Session #1

"The first bus is here!" yelled one of my coworkers as I scarfed down one last peanut butter & jelly sandwich, just in case there were some kids in the batch with a peanut allergy. There were butterflies in my stomach as we waited for the first smiling faces to come jumping out of the bus. We made a human tunnel for all the kids as they came out and walked toward the firecircle. We all sang camp songs as we waited for the other two buses full of kids to arrive, and when the whole circle was filled out there was so much energy. All the kids were so excited to be there, especially after we sang the Welcome Song.....

"We welcome you to Camp Max Straus,
We're might glad you're here.
We'll send the air reverberating
With a mighty cheer. (RA-RA!)

We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out,
And then we'll give a mighty shout,
HAIL! HAIL! The gang's all here,
And you're welcome to Camp Max Straus!!"

It was so great to finally see the ten 9-year-olds my co-counselor and I would be responsible for over the next week. After dinner it was time to go to the first nighttime program, then it was off to bed. It took so long for us to get the kids to go to sleep. They were just so excited. Totally understandable. We had one homesick kid that night. Not too bad.

The kids liked to wake themselves up pretty early the whole week, which was actually pretty helpful, because we had to have them all down at breakfast before 8am every day.

The first day was our day to do high ropes. It was so funny watching the kids try to do this thing. I'd say most of them didn't even get past the first obstacle of climbing up the the thing. Only a few kids from our group got all the way through it. And one kid actually went through it without stopping. Fearless! It was crazy. He got through a course in 2 or 3 minutes that was taking other kids like 15 minutes to do. Literally, I think the next fastest kid took like 10 minutes.

Let's see. I don't want to give you all the details of the entire week; That would take forever. I'll just give you the highlights...

The kids really liked riding the horses. I got a chance to ride with them the first time we went out. (We went two times this week.) I was really expecting at least a few of them to be afraid of the horses, or at least unsure about it, but they were all pretty excited. The horses were all pretty chill. I heard that the rental company we used last year brought some pretty sketchy horses, and they were really rowdy and stuff. So these horses were pretty good. And the kids all figured out how to steer them and stuff pretty quickly. The only hiccups there was one of the horses tried to chew on one of the kids' pants, and the fact that the trails we use had tons of flies that bite! And they kept biting the kids.

The pool was great too. We got to go there every day. The first day was the swimming test. Proficient swimmers got green bracelets, and they could swim in the deep end, not such proficient swimmers get a yellow bracelet and they could go in the deep end after some lessons, and the beginners got a red bracelet and they could not go in the deep end for the week. There weren't any kids in our cabin that got a green wristband, but it was pretty funny to watch them all during the lessons. The kids all figured out how to tread water pretty good, except for one. I took some extra time with him, juts trying to get him into the water and get comfortable with it. The four lifeguards are all pretty cool people. The head lifeguard is our cabin mom. So she watches the kids when my co-counselor and I are on our night off, watches them during lunch when my co-counselor and I take lunch off and eat in a different room. That sort of thing. But no special privileges at the pool. Bummer. Haha.

I let the kids play with seven decks of cards during the week. They mostly played this weird version of War where they get to pick which card they can play on any giver round. For the better part of the week, there were cards strewn all about the floor of the cabin, and all through the week I was thinking to myself, "I hope I get all my cards back at the end of the week." I tried not to care too much, but I just knew someone was going to steal cards or accidentally throw them away or pack them away and take them home. After all the kids were gone and it was time to clean up the room, I collected all the cards I could find, and took them home. I sorted them by deck and counted the cards, and all 52 cards were present in all 7 decks. I felt so dumb for having so little faith in our kids, and for caring so much about the cards. It was like God was telling me, even though your cards really don't matter that much, I will still give them back to you. That's how much I care, even about the little things.

It's so much fun hanging out with this age group. They have so much energy and they're so funny. But I gotta tell ya, it's a little bit like herding cats trying to move them around and make sure they're where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there. I'm having to learn the art of being effective in controlling them while still being gentle and patient. Please pray for me. I'm gonna need so much grace and love for these kids this summer. Not that I don't already think they're adorable and care about them so much, I just want to bring my A-game this for these kids. And this job is plenty rewarding for my spirits to stay high.

For instance, I got the chance to ride back with the kids on the bus and drop them off with their parents, and on the way there, one of our two problem children was sitting next to me on the bus, and he started to cry. I asked him why he was crying, and he said it was because he was sad to be leaving.