Dear readers,
As you have noticed there has been a bit of an incommunicado for the past two weeks.. or something like that. For those of you who don't know, we have sucessfully (by the skin of our pants) finished our first camp. There were aprox. 395.65 campers at the camp represented by 11 churches from 6 states and we completed 11,000 ish hours of work in 5 days. Also there were 2070 cans of food brought by the campers for the local shelters and food pantrys. This all took place in a little town of Elmira NY.
So as I promised there is much more to this story. Ok just to say this at the beginning this was a weird camp.. and i mean weird! I say that because it wasn't a bad camp but it also wasn't a good one. First night, sunday, we had a girl go to the hospital and that kind of little "emergencies" kept up all week. Either sick or appendicitis or something weird. Then we were woken up by a fire alarm 3 out of the 6 mornings that we were there. At 6:15 am. Not so bad for staff except we had to get everyone out of the building and they weren't happy campers the 2nd or 3rd time that it happened. Then we had it happen again Thursday night our big emotional night, about 30 min after the program. So we had to rush kids who were still having a powerful experience out... kinda a bummer to do that. I won't even go into the inspections and codes that we had to adhere to for the projects. It just felt like we were on an uphill battle all week.
The good news is that we survived! God did amazing things through all that!! There was a family that we helped who had a son who is now 23 and he has muscular dystrophy. He broke both of his legs when he was 8 and they can never be fixed. So he hasn't been out of the house for 3 years. He was living with his grandma, and she was doing all she could do for him. Turns out that this week he was able to have a wheelchair ramp built and a van that was built for him delivered at the same time and he was able to come to the Friday night program! All and all it was a great camp, and most of you who know me im not a morning person.... and i like my sleep. Well my average nightly sleep was 5 hours maybe and on an air matress in a classroom. Yet every morning only by the grace of god, I was able to feel rested and ready to welcome the world! Thanks for all your prayers I really felt them that week, and as we continue to travel!
I won't lie, Summer Staff is really intense all the time, you are either working hard, serving hard, or sleeping hard.. :D This week is our off week and I am enjoing some of Jersey Shore with the crew! We have just spent our travel days getting to our next camp, (4hrs away) and spending time on the beach and the waves in Neptune City, NJ!!! A very nice little town with some wonderful beaches... at least for Jersey. Looks like the sand they use in the cigarette bins in Australia.. :D but no worries! Have had some wonderful Italian food, as it seems to be saturated with little bistros and cafes that will serve you your money's worth in food and often more! Needless to say we are not going hungry here.. :)
On for the next few days, we are setting up our school tomorrow and the weekend. We were invited to barbeques and festivities with our local sponsors.. they are seriously the best! We might see fireworks from NYC across the bay, and swim and do laundry in their humble abodes.. Thier names are Mr and Mrs B. and they own a little floral shop and their church has raised plenty of support. Apparently every day they are going to have snacks for the kids and staff... cookies cakes chips drinks.. now thats 400ish kids plus adult staff.. for 6 days. Also they built bird houses for all the residents and the NJ Senator is coming out to give a proclamation on one of the days! Things are looking up for this camp in the means of support and lively personalities!
That is all for now, take care and have a blessed day!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Episode 08
WAKEY WAKEY!!!
Ok, so it's not quite camp week yet, but it is getting closer! Last night we got in to Elmira, New York where our first camp will be. It is a nice place up in the hilly/mountians of NY. We talked with our setup director that we will be working with closely this week to get everything ready for camp, and he said that this was a great place to be and was very needy. Apparently they got hit with a flood about 30 years ago and it wiped this place off the map, so they have never really recovered. Anyways let me explain why we are here so early. Usually (like with our other camps this summer) we would get here on Wed night and start Thursday with our own set up, like sound, lights, tool shop, rooms for the kids... that kinda stuff. But we are hard pressed for volunteers for this week so we are going to be starting by setting up the sites. SO we deliver the paint and materials and talk to the resident of each site to make sure they will be there all next week. We do that for 50+ sites in the area. This will be a good oppertunity for us to get familliar with the community and get our weird red shirt unity look out there.. The hotel here looks worse on the outside than inside. It is nice with two beds and a tv and plenty of wall space to use the projector! :D The girls are getting me hooked to a show they watch called "How I met your Mother" and it was good.. but apparently there are 4 seasons and they still don't know who the mother is.. hahah o boy. Well I have a date with my Fruit Loops, then im off to work!!! YAY!
Ciao.
