The Kindle campers are here, and they seemed to have brought along some friends.
Welcome to week seven of summer camp at Red Rock Bible Camp. We’re starting to get into the home stretch here, and there seems to be no signs of slowing down as we welcomed both the Kindle campers and 39 CIT’s to camp yesterday. For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the new names we give each age group, the Kindle campers are made up of kids still in elementary school, many of whom have never been to camp before. Although they offer up their own set of challenges for us as staff, we love having them here, one of the reasons being their pure excitement and joy to be at camp.
The Kindle campers are especially lucky to be at camp this week, because we also have a large group of high school students here for the next two weeks for our Counsellors in Training camp. CIT is an amazing program where these young people are trained to serve here at camp, and also serve God with their entire lives. It ends up being a life changing experience for many people, and we’re really looking forward to seeing some amazing growth in these students. We’ll be keeping tabs on the CIT’s as the week goes on to give you all a better idea of what they do here, and why the program is awesome!
Getting back to the Kindle campers, they were all very excited to be here, and it didn’t take long for them to get out of their shells and get to know each other. Our lunch BBQ is always a great time for kids to show their true colours, and make some new friendships.
After lunch, half the kids settled into their cabins a little more, and the other half hit the beach for swim tests. If the campers could swim all the way around the buoy and tread water for a minute, they’d be allowed to enter the deep end without a life jacket. Regardless of if they passed or not, it was a good excuse to cool off!
From there, it was time for the campers to pick their skills for the week. Every day, the Kindle campers will participate in two different skills, many of which involve activities that you normally wouldn’t be able to participate in at home. However, we have limited open spots for each skill, so the process of choosing your skills can end up feeling a little stressful.
But really, how could you be left disappointed, especially when you have the option to choose an awesome skill like archery! Skill one already looks like they’ve got a good handle on the technique, which is impressive considering they didn’t really have all that much time to learn on the first day.
The mountain biking skill got off to a slow start yesterday, but not in the way you’d think. Things actually went very well, as the campers got used to our new bikes by competing in a slow race across the ball field. The last one across the finish line is the winner!
Speaking of things these campers aren’t able to do at home, I’m pretty sure none of them have thirty foot climbing walls in their backyard. We often show closeups of the climbers, but here we have a wider shot that makes it look a lot like these campers are racing up the wall. Regardless, the campers had a blast on the climbing wall, and will likely graduate over to the more difficult walls as the week goes on.
As I mentioned earlier, the Kindle campers are very fortunate to have the CIT’s alongside them this week. Not only are they fun people, but they will also be some of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters to the campers this week. This is great for the CIT’s because it gives them some experience in counselling, and it’s also great for the Kindle campers because it allows a chance for them to have one-on-one time with their big siblings, where usually they are in groups of two or three. That kind of care and attention can provide a lot of great opportunities for some powerful conversation, and we’re really looking forward to what that’s going to look like. So far, it looks like the campers are getting along quite well with the CIT’s, which is very encouraging to see.
Our speaker this week is once again, Kent Martens, who speaks at camp pretty much every summer, including a couple weeks ago during Summer Sizzler. Not only will Kent be able to engage the younger Kindle campers with his visual and humourous approach to speaking, but he will also be able to challenge the CIT’s as well. Please pray for God’s guidance of his words, and pray that the Holy Spirit could speak to these campers through Kent this week.
We’ll be updating the blog every day this week so you can keep up with both the Kindle and CIT campers. It’s going to be another great week, and we’re very excited for what God has in store!
Just a reminder about our Facebook and Twitter pages. Give them a follow, and you’ll be able to get a look at exclusive pictures and discussions that you won’t be able to see on the blog. And for more pictures of Kindle week, sign into our eCamp account for photo galleries and other camp resources. Sign in information would have been sent with your registration packages.