Episode 09

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!