Ok, so it's not quite camp week yet, but it is getting closer! Last night we got in to Elmira, New York where our first camp will be. It is a nice place up in the hilly/mountians of NY. We talked with our setup director that we will be working with closely this week to get everything ready for camp, and he said that this was a great place to be and was very needy. Apparently they got hit with a flood about 30 years ago and it wiped this place off the map, so they have never really recovered. Anyways let me explain why we are here so early. Usually (like with our other camps this summer) we would get here on Wed night and start Thursday with our own set up, like sound, lights, tool shop, rooms for the kids... that kinda stuff. But we are hard pressed for volunteers for this week so we are going to be starting by setting up the sites. SO we deliver the paint and materials and talk to the resident of each site to make sure they will be there all next week. We do that for 50+ sites in the area. This will be a good oppertunity for us to get familliar with the community and get our weird red shirt unity look out there.. The hotel here looks worse on the outside than inside. It is nice with two beds and a tv and plenty of wall space to use the projector! :D The girls are getting me hooked to a show they watch called "How I met your Mother" and it was good.. but apparently there are 4 seasons and they still don't know who the mother is.. hahah o boy. Well I have a date with my Fruit Loops, then im off to work!!! YAY!
Ciao.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Episode 07
Alas me fellow mates, we have reached the Windy City! We are staying at one of our crew mates houses for this part of our trip, a total of two nights we have stayed here and yesterday we were able to go into downtown Chicago and visit all the cool sights and walk around Millennial Park as well! Laura's parents have been wonderful hosts and have been our every supplier of lunch needs as our trip continues on later today! So if everyone would say a thank you to them as you read this, the world would be a better place.. :D
I am sure that there are some of you out there who know things, and many of you might not know what happened two days ago to our crew, but for those of you who do, i am not surprised, given the way it spread like wild fire among the Summer Staff. We were traveling ahead of one of our travel crews (Jori's) and we stopped for some Quiznos Subs in a tiny town called West Branch Iowa.. which was ironically on the east side of the state. Tenni and Mandy were in the truck when a T-Rex walked across the road and ate a heard of cattle.. and by that i mean they stopped at a stop sign and the truck refused to budge. Screecher (our ex-truck's name) had finally given his last screech. As we found out an hour later after being stuck in the road for an hour, it was the transmission.. and it was no more. Now invision a 16 foot box truck and eager college age kids stuck in the major intersection of a town population 500. We were fortunate enough to have the support of Jori's crew as they caught up to us and stayed diligently by our side as we waited a total of 5 hours for a new truck to be brought to us. After all that waiting, and frisbee for me, we repacked all of our equiptment in less than 15 min. WOO HOO! So then we got back on the road about 8 at night and had 3 hours to Laura's house here in north Chicago. We drove and drove, had wonderful conversations and miles of silent zombie like appearances and in the end we got here! O yeah, and Dad, I drove this box truck through Chicago, south to north, at night by myself. So sign me up for my CDL.. :) Anyrate, we visited chicago and you can check my facebook for pictures! Today we head to Cleveland, Ohio and we will stay tonight there, spend the day there, and spend the next night at the same place. After that Niagra Falls here we come!!
P.S. we love Rusty (our new truck) he goes fast.... muwahahhahaha!
I am sure that there are some of you out there who know things, and many of you might not know what happened two days ago to our crew, but for those of you who do, i am not surprised, given the way it spread like wild fire among the Summer Staff. We were traveling ahead of one of our travel crews (Jori's) and we stopped for some Quiznos Subs in a tiny town called West Branch Iowa.. which was ironically on the east side of the state. Tenni and Mandy were in the truck when a T-Rex walked across the road and ate a heard of cattle.. and by that i mean they stopped at a stop sign and the truck refused to budge. Screecher (our ex-truck's name) had finally given his last screech. As we found out an hour later after being stuck in the road for an hour, it was the transmission.. and it was no more. Now invision a 16 foot box truck and eager college age kids stuck in the major intersection of a town population 500. We were fortunate enough to have the support of Jori's crew as they caught up to us and stayed diligently by our side as we waited a total of 5 hours for a new truck to be brought to us. After all that waiting, and frisbee for me, we repacked all of our equiptment in less than 15 min. WOO HOO! So then we got back on the road about 8 at night and had 3 hours to Laura's house here in north Chicago. We drove and drove, had wonderful conversations and miles of silent zombie like appearances and in the end we got here! O yeah, and Dad, I drove this box truck through Chicago, south to north, at night by myself. So sign me up for my CDL.. :) Anyrate, we visited chicago and you can check my facebook for pictures! Today we head to Cleveland, Ohio and we will stay tonight there, spend the day there, and spend the next night at the same place. After that Niagra Falls here we come!!
