It’s the end of the first day of kids camp and I’m already tired. But it’s a really good tired. When the bell rang around 1pm the adrenaline of knowing the craziness of the summer was about to begin kicked in for all the staff. Some of the kids whose parents drove them up were already here, but once the bus got here you knew the summer was about to actually started. And as you can imagine everyone had a crazy busy day. Matt R, Amanda and Tiffany are all cabin leading this week so their kids are obviously keeping them busy. Matt R already has lots of young girls hanging all over him during free swim (it’s very fun to watch him being attacked from the guard chair – every once in a while I’ll blow my whistle and try to save him).

Matt C, Quinn and Josh are busy doing more leadership development through their LIT program. Today they buddied up with a cabin and just kind of hung out with the kids all day. They also were busy planning and doing skits and songs for the campfire tonight. A highlight of that would definitely be Matt C and Quinn in dresses having their makeup done by girls kneeling behind them covered so it looked like the girls arms were Matt’s and Quinn’s. They looked quite beautiful by the end and were very entertaining with their conversation about how attractive Justin Beiber is.

I had a busy day today too as it is the waterfront directors day off, so I am in charge of everything on the waterfront. We do swim tests for the kids on the first day so that keeps me very busy trying to insure that the kids understand the rules and are safe as they perform the swim test. We then had a free swim, which because it was so hot out it was really busy. I’m not complaining, I love the warm weather, it’s just a little stressful when you have around 80 kids, plus staff, CREW and LIT all in our fairly small swimming area and know that they’re lives are all primarily your responsibility. But praise the Lord that once again everyone was able to have fun and stay safe – I hope that continues throughout the summer.

Ian and Jason Naisby are both campers this week along with one of their cousins. It’s really exciting for us as staff to have campers up here that we already know and have relationships with. Building relationships with these kids at camp in a new way is really special though and I hope they have a great week as its their first time at Camp Kahquah.

Tomorrow the regular sechedule for the week will start. We will know better then what specific activities each of us will be leading or being a part of. It will also make it easier for Matt R and Amanda to post some blogs as they will have schedule time off that they can put aside a bit of each week to write to you guys. I know they’re looking forward to being able to do more of that and I’m sure all of you reading these will be grateful to hear from someone other than me.

Continue to pray for us – we really do appreciate it more then we can let you know. As you can tell safety is always a big prayer request of mine. Strength for all of the staff is also a huge issue especially by the end of the week. Another one is for the spiritual life of the campers. Linda Zane is the pastor this week and always does an excellent job interacting and sharing with the kids. From what I can tell there is a mixture of both children brought up in and out of the church, and I know of one Muslim child as well. We truly believe that God can do amazing things in all of these kids lives, so just pray that above all else He will have His way with all of here this week. Thanks again for taking the time to read this and supporting us through prayer.

p.s. here’s some pics of us in our new staff shirts for you all to enjoy! there’s a funnier one as my facebook profile that i wasn’t able to upload here so check that out too.