Day Eight: 6/7/09

Today was a day of extremes. We went from the little pre-campers to the big highschoolers, all in the course of about 4 hours!

We started the day by saying goodbye to our newest Camp Gailor Maxon family members. We had breakfast, a Eucharist, and got our t-shirts and pictures. After packing up and hugging (and a bit of tears), the kids all said goodbye. Reflecting on the Pre-Camp experience, I feel it was beyond successful and all that we wanted it to be. In envisioning Pre-Camp, we hoped that the parents would enjoy themselves, the kids would fall in love with camp, and that people would form strong relationships. I definitely feel that was the case.

The staff went straight to work on the preparations for Camp I. They finished the chapel program, set up the canteen, and decorated their cabins. Once completed, the staff got a well deserved one hour break before the kids got there! Once two o'clock rolled around, we were ready to go with registration.

As kids showed up, it was so fun to see people we'd missed over the past year and to meet new campers. The bus rolled in about 3pm, which meant an influx of Memphis kids. After just a short amount of time, all campers were accounted for! We had a successful registration with no flaws -just the way I like it. We let the campers get aclimated and catch up with each other before jumping in to the traditional first activity of camp - the swim test. Isn't it delightful to get to camp and have to swim across the pool first thing? From a practical stance, it is necessary but it is still comical to think about.

After swim test, we had the traditional first night dinner - spaghetti. We then sang some songs, did introductions, and signed the covenant. We next went into playing large group games like Dancing Tambourine - a crowd favorite where you have an object (preferably a tambourine but we used a percussion egg) that is the magic object... whoever has it dances in the center of the circle to music and grabs people to come dance, forming a strand of people all dancing. The first person, at some point, decides to drop the object (the music stops then) and everyone races to get back to open seats. The last one left is the next person in the center. The kids really love it and get into the dancing - we sure have some awesome dancers in the crowd. One thing that was cool to notice is how much these kids embrace their individuality and who they are - they are totally fine being themselves for the most part. It is impressive.

We then split into family groups to do a few more games. The theme for family group names is "funny German words" so we have names like the Gesundheits and Kinderspiel. The kids are getting into developing German accents (see statement above about individuality!).

We must have done something right because we gave the kids time in their cabins after the cabin meetings to hang out and catch up but by the time the staff was done with their meeting, all teeth were brushed and everyone was in bed asleep! A great first day of Camp I has passed and I can tell that this group is strong and going to be a lot of fun.

Pictured above:
1) The signing of the Covenant
2) a peek at the compline service in the Pavilion
3) Nick and Lizzy's family group, meeting out on the porch
4) the boys dancing in the Dancing Tambourine game
5) Singing and dancing in the Downstairs Chapel to some awesome praise songs.