P.S. we love Rusty (our new truck) he goes fast.... muwahahhahaha!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Episode 06
So today we finally got on the road for our first destination OMAHA NEBRASKA!! It is very cool here and thankfully we can breathe again. :) At the present time I am sitting in the best looking hotel that I have ever been in and that is saying something! Mandy on our crew booked us a night at the Double Tree here in downtown and its marvelous! we have 4 rooms for 12 people and I will put the pictures on facebook cause they are a marvel to see! It is basically a 5 star hotel and the rooms were only 45 dollars a night! WE LOVE PRICELINE!! We have the VPU hooked up in the room and will probably watch a movie off the computer tonight before we hit the road tomorrow for Chicago. Hopefully it will only be a 7 hour drive or so. We named our truck Screecher and it is so fast! By that i mean that it can maybe hit 80 on a down hill.. :) the funny thing is that fully loaded it has more get up and go than our car.. hahah
Tune in for the next update in a day or two!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Episode 05
Captian's Log- Stardate: 060409
This week has been a hectic and long one so far. I have made tons of friends here and most of the people are fairly open and ready to make friends. The PM's have really become a tight crew and get along really well and we like to have our fun when we can! Our home basically is a gym full of projectors and sound and wires wires wires. I have had some wonderful conversations with all my roommates about denominational differences and what we all believe in. It was really encouraging to us all because we put aside our precious sleep to talk about our walks. Ken (one of my roommates) and I basically chill with whoever during the day. We make the short drive up to the cafeteria for breakfast which makes us lazy basically cause its only 400 yards or so up the hill.. Anyways he is from CT so we get to talk about how and what the camps will be like there.
The Emcees just got here so our big thing for today was working with them and running through the program script and what all goes where to get a feel for how it will work. Ironically enough I get an MC that I had two years ago at the Tishamingo Camp. He is our first MC at Elmira and it will be a bunch of fun. Apparently we got updated on the NJ camp and it is with the best co-sponsor that Group has and we are in a 2 year old huge HS. So yea. Alright well its been good... off to crew devotions.
Captian out.
This week has been a hectic and long one so far. I have made tons of friends here and most of the people are fairly open and ready to make friends. The PM's have really become a tight crew and get along really well and we like to have our fun when we can! Our home basically is a gym full of projectors and sound and wires wires wires. I have had some wonderful conversations with all my roommates about denominational differences and what we all believe in. It was really encouraging to us all because we put aside our precious sleep to talk about our walks. Ken (one of my roommates) and I basically chill with whoever during the day. We make the short drive up to the cafeteria for breakfast which makes us lazy basically cause its only 400 yards or so up the hill.. Anyways he is from CT so we get to talk about how and what the camps will be like there.
The Emcees just got here so our big thing for today was working with them and running through the program script and what all goes where to get a feel for how it will work. Ironically enough I get an MC that I had two years ago at the Tishamingo Camp. He is our first MC at Elmira and it will be a bunch of fun. Apparently we got updated on the NJ camp and it is with the best co-sponsor that Group has and we are in a 2 year old huge HS. So yea. Alright well its been good... off to crew devotions.
Captian out.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Episode 04
Captian's Log- Stardate: 05302009
Finally we are done with week one of training! It feels like a huge hurdle that was all kinda mashed together with witty remarks, lots of pinball, and some dry mashed potatoes. There might have been a little bit of instruction tossed in with that as well. In my job title "Program Manager" we are assigned to take care of all the aspects of the weekly programs for the campers.. This is totally cool because we get all sweet equipment like light trees, gaffers tape, sound board, road rack, computer, two digital cameras, a video camera and more cords than most people could mentally deal with. If you know how the BCC theater works, this is much like that in a few ways. We get to focus lights, and use pretty gels. Also we become fimillar with the step by step guide to call the cues for each program. The primary new thing for me has been a program called Media Shout. Think of like a suped up version of powerpoint. It's so easy and runs lots of "scripts" to make everything smooth.. just like we like it. :D
My crew is great, dispite the fact that I am the only guy, we all get along. I won't lie I am looking forward to the hotel rooms I get to myself on travel weeks.. :D I hang out with a lot of guys here during free time so that kinda makes up for the all girl crew. We have played tons of Ultimate and really enjoy our new rides!
To tell you a little more about our new rides let me give you this illustration. Imagine you are an organization that helps hundreds of people around the US and you employ 19 year old college kids. You run the background and driving tests and fill out all the paperwork... Then you hand out 34 brand new 2009 vehicles over to these kids, and say "see ya in 10 weeks". Well that's what happened. Everyone got a brand new rental vehicle either a Youkon suburban, a Colbolt sedan, or a Town and Country van.... Except for us. We got a bright red Ford Focus... talk about a good deal.. haha
Anyways this is our last weekend off, and as of now I am planning to go up Trail Ridge Road with my crew and hop up to the top of the mountians. Tomorrow we are having a picnic lake day at lake loveland, and then we have to be back here at the YMCA at 9:00pm sunday night.. other than that I plan on sleeping in and just re-energizing for the day. All in all training has been good and fairly easy, if not monotonious at times. I feel like most days I am eating, training, eating, training, eating, and more training.. which is quite true actually.. Plus we eat dinner at like 5 and lunch at like 12 so I always feel like im eating a double lunch.. :(
It never ceses to amaze me that the Elk here are so tame. Like literally I spent the better part of the other night sitting on a bench and watching 10 Elk walk and graze around me.. The only bad part about it is that there never seems to be a time where you miss stepping in Elk poo..
