on the correct spots so that they were stoppers for the parking spots. Once I was done with this I tagged up with another group of people and we cleaned out a shed and organized it. When we were done with that we headed up to the office and painted a few doors there. Then we made our way back to the main lodge to see that basically every job that we were able to do was done. After we grabbed some supper at camp we went into town for shakes at Dairy Queen. They put on the Olympics for us and we enjoyed watching that since we don't have a TV at camp. Once we got back to camp we watched The Dark Knight.

By Tuesday there wasn't very many people left. Those of us that were left our job was to clean the main lodge really good and clean the cabins. We split up so that we could get to work and get the jobs done. After we finished up those things we hung out for awhile. I went into town in the afternoon with LeAnn to meet up with one of her sisters for supper and do a little shopping. We took her sister back to camp with us and we watched Horton Hears a Who. After the movie we took her sister back to town. Then when we got back to camp we cleaned up our side of the cabin a bit and then thought we were going to bed. Randomly LeAnn said she wanted to go stargazing so we headed up to Gerwick field with blankets and looked up at the sky for awhile. We talked about the summer and about the future. We also saw a shooting star in the sky! :)

This morning we got up and finished packing up our things and said goodbye to Magnus. Then we cleaned our side of the cabin and headed up to Gerwick to hang out for a little while before we left. We talked with Josh, Matt and Sue for a little while and ate some breakfast. After a while we decided that we should head out and make our trip home. It seemed like a very long ride because I hadn't made that trip for awhile and I was thinking about everything that had happened this summer. I will post again soon with things that I have learned and the overall experience I had being away at camp all summer.


~ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. - Psalm 23