Some Glimpses of Mayfield Senior 2008: The Way of the Master

Games Leader Josh:




The Crazy Camp Speaker, Dan and our new college/young adults pastor, Andrew. Crazy boys...





Cabin J:




Brietta and Jill:




The girls I love and I love saying Napoleon lines with, such as, "You're Ruining my Life!" (long story!)





Crazy people on "Formal Night"

We're Home!

Hello Family and Friends,

We are home from high school camp! Now that we've both taken "real" showers, we're beginning to feel a bit more human than we did a few hours ago. Dinner's in the oven, so I have a few moments to reflect on this week's activities at camp.

First off, I have to begin by saying all glory to our Awesome God! He really did work in and through the campers, counselors, staff and everyone involved in the week.

I have found myself humbled by those who work during these youth events and a good chunk, if not all, of their work is done from the sidelines, not to be visibly noticed by the rest of us. After working in the kitchen during junior high camp, I have a new respect for all it takes to feed several hundred people, especially teenagers. We have a fabulous team of cooks who come and cook for us every year. It's so fun to catch up with them year after year.

Then there's others like Dale, the sound guy, and his sons who works so hard to make sure our sound and lights for chapel are organized, set up and ran. He has an amazing gift!

So, much like some of the lessons we've been learning this week, we all have a story, we all have gifts to be used in and out of the body of Christ. A camp speaker's story and relevance and duty is really no different than the person who cleans the toliots.

I appreciated what Andrew and Dan tried to emphasize this week, that just because their testimonies might include some really dramatic events, the person who has been guided and led with a moral compass in their lives also have a powerful testimony of the Lord's faithfulness and goodness.

I was blessed to be a "substitute counselor" for a good chunk of yesterday and this morning. My good friend Jill had to return home to her preschool that she (and God, as she would say!) own. The blessing of all of this is that the girls in her cabin were all former girls in our junior high. They are now either freshman or sophmores. It was so much fun to laugh with them and hang out. We went out on the boats and they all went on tubes (me and my lack of mad water skills decided to enjoy the view from the boat!).

Josh did an excellent job leading the games for the week. He and Tim worked so hard to bring everything together. I kept hearing from campers and counselors how cool it was to have games a part of camp again. We didn't have organized rec for junior high camp.

Well I'm starting to fall asleep as I finish this blog entry up. Josh is also dozing off...I'm going to suggest an early bed time!

The Way of the Master...a few more days events

These past few days have been so amazing and God is truly working in the midst of all of us. I've been pretty tired by the end of the night these past few nights that I haven't been able to post a blog!

Amidst the traditional Mayfield games and rec times have been some very moving times during the classes and especially our evening chapels. OCEC's new college pastor, Andrew Anderson shared his very powerful testimony tonight. I had only heard bits and pieces of it before but hearing it tonight made me appreciate the Lord's faithfulness and how far He goes just to get a hold of all of our hearts.

Dan shared some more tonight as well. Together they are quite the dynamic duo! They even took a group of students out to Walmart today to practice sharing their faith and asking others about what they believe.

The other tid-bit I should mention for today's activities is that Josh, Tim and Jake all sang the "National Anthemn" for our traditional game of "Massive Giant Kickball." It was quite beautiful coming at us all from the VERY LOUD speaker! Good grief!

Well we gotta get some sleep!

The Way of the Master: Day 2

Today was a fabulous first day with the campers and second day with the staff. God has been so faithful to give us strength for each day and fresh ways to see Him through the people and things around us.

The morning began with a staff breakfast at Spiffys (as I wrote of yesterday) and the counselors were given their camper assignments. Then I helped to decorate Jill's cabin that has a lot of the eigth graders we just lost. Josh got the game for tonight set up and when Tim arrived they picked our new Rec theme song! That was fun!

The game tonight was where each team made up their team name, chant and flag. There was some really creative ones that really made us laugh out loud.

Chapel tonight was really sweet! The worship was led primarily by the Mountain View worship team along with Drew and Brian. Josh did the powerpoint and I did the lights! Great fun! The camp speaker, Dan Jester, spoke tonight on having a right perspective of God. He spoke mainly from Revelation 4 and the throne room scene. I don't think we can utter "Holy, Holy, Holy often enough in our worship to God. HE ALONE IS WORTHY!

After chapel was the traditional "Snack Shack" complete with burgers and a wide candy selection. Tomorrow night there will be milk shakes to go with all that jazz.

Now, Josh and I are watching a movie, "The Count of Monte Cristo" on his laptop from the comforts of our new lovely tent! And, thanks to our friend Dan, we have an air mattress for our week at camp! Such fun!

More to come tomorrow...stay tuned!

Mayfield...day one, the calm before the storm

Well for those of you who may be reading this blog on a daily basis or every few days, I'll try to post a bit about each day at camp. We did arrive safely here at Mayfield and were very thankful for a sweet ride up. It's always so fun to reunite with friends that you only see once or twice a year...gotta love camp!

Josh and I have been through I believe 5 tents since we've been married, just a little over a year. I know it sounds outrageous and it is. But the fact of the matter is that we purchased a great queen size blow up mattress when we were first married and since then have been trying to find a tent that's a good fit for our mattress and a few pieces of luggage. WE FINALLY FOUND SUCH A TENT!! YEAH!!!

However life throws us curve balls and even though we found the perfect tent, we managed to leave home without our MATTRESS!!! Good gracious. But we are going to call Kendra the lady at the front desk at our apartment complex in the morning and allow entrance for our friend Sarah to enter our place and get our mattress and air pump and send them up with the high schoolers tomorrow afternoon! Thank the Lord! No one has a spare key to our place, so we're hoping this works out...it should!

We actually really love our tent a lot! Josh sent me several tent options he found online one day and this was my top pick! It's square shaped with a tall roof and room for rooming!

In the morning we'll venture out to Spiffy's, the traditional breakfast location up the hill for a spiffy buffet breakfast.

I've also been blessed by the company of a friend I haven't been able to spend much time with, Jill. I lived on her families property before we got married. Her and her husband have just started helping out on high school staff at our church and it's been a true blessing. Jill was able to venture away from her large family for the week and be a counselor here at camp. Her daughter is an incoming freshman and will also be at camp! It's been great to catch up on where the Lord is taking her family.

So, that's all for now. It's almost midnight here and my contacts are sticking to my eye balls. I guess that's a small indication that it's bedtime!

Love ya all!