Camp 3 Thursday!

We're in the last bit of camp and if you ask me these last 70 hours are the most important. It's the last chance we have together to make a difference in the world through our youth so we intend to make it count! 

This morning we spent chapel talking about how God is illuminated when we serve other people. It feels really good to make a friend smile or give someone a high five. After some singing and a little prayer, we talked about how at the Last Supper Jesus fed his friends but he also washed their feet and said he was showing them the full extent of his love by serving them. So to be like Jesus we washed each others feet and prayed for each other. I wish all of you could hear these sweet little prayers!

Then we talked about different stories in the Bible where Jesus told us to serve one another. Each family group got to act out skits such as the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, and more. 

After chapel time we played everyone's favorite game, Magic Tambourine. It may seem like we play this game a lot, but to our youth there is no such thing as enough Magic Tamb. 

Our afternoon began with time at St. Mary's Sewanee where we took our morning and applied it to real life by serving our community. We helped them by doing various tasks outside and taking care of their grounds. We talked about how it is always good to serve other people, even those who serve us a lot. The sisters at St. Mary's serve everyone they can so it is so good for us to be able to serve them!

After we got back we spent some time at the pool and at the art barn- where we made little votive holders (if you pay close attention to the pictures of Eucharist tomorrow you may see them again...) before giving everyone some creative time to prepare for Coffee House! 

Camp 3 Coffee House closed out our day and friends, this night is always one of my favorite nights at camp. Our youth have talents that are so varied and watching them all share that with the group is more fun than you can imagine. On top of that these hilarious youth put on cabin skits where they all play silly roles and make us laugh till we're rolling on the ground. Here are some of the acts from tonight's performances. 

So apparently tomorrow is the last full day at Camp Gailor-Maxon 2015. What happened to the month no one is really sure (thank goodness for the blog and photographic evidence!)  I'm trying not to be sad but we really are bummed to leave these youth! We are all going to go get some sleep so we can make this last one the best one! 

Camp 3 Wednesday- Sewanee Day!!

Well friends, we are over half way through with our final week of camp. When did that happen? What happened to CGM 2015? At least we are going out with a big, joyful bang with all these sweet youth! 

Our morning chapel program was spent singing, praying and then talking about Jonah and how he spent some really dark time in the belly of a whale. That must have been a really hard thing to go through, but what we learn is that God sent the whale to swallow Jonah and spit him out. Like Jonah's story, God won't leave us when it is dark. He will still be with us! 

The really fun part of this morning? We got to actually go in the belly of the CGM whale (made of cardboard, located in the Upstairs Chapel) and get a feel for what Jonah might have felt. Here are a couple pics of our youth seeing how that felt!

After the whale we went to small groups and talked about how to pray about the dark things. Everyone made a strand of prayer beads and everyone took someone else's strand to remember to pray for each other through the dark things. Finally everyone wrote something they are thankful for and something they need help with. In the big group we read these prayers and they were so beautiful!

Yesterday afternoon was Sewanee day, historically everyone's favorite. I don't believe this year was an exception. We started at the War Memorial Cross in Sewanee. The view down the mountain is so beautiful from there you can't help but fall in love with it. Then we walked along the Tennessee Williams trail back into Sewanee- with a pit stop at the Chapel of the Apostles, the University of the South School of Theology Chapel! This beautiful wood building allowed for wandering and some pretty neat pictures.

We finished our time in Sewanee in the bookstore and with a little bit of rain (which was actually really nice- it cooled down the mountain a good bit!) 

After dinner we went back to Sewanee to have a service at All Saint's Chapel, which is the chapel for the University of the South. A little New Zealand night prayer, a lot of singing, and some neat prayer stations were really cool for our youth this evening! We finished the service a big joyful round of This Little Light of Mine- so much fun!

Everyone was exhausted and got a good night of sleep. Today is all about how God is illuminated in each other- stayed tuned for a pretty special day at CGM!

Camp 3 does Tuesday!

We started saying "the last one of the summer" yesterday which is really quite sad, so we are really glad to have these campers here to soak up all our lasts and the joy that comes with getting to do it all one last time!

Our morning chapel time was focused on how God illuminates himself to us in scripture. It was really amazing to see these sweet youth discuss how God speaks to them in their favorite verses and prayers. I know several of these were posted yesterday on Instagram so sorry to be redundant, but these light bulbs have just blown me away. Child-like faith is an amazing thing!

After chapel we learned some good ole CGM songs (One Tin Soldier, Little Boxes, Prunie, etc) and finally played what everyone had been asking for- MAGIC TAMBOURINE! (We did play other games such as Car-Dog-Fire Hydrant and Zebratonicus but something about Magic Tambourine gets everyone more excited than anything else.)

Once we were fed at lunch and rested at siesta we went to our afternoon activities- either rock climbing at Foster Falls, swimming at Foster Falls or staying on campus to go to the playground and Art Barn!

The evening was when the staff realized we were starting the list of lasts as we had counselor hunt. Unfortunately the weather pushed counselor hunt inside but in the end we got to silly string our counselors so I don't know that was actually a loss.

Today is Sewanee adventure day, a fan favorite around here so we will be posting about it soon!