week 5 could bring storms...

Week 4... oh week 4. A few highlights:

• a camper who was obsessed with bugs and knew more about entomology than the average college student. we found her hiding in her cabin under her bunk several times this week. it was an adventure to say the least.
• Friday night after Buffalo Hunt, a battle between campers and counselors in a huge mud pit, all the water went out at camp. Another adventure... we bathed the campers in the lagoon we have.
• I was "Fiona" an imaginary friend in the lunch skit... i wore an angel costume and a huge blue wig and carried magical pebbles in my side satchel.
  
• I took my night off by myself Thursday night and fell asleep in a park. It was awesome.
  
• A friend, Skwirlie, cut my hair in my cabin Friday night. She cut about an inch off... and that was after we washed my hair under a hose.
• I gave my talk on Tuesday night to all of the campers and staff about what it looks like to have a daily relationship with Christ. It is an extremely humbling experience to realize that God has given me, a simple 21-year-old, an opportunity to bring Truth to that many people at one time.
  
• Mandi, one of my best friends, came in town yesterday and we got to have one of our incredible talks. God has blessed my life with friends and family who truly allow me to see the love of God so much more clearly. People should be jealous of my friends. I am.
  

With every day and every week that flies by I am learning to take full advantage of each and every second. I love it here and as time passes I am both sentimental and exhausted... wanting to bottle up every minute to rewatch later in life.

I am still accepting mail at:
Funky Chick'n
Pine Cove Towers
P.O. Box 9055
Tyler, TX 75711

I would love to hear how you are doing... it really encourages me to know what is going on in the world outside of camp. Even if it is just a few newspaper clippings. :)

my name is Funky Chick'n and I'm here to say... I'm the baddest chicken in the USA

I made the title of this entry up this morning when I was walking across camp. So I am constantly realizing just how ridiculous my life is:

• This morning I stood under an air vent for 20 minutes holding freshly painted cat ears, hoping they would dry in enough time for them to be worn in a skit.
• Friday night I dressed up as a hick named "Gary Ann... a hick with su-weet kicks" in order to lead 250 children to a mud pit where they could attack their counselors.
• Thursday morning I was an aspiring actor who sang opera to the entire dining hall unashamedly
• Tuesday night I was a nerdy science student who helped the children travel to the future

Those are just a few glimpses into my life... just a few.

This week was great... hard, but great. I wish I could clearly explain everything that happened but I know that that is not possible. If I could talk about one thing in particular I learned this week, it would be that God has a reason for everything. He is beyond my understanding and yet all that happens to me and to those around me is within His knowledge. God works small things and big things to be glorifying to Him. Even the hard things. I had to do a lot of things that were not necessarily the most exciting/ fun things this week, such as challenge some of good friends to go beyond themselves and be brutally honest with each other, or discipline a cabin of 3rd grade girls. Talking to eight 3rd graders about what it means to love each other and forgive each other based on the love and forgiveness they've been given through Jesus is so affirming for me. This is because it makes you really confirm what it is that you believe for yourself. I could not have talked to those girls had I not truly believed that the Lord uses discipline to teach and grow those who are His. Granted, five of them were crying by the end of the meeting which really breaks my heart, but at the same time, they were broken in the midst of their guilt and sin that they had been living in.

I love what I am doing, truly love it and could not be more excited to wake up every morning and live out each day. There are days that I fall asleep broken and hurting for others but knowing that Jesus is the ONLY one who can save this world.

What would this world be like if as Believers of the Truth we were truly broken for the Lost, truly broken for those that hurt? I think this world would look a little bit differently.

the end of week 2

So time stinking flies when I work at camp. If I am unable for some reason to post one weekend on my 24 hours off, then it is at least two weeks between posts and I haven't been able to post in like three week or something. I apologize for that. With that said, camp is awesome! I am having so much fun this summer you wouldn't believe.

My daily job consists of arranging and rearranging where the 100+ staff go each day, with different meetings with different people plugged in to each day, coming up with ideas for skits/theme nights and following through with the details as well as the big pictures behind them and then just serving and loving on the people who are at camp each and every day. It is more fun than you could ever imagine, at least for me. I think back to December when I had actually decided not to return to camp and then a month later really felt like that was where God had me this summer. It was during that month of trying to "move on" and think of summer without camp that God showed me how much I really love it. The last two Thursdays around 8pm when most people are probably watching Grey's or So You Think You Can Dance... I have been dressed up as Mrs. Clause leading 250 or so 2nd-5th graders in a Christmas Dance Party. I mean, that is way more fun for me.

Funny Random Stories:
Andrew Evans (a week 1 camper and the son of a pastor of my church at school) told me Friday night after the staff all get dressed up, which implies that I really had tried to look nice, "Funky Chick'n... your hair looks nasty." I just laughed. Gotta love brutal honesty.

We dress up as characters from the Old Testament and perform monologues in order to make the Bible studies more understandable. I was dressed up as the wife of a Philistine soldier and I was walking up to this pavilion from the woods when a camper saw me and said, "Look! An angel!"

The Lord does some incredible things at camp. Some of you may know what I mean and others may not fully understand what that means. When you take someone out of their daily life and put them in a very intense setting for a week at a time (for campers) and for a few months (for staff)... the Lord works. Intense, fast-paced settings seem to really bring out the worst in you and then show you how much grace God has for all those little flaws, which deeply rooted are the fall of man. It is when you realize all the mess ups and all the sin that Christ died for that salvation and grace become so much more than words. Kids and staff alike really get to see grace, see selfless love and see humility. All of these things point to Jesus and sometimes when we get distracted with the daily things in life we begin to forget the love and forgiveness we have been given through the cross.

Camp is awesome... but hear me when I say that it is only because of Jesus... and He works daily in every circumstance to draw us closer into a relationship with Him. I hope you see that today.