Just two weeks left...

To be honest, I didn't start off this camp week with much optimism.

I had a bit of a bad day yesterday, and it didn't look like week number seven was starting off too well. I found out that my roommate, and closest friend at camp, was given doctors orders to take the next two weeks off from work, and get some rest. As much as I hated to hear that my biggest strength this summer was leaving me, I was relieved to hear that she would be getting some much needed (and deserved) time off. Among a series of other small instances that occurred yesterday, the other big one was having to deal a camper from cabin seven late last night. I spent almost an hour with him, until nearly 11:00pm, trying to calm him down and get him to stop lashing out at his cabin leaders and fellow campers. By the time we got him to bed, it didn't feel like much was resolved and things weren't looking good for him remaining at camp for the week.

I went to bed last night feeling pretty broken. All of a sudden the quick pace that this summer has been moving on, seemed to come to a halt, and I was unsure of how exactly I was going to survive the rest of camp. It's been a hard summer in terms of having people around that I can talk to and bare my soul with, and finding encouragement and motivation to keep on. So, although my sister slept in my room with me last night, so that I didn't have to look at my roommates side of the room to find it completely empty...I was feeling pretty alone.

But then today happened.

My alarm woke me up (after having hit snooze twice..) with such a beautiful song, that has actually played through my head all day. Walking down the path to flag raising I remembered that I made the decision last week to come to God first about the struggles that come at me..so I uttered a prayer asking God to give me the strength to get through the next two weeks of camp, because I was at a loss as how I was going to get by.

At the beginning of breakfast, the wonderful Sara (LDP co-ordinator) called me over to talk, and asked how I was doing. I don't think she knows how much it meant but she asked if I would like to do something with her during the week, because she knew that I must be feeling pretty alone right now. That definitely put a smile on my face, and reminded me I still had support at the camp.

Several times throughout the day I had to go and talk to that camper from cabin 7, as he was having a horrible time listening and interacting with the other kids in his cabin. His cabin leaders were getting extremely frustrated, and were feeling at the end of their rope. Before it was time for dinner, this camper wandered into the office to ask for something that I had confiscated from him the night before. Before I realized it, 15 minutes had passed by, and I had the wonderful privledge of a beautiful, "normal", conversation with this energetic 8 year old. Ever since I met him last summer, I have never been able to engage him in any sort of coherent conversation that didn't consist of threats, name calling, and profanity. But here he was, hanging out with me in the office, telling me all about his family, school, and home life. After he left the office, I just sat there absolutely bewildered with a huge grin on my face. God is good, and definitely doing a work in this child's life!

The rest of the day passed by, with other small highlights along the way. But the evening ended with a spectacular sky show as the sun was setting. I think it was by far the most gorgeous sunset I've seen all summer. I wandered down to the lake and sat on the beach admiring God's handiwork, as others passing by in cars or by bikes, also stopping to gaze at the beautiful sky.

The final blessing I saw to end off the day, was after campfire as kids were getting ready for bed. My 3 year old cousin is staying up with my family at the conference centre this week, and Joseph often ends up with the camp program as nearly the entire staff knows and adores him. After campfire ended, Joseph began demanding that he get to sing a camp song with Spidey. So I found Spidey wandering around with is guitar, and the two of them spent the next 20 minutes or so singing and playing guitar together. It was an absolutely precious sight to see Joseph strumming the guitar, while him and Spidey sang "Jesus Loves Me" together. Love it.

I've been reminding my cabin leaders this week to not see it as a whole two more camps to have to suffer though before our summer is over, but instead that we only have two more weeks left to get to know kids...to get to make a difference in campers lives...and to get to show the love of God to children who never get to see it otherwise. I'm trying to keep that as my focus as well, as difficult situations arise over the next little while.

It's been a hard summer, for a number of reasons...but God has been that much more present because of that, and through being broken, has begun to make me stronger.

Just two weeks left...