Junior High 3: Thursday

This has been such an awesome week!

Yesterday was a very busy day packed with fun. We had our usual activities throughout the day, but since we have a smaller group of campers, we were able to take a canoe trip/hike through Merry Lea together!





The boys canoed through the channel while the girls rode the pontoon boats over and hiked. We all met at Lucky's Landing for a picnic dinner outside! We had pasta, salad, bread, and homemade ice cream for dessert that we had to shake in a bag! It was so much fun. Our campers LOVED it! After we ate, we gathered together to play a few rounds of Tug O' War!





When we finished up at Lucky's Landing, the girls canoed back through the channel to camp, and the boys hiked back. It was an awesome afternoon/evening together. We had good conversations, and we had a lot of fun together outside in God's gorgeous creation. We saw a lot of really cool wildlife.

We are so thankful for that experience!

After our adventure across the lake, we all gathered together to have chapel on the beach! We had a really special and powerful worship session in the sand, and then Matthew Cable came up and talked to us. Matthew talked about the weight of our sins that we carry, and that we don't have to carry them any more. Jesus came to carry that weight for us. We don't have to hold onto that baggage, but because of Christ's death and resurrection, we are free from that sin. Matthew had an wonderful object lesson during this discussion. Everyone got a rock and thought about one (or a few) sin that they have felt convicted about this week. We stared at our rocks, and the longer we did, some campers said they began to be disgusted with that sin they carry with them. We prayed that God would free us from that sin, and we wanted to lay that at his feet--and never pick it back up.

After thinking and praying about our own personal sin, each camper and staff member--one by one--walked down the pier on the lake and chucked their stone into the lake as far as they could throw it. Matthew told us "Now leave it there. That sin is not yours to carry any more." We are free through Christ and Christ alone!

Some of our campers accepted Christ for the very first time last night or rededicated their lives to Christ. A lot of our campers were very moved and learned so much through the message God gave us through Matthew. It was powerful and SO awesome to be a part of. It's such an exciting thing to watch God move within people around you. After our time in chapel at the beach, we went back to our cabins and had further discussion with our cabin groups. God is here, folks! He is moving and is teaching these campers so much about what faith is, and what it means to be ALIVE in Christ!

Yesterday was a great day and we are so thankful for each and every moment.

Today has been another great day as well! We began our day at flagpole to get warmed up for the day, and then we headed in for a yummy breakfast of cereal and bananas and baked oatmeal!

After our tummies were full of deliciousness, we went back to our cabins to clean them up and decorated to today's theme: The Circus!

When our cabins were clean and decorated, we went out with our cabin groups for Bible Study. Today in Bible study we read through 1 John chapter 4, and discussed what we found and anything we had questions about.

Following Bible study, our choice activities for the day began! Today's choice activities included dodgeball, crafts, disc golf, game room, swimming, and basketball!

When choice activities came to a close, we went in for lunch! Cabin 3B went in first, because they won cabin cleanup today! Congrats, girls! Today's lunch consisted of chicken nuggets, tater tots, carrots, and banana pudding for dessert! It definitely hit the spot :)


After lunch we went into our cabins for some rest time to recharge for the rest of the day, and then we began our rotations for today!

We did today's rotations with our teams. First, we all went to learn the rules for Mêlée. Then one team watched "What's in the Bible?" while the other team enjoyed the Slip 'n Slide! The two teams then switched activities, followed by a break at snack shack.

After snack shack, a storm rolled in, but we were flexible and headed down to the gym to enjoy a Bible quizzing game. The teams would send campers up to the front to compete in Bible quizzing, and the winner would have to then complete a task, such as bouncing ping pong balls across a table into a cup, eating crackers and having to whistle, or other fun, entertaining tasks.

When we finished up the game and we had a winning team, we headed up to a DELICIOUS dinner of chicken, rice, broccoli, bread, and peach and apple crisp for dessert! It was a wonderful meal prepared by our awesome cooks :)

After dinner we had an option of going swimming, playing in the game room, or doing a craft until it was time for chapel.

Tonight we will gather together to worship and hear another message from Matthew!

We have had such a fun week with these campers, and we can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store! We are so thankful God has brought each of them here, and it's our prayer that they would walk away with a deeper desire to pursue Christ.

Here's to the rest of the week!