he proposed!!

Last week there was a school group that ended up going to every single activity when I happened to be leading it. Canoeing, Ropes, TDA's, geocaching... etc. As there are many other staff that lead this is actually very rare. When the group made their way over to Firebuilding and saw me once again, one of the leaders exclaimed "Wow, she can do it all!! She is definitely Wife material!!" She then looked down at the kids, "boys, who wants to marry her??" Three hands shot up. One kid, wanting to be first, blurted it out... "Will you marry me?!!" :)

wet

Wow, has it been wet here at camp! It has poured and poured, then drizzled and poured some more. It's been hard to run activities with the constant downpour; people are slippin' and slidin' and falling all over the place. But yet we press on! :) During one of the geocaching activities I was leading today in the rain, all the kids eventually went off and found shelter without mentioning it to me. There was I was, walking around camp in the pouring rain for a good twenty minutes trying to find them and give them help because I thought maybe they were having problems with their GPS. Meanwhile they were dry as a bug sitting inside watching the rain. I just laughed when I found out.

impossible molecule

Tonight's night game was fun. I got even a bit more creative than usual and decided to come up with a costume to chase the kids around with. I dressed in all black and rubbed mud all over my legs, arms and face, then stuck a rhubarb leaf straight out of my headband. I grabbed handfuls of grass and shoved them behind my headband as well so it was sticking out to the sides then had some dangling in front of my face as if I were peering straight out of a bush. I also shrieked like a... wild animal, let's say. The kids were each given a ticket and they had to find the professor, who was dressed in a trenchcoat, and hiding in an unknown position in the camp. Once they found him and showed him their ticket they were allowed a quick glimpse at the molecule. After trying to memorize the design, they had to go back with their teams and try to re-create it. My job, as well as other staff, was to catch them and steal their tickets before they found the professor. It was a sweet game. I felt kinda barbaric, actually.

Camp is still going really well. I somehow am still enthusiastic, after a month and a half of trying to teach, lead, walk alongside and encourage kids who can be unwilling, trying, and stubborn at times. I still am unsure about which position I will fill during the summer, or if I'll even be at Winkler Bible Camp. I am really enjoying spring staff but I am having a hard time trying to picture myself in the role of counselor here for the fifth summer in a row. I have loved doing my one-on-one counseling role with special needs kids that come to camp, but I feel as if God may be calling me elsewhere this summer. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me as I search for His calling regarding the next few months. Thanks!

Spring Staff

I'm not even sure how I decided to work at spring staff at Winkler Bible Camp. I knew about it for a long time, but I figured if I worked at camp for the spring I would get sick of it by the time summer rolled around. But I couldn't really find work anywhere else. So I applied, and the next week I began working. And it ended up being the best decision I could have made for my spring! I usually get up at 7am, begin work at 8 and our day is finished at about 8:30pm or 10pm, depending on the day. For the first few days we, as staff, did a lot of maintenance work because no school groups had booked yet. We managed to pull loads of weeds in the pouring rain, unearth and remove massive rocks from barren pastures and random junkyards, clean, sweep and mop tons of dirty bathrooms, mow the entire campsite a few times over, varnish 10 cabins worth of siding, clean miles of ditches while finding and spearing mice, and do absolutely anything else they could think of. Cleaning ditches was especially fun because we (my friend Caitlyn and I) found car parts including a sweet hubcap, a rubber Toyota thing, and a shiny red Pontiac symbol that we kept, cleaned, and hung in our room as decorations. But as May got further along we switched gears from maintenance work to running activities for the school groups that rented the camp for their school field trips.

Now in June our days are filled with school groups coming and going, most staying for two or three days. Sometimes there are up to 4 groups a day with 150 kids here at one time. It's crazy, loud and chaotic occasionally, but that's what it's all about. Caitlyn became the head wrangler so it's been exciting getting up early with her and rounding up all the horses from the pasture and saddling them before our early morning meetings. As for the activities, I've been teaching kids canoeing including paddling techniques and procedures and how not to get stranded on the other side of the lake, belaying and harnessing hundreds of kids at the 43 ft. climbing wall, running around exhausted playing soccer or 'steal the bacon' during group games, sending shrieking kids down our 350' zipline, making sure no one is breaking their limbs while trying to avoid touching the ground on the winding obstacle course, giving pushes to kids on the tarzan rope that end up jumping into the creek and wanting to do it over and over again, leading Team Development Activities (TDA's) to teach kids how to help and encourage others even when they get frustrated while being blindfolded, leading scavenger hunts and running to all corners of the camp helping them find the acorns, 3 leafed clovers, and shells they need, instructing kids how to build fires without using 50 matches (even while it is raining cats and dogs) and to make bannock that actually tastes good, dressing up crazy and chasing kids for the night games like Impossible Molecule, helping at the beach by supervising and swimming back and forth to the watertrampoline for hours for the kids that enjoy swimming in -30 degree weather with a 30km/h wind, teaching them how to use a GPS so that they walk in the right directions to find letters scattered all over the camp... it's been so much FUN!! Ok, well sometimes it's been rainy and cold, and it's frustrating when campers tip three of their canoes at the same time in the middle of the lake on purpose so I have to frantically go rescue them...lol but the staff here are incredible and can put a smile on your face whatever the circumstance!

A cool moment was when I got to stay in the cabins overnight with the school groups because they didn't have enough leaders. One of the girls ended up asking me about my lifestory so I got to share it with them, along with telling them about God. Because it is only rental season for the camp we are actually not allowed to openly express our faith with them unless they have asked about it. In this way it is a lot different then summer camp, but still great nonetheless. The next morning, all the girls ended up begging me to get them bibles to read! It was really neat! And I have so many more stories! maybe that's why I created a blog :)

Yes, we are really busy, and don't have a lot of free time, but I can't think of anything else I would rather be doing right now! :)

bit by a squirrel

So the other day I got bit by a squirrel. I was walking past the firepit at Winkler Bible Camp when all of a sudden I noticed a squirrel running along a log in front of me. I stopped, then it stopped. I walked closer and it jumped to the ground. I walked even closer. Soon I was standing over it and it still hadn't moved. Sweet! I reached down and grabbed it. As soon as my hand touched it its head spun around and chomped on my finger! Its teeth latched onto my thumb and I jumped back and yelped! I started flailing my arm around but the squirrel wouldn't let go! Finally, with the last bit of strength in me I flung my arm way back and it released and went sailing behind me, landing with a thump 10ft from me and scurrying off. I looked down at my thumb. The little critter had bitten right through my thumbnail and there was also a hole on the other side of my thumb that had started pouring blood. Ouch. Soon others began hearing of my... misadventure... and recommended I call the Public Health number to ask about rabies. phffff. There's no way I was going to call. Ok, fine. I called. They began taking down my medical information and finally the question was asked. "... So did you happen to.. provoke.. the squirrel?" Hmm. Yeah. yeah, I guess you could say that. I went and got my Tetanus shot.