Day five is the last day of camp for the younger kids. We have family night where we invite up all the parents and siblings so they can see a little bit of what camp was like for their kids. The real reason we have family night is so we have an excuse for the parents to take their little kids back, leaving us with the ones who are capable of taking showers without being reminded, the ones who don’t immediately begin weeping at the sound of an airhorn, and the ones who know that may not really be the Lion King in that square.
Prior to family night, we put the campers through the proverbial ringer. After breakfast, worship, and class, we have the annual Tug-O-War competition and the Big Blue Ball.
If you thought kids don’t start lacing up their cleats (or enormous hiking boots that provide no competitive advantage whatsoever) for Tug-O-War, you’d be wrong. After approximately 20 matchups, we crowned a champion. Then we moved on.
The Big Blue Ball is a 6 to 7 (depending on how much time you spend filling it up) foot tall inflatable blue ball. Technically, the object is to push the ball back to your team’s cone, knocking it down, and earning points for your team. In actuality, if you are over the age of 15, you have one of two distinct goals: 1) Try not to sweat by standing as far away from the ball as possible and maintaining your swagger (I’m pretty sure that’s the modern day equivalent of “looking cool”) or 2) Run at the ball as hard as you can in hopes of paralyzing the person on the other side of it. This will be one of my favorite parts of camp each year until the day someone actually gets paralyzed by the Big Blue Ball. (LINK TO LAST YEAR’S POST ON CODY’S TRUCK) There were only two or three shots worth noting: One dislocated a rib (who knew?), and the other sent one of the youth ministers parallel to the ground. Good times.
That was the morning. After lunch and guys’ creek time, we dusted off the Slip-n-Slide, in its new old location. More slope, less air, more rocks to run across, less rocks to slide across. You win some, you lose some. News from the Slip-n-Slide: a concussion-free year.
Straight from the Slip-n-Slide, we headed back down to the creek for the mud pit. The mud pit is patch of dirt that we dug up probably 4 years ago. One of the counselors considers this mud pit his baby. He tills it annually and, this year, he brought up a fire hose, paired it with a water pump provided by one of the other staff, and we pumped the mud pit full of an endless supply of creek water.
For the first year ever, I didn’t get in the creek or the mud pit all week (aside from standing in up to my ankles, holding the fire hose to fill it up). Some streaks have to come to an end (though I’m still not going to spend my own money on a Starbucks drink).
After all that, we reunited camper and parent. I’m sure the parents thought their kids hadn’t bathed all week. That was probably true for a couple of them. We showed the lip-dub and the camp slide show, announced the Campers of the Week, sang another round of “Ish Convish Conductor”, crowned the team champions for the week, and shipped off the young ones.
We then had some free time before we cranked up the Thursday Night Devo. Part of this time was given to the Lipscomb counselors to give their pitch for the alma mater. As they provide free labor for the week, it seems only fair we give them half an hour to convince our East Nashville kids to drop $80,000 on an education. As the rest of the staff broke from our meeting, I hustled up to the mess hall to see if I could catch the last of the presentation. I walked into a dance party. Lipscomb: Clearly not as conservative as Freed.
The Thursday Night Devo is a devotional for the older kids that’s at a little deeper level than the rest of the week. As the week’s theme was “By Faith,” the event began with blindfolds and packing the kids into church vans. As the youth ministers approached from attempting to disorient the kids by driving around in circles, one van pulled up singing “Ish Convish Conductor.” Seriously, this song is the musical equivalent of the plague. The ministers unloaded the unseeing on the softball field and told them to find “an object.”
There was no object.
A couple of exercises in faith later, the kids removed the blindfolds and realized they had somehow ended up in the middle of the woods. A couple of the staff had built a fire. As we arrived, it was burning green. I’m no expert on fire, but the burning in my throat confirmed my suspicion that the green flames probably were not a good thing. Poison Ivy of the lungs, all around.
Five songs into the devo, the fire was all but out. No big deal. Just makes it easier to see the stars. A few songs later, we sang “Light the Fire,” and God threw us a bone and rekindled the flame a little. No Elijah consuming the rocks kind of thing, but kind of cool nonetheless.
The devo ended a little before 11, and the kids were given free time for the rest of the night. Usually, bedtime is set at 3 am on Friday morning. Because, if you had just spent a week of sleep-deprived activity that is designed to be both physically and mentally draining, what else would you want to do besides stay up until 3?
More dance party was followed by the annual counselor basketball game. Due to my foot being about as sturdy as instant mashed potatoes, I pulled out my referee shirt and whistle to ref the game. Before halftime, I retired. Mostly because I had only called 3 fouls, wasn’t really interested in the game, wasn’t really feeling the growing competitiveness amongst the staff, and loved being told how terrible I was at reffing. Church camp. Plus, there was an angel sitting on the sidelines willing to scratch my head throughout the game… Pretty easy decision.
I went to bed early, at 2. I went to sleep less early, at 4:30. Thanks, guys.
In short (via long, quite long), it was an awesome week with awesome people. Thanks for reading... Next time will be totally unrelated.
No comments:
Post a Comment