Day 2: Is it really only Sunday??

Well, obviously I am up much later today than I was yesterday, so this may be a shorter post. I am tired, and we still have 5 days left! Its been another really great day though!

Cupcake was feeling much better today, so after breakfast I took her back over to the Island so she could rejoin her cabin. We got there just as the morning bible session began, so I stayed for that before heading back over to the Inn to meet the guys for lunch. D convinced the people at the Inn to let us eat there even though we don't have the proper dress attire. Thank goodness, because it turns out we have to pay $5 for every meal we want to eat on the Island!

The bible session this morning was really good. They have a really great worship team and I enjoyed worshipping with them. After worship, they performed a VERY powerful drama that really spoke to a lot of the teens. In fact, they have all been talking to me about it all day. I was definitely impacted as I watched it, so I was excited to hear that the teens were as well. The drama depicted a girl hanging out with God but then being led astray by a lot of bad choices and temptations (money, sex, alcohol, cutting, etc). Then, as she realizes that she wants to go back with God, those choices keep pushing her back and away from Him. (The drama team did a really good job with this not holding back at all. Those bad choices were seriously pushing her away!). Then Jesus comes through and pushes the choices off of her so she can get on her knees to pray, and the bad choices seem to overwhelm Jesus. Finally, Jesus pushes back on all the choices and they fall to the ground and she walks off with Jesus. It was really amazing.

While I was at the service on the Island, the other leaders went to the church service at the Inn. They apparently weren't dressed up enough for the service, but they let them in anyway. The guys said the service was okay, but a lot of things here are clearly geared toward an older generation. :)

After the services were over we all met up for lunch. After lunch all the leaders took a quick (free) boat tour of he lake that took us all around the Island. It wasn't overly exciting, but it was free, so it was worth it. :)

After the boat ride we all went back to the Island to hang out with the teens during their free time. When we got there we discovered that everyone has to pass a pretty intense swim test in order to do the blob and the other lake activities. You have to swim 2 laps about the distance of a swimming pool (back and forth for each lap...and it is way harder than a swimming pool since you have all the waves to deal with). Your first lap (over and back) MUST be swam freestyle with your arms coming clearly out of the water with each stroke. The second lap can be swam any way you want, except doggy style. After completing that part of the test you then have to tread water for 5 minutes. It was a challenge!!

Unfortunately, only 3 of our teens passed. And in fact, only 2 of our leaders passed (I was one of them! Woohoo!!!). Linda made it through the swimming part and only had 30 seconds left in the treading water part, but had to quit. I think she is going to try again tomorrow. Bonita only lasted about a lap and a half before needing to quit. I guess I should look into swimming lessons...

After being in the lake for a while, though, I became pretty thankful for the swim test. You have to swim out to the blob, which is about the same distance as the test, so if the teens couldn't pass the test, they would likely get stuck in the water on their way to the blob. I'm not sure why they don't just use life jackets, but oh well. There are still shallow places for the teens to swim and TONS of other activities for them to choose from.

I was pretty tired after passing the swim test so I decided to walk around and find some of our teens instead of wasting more energy on the blob. I might save that for tomorrow. I found a lot of our teens just hanging out and walking, so I got to talk to them some. Then, as I was walking back toward the cabins, I heard my name being yelled. I looked over and saw this:


That is Bonita on the climbing wall. Look how high up she is!!!

Linda did it too, although she was a little more scared than Bonita. She finished it though! And, she was pretty tired when she got off the wall. :)

Rocky was there climbing too, and he was definitely the quickest up the wall.

After watching my girls on the rock wall I went to find everyone else, and ran into this:

There was a big rally tonight beginning the competition between the blue team and the red team, so the girls were getting ready. They all looked awesome!!

After hanging out with the teens for a little while, the guys and I went back over to the Inn to chill a bit before dinner. We wanted to be back on the Island by 7:30 for their evening worship time. Unfortunately, dinner was at 7 for us, which meant that we would miss the 7 o'clock boat to the Island. There was another boat at 7:30, so we all ate VERY quickly and then ran to the dock to catch the 7:30 boat. We made it and only missed a few things at the rally.

The rally was crazy! All of the teens were yelling and cheering and having so much fun...and they were all COVERED in red and blue! Our teens certainly didn't hold back!

The rally time wasn't just all about fun and craziness though. They also had a great time of worship and then a speaker talked to them about salvation. At the end of the speaker's talk he invited any teens that wanted to speak one on one with a counselor to come up to the stage. More than half of our teens went!!

The leaders and I stuck around so we could talk to the teens after and it was really great. These teens are definitely having a lot of fun, but they are also really seeking to grow. We are REALLY praying that this isn't just an experience for them, but an actual life changing time.

After the rally was over, we all went to the dome for a night of red vs. blue competitions. They competed in SO many events, it was insane! EVERYONE was cheering and excited the whole time! It was like being at a final four game or something! They had tug of war, balloon popping, crazy relay races, and other stuff that I didn't even get to see. Everyone was having so much fun!

The final event of the evening was to announce the overall winner of the evening's competitions. Each competition is worth points, and each team is trying to accumulate as many points as possible. Points are earned throughout the week and at the end of the week one of the teams will be the overall winner. Also, throughout the week there will be daily winners as well.

Thankfully, tonight the blue team won! Everyone was pumped!

After the events were finished all the teens went back to their cabins to get ready for bed and the guys and I went back to the Inn to get some sleep!

So far this camp has been incredible! The counselors are great and very well trained. The events are awesome, the camp looks amazing and all of the teens are having so much fun! So far the only thing I am not really enjoying are the speakers. They haven't been very clear or easy to understand and they don't seem to really understand how to speak to this age group. Both of the speakers that I have seen have been over 70 years old and while they are absolutely speaking truth, they were both very hard to follow. The guy this morning used the story of Tamar being raped to talk to the teens about choosing the right friends (I still don't really understand it), and J and I both had a hard time following the guy tonight, so I can't imagine what the teens were thinking. I am hoping there will be better speakers as the week goes on, but it doesn't really seem to be affecting the teens much. The Holy Spirit is clearly moving, and the teens are definitely being impacted. Its GREAT!! Let's see what tomorrow has in store!