Living the Camp Life

"What is the life that I live?"

I've honestly probably said that thirty times in the last three weeks. Life in Clarkston is so incredibly weirdly awesomely different than anywhere else in the world.

And I love it so much.

Camp is great. Really and truly.
Days here are busy, and they're long. But they are so good. And so fun.

The Lord has been teaching me lots of patience. Which I need.

Like on the very first morning of camp, handling my very first job of camp. Checking attendance. My now favorite job, where I sit at the top of the hill and mark off kids as being present and give them beautiful wristbands so we can identify them.
And I had a really nice straight roster of all the kids for me to mark off.

And the second kid to arrive knocked my entire cup of coffee onto the roster. And then sheepishly apologized.

The coffee spilled roster

And how could I be mad? I couldn't. So I smiled and did the best I could. And you know what?
It was completely okay.

What do I do at camp? I do attendance. As seen above.
And then at announcement time I am the camp weather girl.

I mean, we gotta keep the kids updated on the weather right?
I've always wanted to be a meteorologist.... (or maybe not but the kids don't need to know that).

Weather Girl

Then I fill the rest of my early morning with random things. I fill in attendance online. I fill up water bottles. I update social media. I run random errands. I solve minor crises between our sweet friends that are new to America and only speak French. Google translate is helpful. And I do a lot of paperwork. 

I also take pictures. Lots and lots and lots of pictures. 

And then when lunch comes I help in whatever capacity is needed. And then free time. Which I fill with more picture taking and sitting on the counter just chatting with new friends. 

And before I know it, the camp day is over and we begin the dismissal process. By that I mean we (interns and staff) get to use walkie-talkies to call kids to vans and go home. It's awesome. I love walkie-talkies.

So yeah. That's camp life these days. Every day has new challenges. Some days are easier than others. And a lot of days I laugh and think "what is this place?" 

We've had a couple rainy days. It's just at the end of the day while we're loading kids to go home. But the rain won't keep us down either. The kids were running around in the downpour.

So yeah. Besides patience, the Lord has been teaching me all kinds of other things.

Like that fact that I'm not as invincible as I'd like to be.

And that if I don't drink enough water, I'll get extremely dehydrated and spend my Saturday in the ER getting three liters of fluid. 

Through an IV.

Which I have never had before.

And the Lord reminded me that sometimes I need to rest. And be still. And rest. And be still.

(And drink more water.)

He reminded me that He is ultimately in control.

And I needed that reminder. Even if it was extremely more drastic than I would've liked. 

It caused me to dependent on other people (like my wonderful amazing host Karen who LITERALLY IS AWESOME and drove me to the ER and spent the whole day with me and also Taylor who just continued being my dear best friend and took care of me), and to trust that His plans were good and they would work.

And they did, because I'm 100% back to normal now. Here's a picture to prove it. One of our campers took it last Friday because "Miss Alana you are always the one behind the camera"

Post-ER experience I am taking things a bit slower and remembering to drink more water. 

So far so good. 

The Lord is so good y'all. I am surrounded by so many wise believer friends. It's encouraging. 

I am also surrounded by some absolutely awesome kids. They are so kind and so sweet and so incredibly thankful for everything. 

One of the craziest things to me is how polite they are. Of course they are a couple not-so-polite but the majority of them are just so grateful and just not entitled which is just so different than I'm used to. 

It's so different and so great. And they are SO smart. I love sitting in during academic time and listening to them. 

I go home to Florence pretty soon. It's going to be so hard for me to leave. I knew these kids would grab my heart, but it still caught me by surprise. 

Their smiles, their laughter, their random babbling (even in French), their sweet hugs.. it just makes my heart so happy. 

I know that I am in the right place. I know that I'm helping to create moments of excitement and a place where these kids feel important and loved and get attention. 

And I'm just grateful to be a piece of the puzzle that is Summer Spectacular 2016. 

Cause y'all, the Lord really is making it spectacular.

I'm pretty exhausted. Camp starts again at 7:40 for me tomorrow. 

Here are some more random pictures for your enjoyment.

Making jelly bean "molecules"

Four square is always popular!

Thanks for reading. The Lord is good. Be still in Him. And drink water. And know that He is in control. 

(And drink some more water).