YOUTH CAMP 2010!!!

For the next few days, I will be living in the valley between two low hills, half an hour from the nearest Wal-Mart, and far from any Wifi signal. YESSSS!! I've shared several times about my Youth Camp experiences, and they were all fantastic. Please, be in prayer that God would use these 4 days to shower grace upon the youth, parents, and helpers who are attending. We are studying the Prodigal Son, and I hope he will move mightily. And I get to view it all from behind the sound board :-D Praise God!

Love Languages for Techies

This article by Mike Sessler was funny and painfully true. Especially Point #1. My church does a great job of affirmative speech, and I really appreciate it! My only disagreement: Bacon =! physical touch. Food is REALLY high up on the "need" scale, though, especially on days when tech assignments stretch beyond 2 hours! And, honestly, when DON'T they go beyond 2 hours? :-P I'm so glad I get to do tech and kitchen at Youth Camp! Other than being a team leader, I can't think of a better set-up :-)

Praise God

...for all blessings come from him. Time for a praise report!

• Youth Camp. So many things happened here...
• People were saved! Including a girl on my team! AHHHH! More than cool! Awesome!
  
• Something happened to me, too. I feel like...the old me. Like me in, say...11th grade. Not that 11th grade was great (pfft), but my attitude is way more cheerful than it has been recently. To what can I contribute this recent joy? God.
• Made some great friends. The people on my team were great! My co-team-leader (Tim) is a gift from God. I had a great experience as team leader last year with Jason and was afraid my expectations would be too high this year, but Tim was fantastic. And the campers were incredibly willing to participate and a few really interacted with God.
• "The Bible is the story of all God has done for me." (Josh Harris) That is incredible. God has done a lot. For me. *breaks into song* Oh! It was all for me! It was your grace that drew me to the cross!
• When I write thank-you lists to God, I tend to focus on physical stuff; i.e. right now I'd be listing all the great assets God's given to me. But I don't want to focus on that. So I'm gonna focus on stuff like:
• School. Gotta work on thanking God for one more semester at school...need to start expecting his work there.
• Evangelism. I went street evangelizing recently for the first time in years, and though I generally don't like the results because I generally don't see them, street evangelism is FUN! The Holy Spirit was definitely pruning my branches through that experience. I can hardly wait for another one (which will come this month, hopefully)!
• Friends. So much of my life is good because of friends, and especially their prayers. I love my friends. Some day, in the New Earth, I expect to be able to cultivate my friendships a lot more than I can now. Thank God for the little bit I can do now!
• Parents. I am learning a lot about humility and submission because I still live with them. I am not humble or submissive, but I'm learning about it...

Dude, God's awesome. Not kidding in any sense. I wish I could write music for him. Or dance. Or...something. But I guess nothing I do can add to what he's done, so why stress? Ah, God. You're a freaking genius.

Youth Camp 2007

Ha! I'm sitting in the computer lab at school, waiting for inspiration to finish my paper. But I thought I'd be the "first" to blog about YC07, since that was probably the biggest event this summer. [Edit: This post actually took me 6 weeks to write.]

This year was the best year ever.

I was a team leader again this summer. This year was my 10th year at camp, and my 3rd as a team leader. I was also the oldest team leader, which was weird. This amazing guy was my co-team leader. Our team was called (oh-so-appropriately) "Spaced Out," and included this Camper Of The Year. I've got a ton of pictures on my computer, so I'm going to invent a term and "photo-blog" my way through camp. My apologies to those whose photos I used, but haven't credited. I'm sorry! (Jason, I do not have a team picture. I have hundreds of YC07 pics on my hard drive, and none of them are of the team!)

I love camp!
(my bro Matt)

Jason was an amazing guy (did I say that already?) to co-lead with. Thanks, Jason!








This is the best picture of YC07, or of Monster Volleyball--EVER. Kudos to Mike for taking it.

Monster Volleyball.

Increasing the contrast
made the net look so cool!

Um, girls...Are you aware of your surroundings? Yeah, there's a camera and all...but watch out!










The strategy game was called "YC Amoeba," and involved running while holding hands with those in your group (the number of people grew at every station). This was near the end, and right before the hardest station--the picnic table carry.





This guy's job was to yell in our faces until we laughed or 30 seconds elapsed.

It was hard!

One of the stations was to run through a gauntlet of noodles swung by the players of Noodle Sockey. It was the best station...to swing noodles in :-P

Games were amazing.
Our team did very well in most of them, and I enjoyed them heartily.

Dan, being awesome. I did this, too, and right after shaking the water out of my hair, Mr. Tumino approached me and said, "you know, Shannon, only a guy would do that." I was appalled. Lane immediately started to tease me about it, and the phrase "only a boy would do that" became a regular part of my interaction with her. (Thankfully, she retired it recently :-P)








Mike H. served as the "Water Nazi" by forcing people to drink and spraying them with water.










This kid is dear to my heart, and an incredible blessing to many.

(this is me feeing important, whereas the picture itself has very little importance here)

The skits were amazing. Ours was good (in everyone's opinions but the judges), though it cost us first place overall at camp. We were in first until skits were scored, and our skit came in last. So we got second place overall. Downer. But good for the pride :-P



Steve shaved his head for our skit
and played the role of Old John

Mr. Pierson counsels a
young Johnny B (er, Nick)

Here's a video of one of the best skits:





















I love the focus that YC has on the parent<-->teen interaction. It's so, so, so important, and it doesn't get emphasized or encouraged enough. Many parents participate by being referees (like Mr. C here) and get the chance to influence their children and others'.


This is a girl who was on my team with her father and brother (yes, I remember her name, silly, but I don't know if she'd want me to publish it).




The reason why camp was so good this year was simply because God was there. During one evening, Jess M and I were sitting at the front of the meeting hall, hugging and laughing and sniffing away tears of joy. "God, thank you that you are so present! Thank you that our pastors don't know what to do next because you have completely taken over this meeting!" Several people got saved, relationships were mended, and a general sense of impending joy proliferated.

There was one point where Dave T had finished praying for a friend and was walking around looking as if his face would burst with joy. I asked, "Good time of prayer?" and he laughed--a belly laugh. He never answered with words, it was just a laugh! And yet, I knew exactly what he meant. He left the building because he couldn't stop laughing and didn't want to disturb everyone else.

Oh, man. It was amazing. I get goosebumps still, just thinking about it.

Lane, thanks for letting me share your time with God on the second night. I hope you benefitted by it, because it was a defining moment for me.

Ahhh, so delicious.

How was camp possible? These guys! And Katie C.
And so many more people.
But John spearheaded the whole thing, and for that I am grateful.

"Check out our whiteness!"

"No, Mike, we're trying to show off our muscles!"

"Oh..."