Mission Camp 2008

I didn't know I was going to be camping the first days I was here. But honestly I didn't really mind even though I'm not an outdoor kinda person. I though, ok, let's see how I handle this. And I think it was maybe good that I could be with this small group of people "in the woods" for a few days.

The first night (Sunday) was miserably hot and I felt nasty sweaty from the very first moment. I realized that was probably the way I was going to feel most of the time so I made a mental decision not to care too much. And I didn't. Because if I did I'd pretty much go crazy. First challange came right after we got to our camp site - go build your tent and do it quickly! I don't really know much about building tents so I was very very gratefull for Travis and Joe and Ryan who knew what to do. We, females, helped as much as we could. And I tell you that even though we didn't finish first it was probably the best built tent out of the four that we had. Now that I think about it I don't think I have a picture of it. Bummer... Treat of the day- Papa John's Pizza for dinner. Pizza here is definitelly different then in SK. But like good different. Similar to what I remember from our family vacations in Italy. The night was sleepless. Guess who's tent got up firts in the morning and went to the bathroom? Yeah, mine. All of us walked up the hill to the pool house. Girls will be girls. The day started off with nice breakfast, making lunch (sandwiches) and leaving right away. Noone knew what time it was or where we were going. In case you wee wondering... it was always Camp Time at camp. Ask what time it is at any time and it's always camp time. Sweet rule! The day was spent at Lapdog on Ropes. We did low ropes in the morning and high ropes in the afternoon. I noticed something that I thought was different about the group of students that I was with compared to our students in Slovakia. I can talk to you about that some other time. And I loved it how so many of them pushed their limits. One person that impressed me in particular was Lauren. First she's not even gonna go any higher then where the ladder ends, I go take a couple pictures and come back and she's in a rope 30 feet above my head! I was proud of her. Oh I forgot to mention that the Word of the Day for Sunday and Monday was Privilege. Only a few people got the privilege of a shower.

Tuesday was an interesting day. Not knowing what we were doing we left the camp site and our first stop was the church. The girls went to the kitchen and baked cookies, muffins and brownies for the church staff. Some of us wrote Thank You notes. We wanted to appreciate the staff and all they do in the church for the Lord and the people. The guys went to the attic and tried to clean up. Poor guys! After this we went to Good News at Noon, a homeless shelter where we served food to the people who live there and to the ones who come just for the food. Made us think more about our privileges and how little we appreciate the things we have. Afternoon was pretty much free but we did this one cool activity... I'm not going to call it a game because it was way cooler than game. So this activity is something we're going to do sometime in Trnava. I played tennis with John that afternoon. Loved it! But didn't necessarily like the reason why we stopped. Being used to playing on clay courts I was gonna slide toward the ball and guess what? You can't really slide on a concrete court. So my right foot stayed glued to the ground and my body kept moving and that did NO good. I start falling and hear something crack in my ankle. NOT COOL, I thought and immediatelly started praying that it doesn't swell up and that it's not broken. John got me a bucket full of ice and water and made sure I was doing ok. It hurt like crazy. Pain is not my friend! I was sure it wasn't broken after about 30 minutes. It got swollen a little but not like it would if it were broken and I could definitelly move it and all that. I was very happy.

Wednesday we woke up earlier than the days before. But of course it was Camp Time so noone knew or had anything against it. Most of us had an idea about where we were going. Got on the vans and drove a couple hours. I woke up in North Carolina. I thought that was kinda cool. We went rafting. The place where we went was beautiful. The water was freezing cold - good for my ankle. I had 5 students with me on a raft and an instructor. Cool guy, I think his name was William. You'd think that rafting for the first time would be exciting enough by itself. We got some extra excitement. A storm! Thunder, lightening and heavy rain! When we were about half way done with rafting I realized what an idiot with a good heart I was. I lent my other shorts to Julia because she didn't want to go rafting in jean shorts. Guess what that meant? Yes, sitting in the van for three hours in soaking wet shorts. You might me thinking: Bless her heart... Yeah, that's what I thought. The night was exciting as well! Another storm... All I was really concerned about was how poorly our tent was built. I will be thankfull to Travis and Daniel to the end of my life for helping me fix the tent and thus preventing the rain from getting inside. I'm also thankfull to the Lord that he heard my prayer and didn't let it rain on us as hard as we were expecting and I'm also thinking it's a miracle that I slept through the whole night without waking up.

There's a lot of other things I could talk about but I think I'm going to stop right here. Let me just add that I love the students that I got to hang out with and can't wait to meet more students this Wednesday. I didn't mind camping. I think I could do it again. Maybe when it's not so hot though.