Putting picts on Facebook.
Captian out.
Finally we are done with week one of training! It feels like a huge hurdle that was all kinda mashed together with witty remarks, lots of pinball, and some dry mashed potatoes. There might have been a little bit of instruction tossed in with that as well. In my job title "Program Manager" we are assigned to take care of all the aspects of the weekly programs for the campers.. This is totally cool because we get all sweet equipment like light trees, gaffers tape, sound board, road rack, computer, two digital cameras, a video camera and more cords than most people could mentally deal with. If you know how the BCC theater works, this is much like that in a few ways. We get to focus lights, and use pretty gels. Also we become fimillar with the step by step guide to call the cues for each program. The primary new thing for me has been a program called Media Shout. Think of like a suped up version of powerpoint. It's so easy and runs lots of "scripts" to make everything smooth.. just like we like it. :D
My crew is great, dispite the fact that I am the only guy, we all get along. I won't lie I am looking forward to the hotel rooms I get to myself on travel weeks.. :D I hang out with a lot of guys here during free time so that kinda makes up for the all girl crew. We have played tons of Ultimate and really enjoy our new rides!
To tell you a little more about our new rides let me give you this illustration. Imagine you are an organization that helps hundreds of people around the US and you employ 19 year old college kids. You run the background and driving tests and fill out all the paperwork... Then you hand out 34 brand new 2009 vehicles over to these kids, and say "see ya in 10 weeks". Well that's what happened. Everyone got a brand new rental vehicle either a Youkon suburban, a Colbolt sedan, or a Town and Country van.... Except for us. We got a bright red Ford Focus... talk about a good deal.. haha
Anyways this is our last weekend off, and as of now I am planning to go up Trail Ridge Road with my crew and hop up to the top of the mountians. Tomorrow we are having a picnic lake day at lake loveland, and then we have to be back here at the YMCA at 9:00pm sunday night.. other than that I plan on sleeping in and just re-energizing for the day. All in all training has been good and fairly easy, if not monotonious at times. I feel like most days I am eating, training, eating, training, eating, and more training.. which is quite true actually.. Plus we eat dinner at like 5 and lunch at like 12 so I always feel like im eating a double lunch.. :(
It never ceses to amaze me that the Elk here are so tame. Like literally I spent the better part of the other night sitting on a bench and watching 10 Elk walk and graze around me.. The only bad part about it is that there never seems to be a time where you miss stepping in Elk poo..
Putting picts on Facebook.
Captian out.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Episode 03
Captian's Log- Stardate: 05262009
So I am here at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estas Park and have begun the trek of learning all the technicalities about Group and how all the legality mumbo-jumbo goes for this summer. We have a pretty intensive training schedule for these two weeks.. Brekky from 7-8am then stuff till noon with a 15 min break in there. Then we have lunch from noon till 1 and back to training where I will be headed here shortly... Finally we have dinner from 5-6 and then back into the workshop till 9ish. So yea long days but its great and I have finally met my crew and know where we are going!!! We are crew 10J and we are first going to Elmira, NY for the first camp starting there on June 21st. Then we are going to Keansburg, NJ for the second camp on July 5th, and finally to Gorton, Conn. for the last camp on July 19th!
My crew consists of three girls, two of them are well seasoned in summer staff and have done many camps before. Their names are Tenni, Mandy, and Laura i believe.. but i have only just met them so i could be wrong.
Well i best be off.. this is all for now.. ill keep you updated.. here are some pictures of our trip and Estas Park.. The mountians is what I get to wake up to every day!!
God Bless,
Captian out.
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So I am here at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estas Park and have begun the trek of learning all the technicalities about Group and how all the legality mumbo-jumbo goes for this summer. We have a pretty intensive training schedule for these two weeks.. Brekky from 7-8am then stuff till noon with a 15 min break in there. Then we have lunch from noon till 1 and back to training where I will be headed here shortly... Finally we have dinner from 5-6 and then back into the workshop till 9ish. So yea long days but its great and I have finally met my crew and know where we are going!!! We are crew 10J and we are first going to Elmira, NY for the first camp starting there on June 21st. Then we are going to Keansburg, NJ for the second camp on July 5th, and finally to Gorton, Conn. for the last camp on July 19th!
My crew consists of three girls, two of them are well seasoned in summer staff and have done many camps before. Their names are Tenni, Mandy, and Laura i believe.. but i have only just met them so i could be wrong.
Well i best be off.. this is all for now.. ill keep you updated.. here are some pictures of our trip and Estas Park.. The mountians is what I get to wake up to every day!!
God Bless,
Captian out.
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