Teen Camp

The boys: Marcus, John, Ryan, Johnny, Eli

More: Kyle, Ryan

Me, Hannah, the camp coordinator

Frank, Lisa, me

Here are some more photos.

Whew. So much stuff, so little time. I think I will try to catch up to today in chunks. Starting with teen camp...

Teen Camp was held at Highland Resort. It was from Sunday, June 27^th to Thursday, July 1^st, and totally cool. At first, at the end of the second day, I was like, I am not going to survive. But by the end of it, I was feeling sad that it was almost over. Lynn and I drove up on Sunday morning -- we had a meeting at 8:30am and I practically slept half-way up there and was still groggy by the time we arrived. The first day was basically a hit-the-ground-running introduction to what we would be doing with the kids as far as group activities and such. At 2pm the kids started arriving. I think Jeff Wadstrom was in charge of the whole thing, but a sister named Lisa Nichols pretty much ran most of the workshops. She's an inspirational speaker for teens and high-school students all over the country. I was pretty impressed overall because it was such a departure from our tradition retreat style (tons of preaching and not much discussion). There was a lot of group work and processing feelings and stuff, which I thought was so good. I think all of our ministries need this actually. In fact, it was a lot like a suggestion I made to Kai Foster about something I would like to do with our singles ministry. Anyway. Of course, some of the kids weren't so into it, which was totally understandable too.

We played a lot of ultimate frisbee too, which was a blast. It was really fun just being out there with the kids giving my whole heart to whatever we were doing.

The guys in my cabin were really cool. One night they had a wrestling match. I was really tempted to join in but didn't in the end. I figured I would get a chance the next night, but I was too wiped out. One of my only regrets.

Other random memories: Jackie Hodge pestering me to do a Sheryl Crow song for the talent show; Kia asking Lisa how she dealt with being a black woman in predominantly white San Diego; Allison Smith's quarter-trick and monologue at the talent show; Scott Yohner getting baring his heart and soul in front of everyone during the discussion sessions.

Highlights: doing the high-ropes course, and being able to encourage Lisa to make it to the top, and her sharing about it; Nacho (one of the kids) telling me that I sing with all my heart; being able to tell Tara that she had a lot to be proud of; Brandon telling me he appreciated how I built up the team on the ultimate field; grabbing the flag at the last game of Capture the Flag (I eventually got tagged, but Tyler picked up the flag and won the game). Fun fun fun.