In a week filled with Olympics, it’s only fitting to call the last full day of Ignite week the closing ceremonies.
The day started off as it always does, with some quality Morning Watch time. This wouldn’t be the last time they would do this as we also had some time for Morning Watch this morning, but as the week goes on, the conversations seem to get deeper and deeper, and God’s truths are revealed to an even higher degree.
After Morning Watch, the campers went back to their cabins for cabin cleanup. Since the winners of cabin cleanup every day are awarded medals for their efforts, we’ve seen a dramatic improvement on the cleanliness of everyone’s cabin. We even had a four way tie for first place the other day as all four cabins had perfect scores.
However, every Friday is “Decoration Day” for cabin cleanup, and cabins have the opportunity to score 900 out of the usual 800 if they do something creative enough to earn the bonus points. Since the results of cabin cleanup have been so close, and the pizza party stakes were so high, we saw some serious creativity. Yes, that is a picture of a camper sweeping a canoe.
You’re probably asking yourself, why? Why clean a canoe? Is this a requirement for cabin clean up? If so, why do they call it cabin cleanup? Surely we aren’t storing canoes inside the cabins. These are all good points. All quite valid observations. But actually, it’s because Abe’s Island Bay was working on their decoration bonus project. Here is the result.
The picture doesn’t do it justice, as there is a human dummy on the other end of the line, and a poster of Matthew 4:19 that says “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Needless to say they won cabin cleanup on Friday.
After the cabins were cleaned and decorated, and the kids did some Discovery, it was back to their skills, and we have some more pictures of what that looked like. The Arts and Crafts skill was making some sort of hats, although we really never know what they’re up to. All we know is that when the rest of the camp is boiling in the hot sun, they are just laughing it up in their air conditioned building.
One of the skills that we actually haven’t talked about this week was our Frontier Wilderness Survival skill, where campers learn how to light fires, build forts, and do all kinds of naturey things. On Friday’s they like to sit back, relax, and have a fire by the lake. I’m not sure why anyone would ever want more heat on a hot day like Friday, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.
We also haven’t seen a lot of climbing this week, but from what I’ve heard they’ve really been climbing up a storm. With some groups we don’t even use the really difficult walls, but these kids could not be stopped and attempted to conquer every wall in their path.
The kids all had a blast participating in their last skills of the week, and you could already tell a lot of them were sad for camp to end. However, with so much going on around camp during the day, it’s very easy to get distracted, especially when it’s such a nice day. It’s been a hot week, but the campers did their best to stay safe and healthy, and they really had a blast in the hot sun.
The talk of the day however, was not the heat, or the skills of the day. The talk of the day was the Olympics, and who was going to get the cabin pizza party in the evening. First of all, as you could have read on our Facebook page, all of the rings were found, and the Olympics were officially saved from the disgruntled former Olympian, Damien Sinclair.
Like I mentioned earlier, Abe’s Island Bay won cabin cleanup for the day, and got to celebrate on the beloved Olympic podium, with the silver and bronze medalists. They really earned it, especially on Friday.
SPOILER ALERT**** We haven’t heard the last of Abe’s Island Bay this week.
Friday evening was an amazing night of praising God, as we had our regular Chapel service, as well as our Worship night in the evening. In Chapel, Cam concluded the week by challenging the kids to go out and live their lives for Christ, and not to judge others while doing it. From there we transitioned into a worship night, where we sang praises to God, and laid down our troubles and raised up our best for God. It was an amazing night.
For a couple of cabins, the night didn’t end there, as Towering Oak took home the pizza party for the girls, and Abe’s Island Bay took it for the guys as they were the overall champions for the week. The pizza looked delicious, but the joy of winning the Olympics surely tasted even sweeter.
So, with that, and a parents program this morning, we say goodbye to our first Ignite week of the summer. It was an awesome week, and God changed lives here. Our hope and prayer is that the things that were learnt here will not be forgotten, but will be put into practice outside our camp bubble. Please join us in that prayer, and continue with that same prayer all summer as we welcome new kids to our camp every week. Kindle 1 starts on Monday, and until then, thanks so much for reading the blog and supporting our ministry.