Senior High 2016

We have had such an awesome and busy week with our senior high campers so far!

They all arrived on Monday, and the fun just hasn't stopped since.

This week our campers have been playing a lot of games together. Everyone was split into four teams at the beginning of the week, and those teams have been competing in evening activities throughout the week to rack up points to win overall by the end of the week. The team names are giant Popsicle stick puppets this week, so the teams came up with all sorts of names from "Papa Sicle," who is a Grim Reaper type of mascot, to "Chris P. Bacon" which has a pig as their mascot. It's definitely been a very fun and competitive week, and we're so excited to see who will come out on top by Saturday morning following Melee on Friday night.

Not only have we been having a lot of fun this week, but we've also been diving deeper into the Bible and have been challenged by hard questions. We have been studying the book of 1 John, and have been discussing what God's love looks like and how it changes our lives. We've also been focusing on our theme for the summer, which is being "Alive" in Christ. We have had a lot of great cabin discussions as well as chapel discussions, to talk about what that can look like for us, and how we can be alive in Christ and with Christ.
Our theme verse for the summer can be found in Ephesians 2:4-5.

This week in chapel, our chapel speaker, Adam Stetzel has been breaking down Ephesians 2:1-10 for us in a very personal, applicable way. It has definitely challenged a lot of our campers to reevaluate where they're at in their personal relationship with Christ, and to see how they can continue to grow even more. They have been challenged to look at their relationship with Christ to determine whether they are dead or alive at this point in their life, and if they are dead, how they can start living a life shining the light of life that Christ provides us.

Our campers have been spending a lot of time processing these lessons and reflecting on who they are, and it's been awesome to watch and grow alongside them as well! We love having tough conversations with them and struggling through these lessons with them, and hopefully provide them some guidance and love along the way, all the while pointing them back towards Christ.





Though we have had a few storms in the evenings, causing our evening activities or night activities to shift a little bit, everyone has kept their spirits high and have been very flexible. The storms have definitely not taken any of the fun away, that's for sure! We're also so thankful we have been blessed with mostly sunshine this week, as well as complete safety from the minor storms we've had.

We've had such a great week so far, and the fun isn't even close to being over quite yet!

This morning started out at flagpole as always, so we got the chance to start out with some stretches to warm us up for a new day. Today instead of a short fun run to breakfast, we opted for a fun skip to breakfast instead, which was a nice touch to begin our wonderful Thursday :)

After breakfast we all headed into our cabins to clean up and decorate to the theme of "The 80's." Everyone got really creative, but cabin 5A ended up winning this one, earning the privilege to enter into lunch first.

After clean up, we split into our cabin groups to have Bible study. Today's Bible study came from 1 John chapter 4. We spent time highlighting, underlining and circling specific words in our Bible study packages, and then came together to dissect and discuss what we had found and learned from the passage.


Following Bible study, we all went off to enjoy our choice activities for the day. Today's choice activities included the hike at Merry Lea, time in the game room, flag football, archery tag, soccer, carpet ball/corn hole/kan jam, crafts, dodgeball and more! It was a great morning filled with a lot of fun!

After our choice activities, we headed in for lunch and then went back to our cabins for rest time to renew our energy for the rest of the day.

When rest time came to a close it was time to start rotations. Today we did rotations with our cabins instead of our teams, and the activities included water kickball, Ultimate Sponge, and swimming. It was a great day to get cooled off and play games together!

After our rotations, the camp was open for free time.

Later tonight after dinner we will have the oh-so famous hoe-down! Yee haw!! We are so excited to continue such an awesome tradition with our Senior High campers. Everyone will get decked out in flannel, cowboy hats, and boots, and will gather down in the gym. We will have our usual square dance caller join us for the evening and we'll join together to learn some awesome square dances. We'll also get to enjoy other hoe-down appropriate activities such as corn-hole and sno-cones!

In between square dances, we'll also have a few campers perform! Some of our campers have signed up to either sing, dance, act, or whatever they want! They get the chance to take the stage for a little while, and we can't wait to see what they have prepared! 

It's going to be an awesome evening!

We have been having an amazing week with these campers. Watching God work and move in their hearts is always incredible, and we are so thankful we get to be a part of it and grow with them. We are hoping and praying that God would continue breaking down any barriers they may have and totally surrender to Him, and that he would bless our conversations with our awesome campers.

Here's to the rest of a great week!