SUMMER CAMP
It was a bright, sunny Friday morning. The bus driver showed up at 7:00 a.m. (although he’d promised to show up at 6:00), and the kids and parents were already lining up. “Did you get the Dramamine…what if someone gets sick on the bus…did you load up the fruit…where are the puppets?” Finally we got everyone loaded up, food, dishes, tape recorder….and the 60 people were finally on our way.
Kikoten is a lovely, wooded camp. It has acres of green grass (a rarity in our community), those beautiful, life-giving trees and tons of space for running and playing. The first order of business was to divide kids and counselors into teams, choose a name and a team cheer. Names like; "Flying Eagles", "Mini-ants", "Hummingbirds" and “Tomatoes and Parsley” (even our cooks got into the team spirit!), began to fill the air with shouts of “We’re the best…we’re gonna win….hooray for the Eagles.”
Our theme this year was “Fly Higher”, based on the life of Daniel and his brave friends in the Bible. Thus the bird names! It was exciting to see the teams begin to pull together, build team spirit and work at earning points. One team in particular, The Hummingbirds, just didn’t seem to mesh. The spirit was lacking, they weren’t working together and were way behind the other teams.
The days were filled with songs, game time, Bible stories and arts & crafts. One challenge was the ball chasing, balloon eating camp dog. The first day she got hold of one of the balls and burst it. During a balloon game, it was a toss up to see who would catch the balloons first…the kids or the dog! Games of soccer, volleyball and free time in the “fantasy garden” kept the children busy and happy. Even the occasional rain did little to dampen spirits.
The highlight for me was on Saturday evening. Each team had been assigned a Bible passage to act out. They were told to use as much creativity as possible, props, acting, music or whatever ideas they had. They presented their skits to a panel of judges (our cooks plus the camp clown “Bob”). They were hilarious and certainly creative. Old grass, sticks, dress up and music filled the night. “Noah” was represented with a beard of grass and the “animals” crawled all over the floor. Which team won the competition and the promised 1,000 points? The Hummingbird team! They’d pulled togethe and did an amazing representation of Noah’s ark.
That night we had a “campfire” around the wood stove in the dining hall (it was raining again) and campers went to bed, reluctantly, to be ready for the last day.
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, with the cooks getting a fright upon opening the dining hall and hearing noises. Lo and behold, balloon eating dog had managed to spend the night inside and eat the rest of the marshmallows! (Marshmallow eating dog?!) After breakfast it was clean up time. Then we did the awards ceremony to see which team had the best spirit, cooperation and had gained the most points. To our surprise and satisfaction, the Hummingbird team took the prize! God works in amazing ways and those who started out last indeed were first.
We returned home happy, tired, wet and rejoicing at the Lord can do when He gets us away from our daily routines and lets us enjoy a bit of His creation.
