Weekends at camp blur together so much. Saturday, we woke up and got to breakfast at 8am. After a late night, this was interesting! Rumor has it some of the kids did not even go to sleep!! The kids packed their bags, cleaned the cabins, and made their way out to where the bus was. We had about 2/3rds of our kids riding the bus and so the rest of the camp stood and said goodbye as the kids loaded the bus - as it drove off, the rest of the campers chased after the bus, in typical CGM fashion.
Once the children all left, the counselors parted ways for the day - we all were so tired and mostly slept!! The next day we reconvened around noon to prepare for the last week of camp. We all got a bit of a scare when Amy called to say she'd been in a car accident. We were all so happy that she made out with only some scratches - what a scary experience! She joined us for registration and has been recovering while surrounded by her favorite place. Our JC's started to arrive and we were reminded once again how lucky we are to have awesome high school kids. The JCs this week will be just as awesome as the ones last week... I can't wait to see them in action. We also have three other adults with us this week - Mark Frazier, a priest in Bristol, VA who has roots in TN, Jill, a youth director from Franklin, TN, and Bonnie Smith, a long time CGM veteran who is coming on to the board of Dubose this year! We love having extra hands around to help out and nurture the kids. These three are no different.
The kids arrived and we got the new week started. These kids are so much younger than the last group! It is amazing to me how much they are still babies... going from high school to middle school to elementary school you really get to see the differences in the age groups. These kids were so outgoing and had little inhibitions for a new camp. About half our kids are brand new this year and so everyone is making friends fast. At the same time, we are dealing with a bit of homesickness, which is to be expected. It is hard to be away from your family if you haven't done it before. That makes me think about something from training- we talked about what the purpose of camp really is and one thing we decided was that we wanted this camp to be a place that parents wanted to send their kids to learn life skills, including how to live in community environments, how to take care of oneself, and how to be independent. I hope that these kids get that from camp, in addition to their new friendships and better understanding of their spirituality.
Pictured above:
1) Girls in the chapel during singing
2) Playing Ships and Sailors (5 men pointing north!)
3) Swim Test - counselors sitting along the edge of the pool while the rules are explained
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