Camp Update #2

Hey Y'all!

Well, I'm currently on my first week off but it wasn't exactly planned. Last week was my 4th week at camp and I was on the West Side of camp which means that I had 3-6 graders. Not exactly my favorite age group but I lived through it. The thing with the younger guys is that they do not listen. Period. I had to repeat myself at least 5 times to get these guys to do whatever I told them. Now, it's not just the "Do this, don't do that" kind of stuff but serious "I NEED you guys to do this". Gets on my nerves... Anywho, it was a really rough week. I had 8 kids total, 2 pairs of brothers, 2 kids that were friends, a cute little 3rd grader that was really chill and then lets call him Bob. Bob was a very interesting kid. Very talkative, the opposite of shy, had ADHD, couldn't eat a lot of what camp was serving and he was my little terror. Bob was very physical starting from DAY 1! He was throwing shoes, whipping towels, yelling, screaming, the whole works. Now, I would talk to Bob and he would realize that he did wrong, apologized and settled down. 5 minutes later, he'd be doing the same exact thing! AHHHHHHHH! Thursday comes around, Bob has talked to some of the staff, lost some privileges and now he's settling down and getting along with the group. Well, Thursday is our cookout in the forest night, so I take Bob with me to get the food so no more fights break out in my cabin while I'm gone. I needed to run back to the room to grab something and then pick up our food. So I grab another kid so Bob can get ready. Bad choice... I come back with my food, ready to throw my shoes on and get going and enjoy an evening in the woods with my boys and I'm greeted by them exclaiming "Bob's spitting up blood!" Great.... there goes our cookout... I run outback and sure enough he's over the bench spitting up some blood. To set up the story, my kids were going NUTS when I left. Almost literally bouncing off the walls. Bob came back from free time with 4 sodas in hand and shared with the whole group.... So, they were playing a game called Free from Prison where some of them would sit in the stalls (prison cells) and bust the doors open, run out the prison (bathroom) and avoid getting shot by all the guards and running to freedom. Well, one of my guys runs out and head-butts Bob right in the mouth, thus causing him to bite both lips and thus spit up blood. I was pretty mad to say the least. But wait! There's more! I finally get all my guys walking out to camp and we get there and I tell my guys to grab some sticks so I can start our fire. Of course, they find all wet sticks and I take 30 minutes to start a good fire to roast our hot dogs. Hooray pine smoke. But wait, there's even more! I get back from our miserable cookout (atleast for me, my guys had fun acting like cavemen) and I take Bob with me to clean up our stuff from the camp out so more blood won't be shed back in the room. I come back and the counselor next to me forgot to pick up snack for his guys so I'm left watching his guys and mine for about 5 minutes. I'm in the other room for about 30 seconds and I hear this " WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" coming from my room. Great....... here we go again. Bob comes out of the shower, grabs a towel and whips another kid right on the lips. 

This was all within 2 1/2 hours of time. 

As you can read, my week was pretty rough. How on earth am I supposed to love these kids when they make me so upset. Well, I learned my third week that kids can bring me from wanting me to pound them into the ground, to bringing me to tears because they want to know how to become a christian. During that week, I almost always wanted to pound some of my kids in the ground. After that night, a staff guy took my guys to chapel and gave me 20 min. to get ready and get my head back in the game. I was thinking. These are God's kids, he sent them to me for the week. They are God's children. I needed to love these kids because he does. Even though I turn my back to God, or do some pretty stupid things that probably puts God in the position I was in with my guys. I needed to love these kids. That night, I had to get on my knees and pray " God, MAKE me love my guys." 

I think I now know why we are called the Children of God. 

So, I sit here in my Jeep in downtown Harbor Springs with people walking by and looking at me because I'm a bit out of place. I did take the week off because I was sick and I was not ready to counsel. It was really a tough decision but I did not want to get more sick and I was not going to be an energetic awesome counselor. I do look forward to the rest of the summer and it's going to be sad when it's over. The atmosphere at camp is truly amazing, it is really where God has blessed.

Not too sure when the next post will be but thanks for your prayers!