It’s day two of Mini Kindle camp, and it’s quite clear the first day jitters are gone, and any reservations these campers had have been swept away. One of the best parts about camp is the way the “getting to know” stage of friendships seems to be sped up about ten times faster than usual. Through watching these campers interact, and talking to the counsellors, it’s awesome to know that cabin-mates are turning into friends, and big brothers and sisters are no longer random staff members, but they actually feel like big brothers and sisters.
At no time is this more precious than during Morning Watch, where campers sit with their big brothers and sisters and learn more about God and the Bible. The idea is not only to learn more about God’s truths, but also experience those truths in front of the beautiful creation that surrounds us. It’s really quite beautiful.
Usually these groups are made up of two or three campers, but Copper (our camp dog) convinced counsellor Josh to make an addition.
After Morning Watch, the campers get back together as cabin groups to participate in Discovery. At Discovery we like to spend time outdoors with the campers to do teambuilding type activities to somewhat build off of what we learned in Morning Watch. These activities help the kids learn to work together, and trust each other as a group, and it often ends up being very valuable to cabin unity. The number one most used supply for Discovery? Definitely blindfolds.
With a day of beautiful weather, it was great to have the campers be able to participate in all of the skill activities that we had planned during the day. Yesterday you saw some pictures of canoers, and today we have some from some of the more adventurous activities that are really unique to the camp atmosphere. Where else are kids going to be able to shoot archery? Thankfully we have great instructors like Karl to guide them along.
We also have a 30 ft climbing wall here at camp. The climb can definitely be scary (even for myself), but a lot of these young campers stepped up and conquered the height. Some of these kids sure have some guts.
What a great picture. A special thank-you to our photographer for the week, Morgan Braun, who has been working hard taking pictures of everything that happens here at camp.
Yesterday’s weather was a lot different than the first day of camp, as it was very hot and sunny all day long. Thankfully for the campers, they have swim time in the middle of the day to cool them off. We split the camp into boys and girls, and during this time you are doing one of two things. The girls started off swimming…
…and the guys had “Tuck”. The greek translation for this I believe is: CANDY!
Fun was had, and Fun Dip was consumed. Everybody loves Swim, Boat, and Tuck.
After we let the campers run and swim out all that sugar fuelled energy, we realize that they might be tired, which is what FOB is for. FOB stands for Feet on Bed, and I believe the Latin translation is something along the lines of “nap time”. But of course, the kids can’t stay down for too long, so it was time for our Mini Kindle carnival!
The carnival was a lot of fun, as campers moved from station to station participating in different activities, and even watching Mike put on a magic show! He’s really good, but I’m not sure he’s got the costume down quite yet. Maybe next time.
We also had some classic wheelbarrow races. The kids were surprisingly pretty good!
In the carnival we played a game called Steal the Bacon, where two teams compete in a tug-of-war for the inner-tube which is referred to as “the bacon”. The guys tended to be a little more aggressive than the girls, but fun was had for all genders.
Campers were also sent back into the water to play a game called, Run to Me. Run to Me is very simple. A counsellor yells, “Run to me if…you’re a boy!” And the boy’s run to the counsellor. The awesome thing is that it was one of the campers favorite activities.
We’ve also got a new addition to camp that’s proved to be very helpful this week: Mini basketballs! In the past, we’ve lowered the hoop for the younger campers, but there’s always been a big problem with the kids lifting the heavy adult balls that we give them. Now with these mini balls, all of the kids are able to shoot some hoops, and almost all of them can shoot it in. From inside the lodge you can sometimes hear when people get a basket from the yells of celebration echoing across the camp.
After a day full of activities, the kids took it easy during the evening. By the time supper is done, a lot of these kids are low on energy, which makes Chapel an awesome opportunity to sit down for an hour and just listen to someone else talk. Luckily this week, the kids get to listen to Christine and her friend Chester speak. They are incredibly entertaining, and they do a great job teaching these kids about God in an entertaining and engaging way.
It was another fantastic day here at Red Rock Bible Camp, and we’re hoping today will bring much of the same. The week has flown by, and I know a lot of our counsellors will be sad to see these campers go. But, it’s still a full day today, and we have a lot of fun things planned including a counsellor hunt this afternoon, and a fireside this evening. Continue to be in prayer for our camp as we finish out this week, and pray that these campers continue to have a great time, and continue to be challenged in what God has for their lives.
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