Sunday, June 24, 2012

look everybody, look who's back again!

So I still have to close my Scotland blog, but I don't have my journal with me that has what I want to end it with, so I'm bringing back this blog since it's been forever since I've blogged and I don't want to lose it. I want my blog to stay alive! Hopefully people will still be reading this. Ha.
Anyways, since being back from Scotland, things have been crazy. I only had 4 days at home until I headed down to Seymour, IN for training for working with SpringHill Day Camps- Indy Team! I was apprehensive about it at the start just because I was going in knowing no one or totally what I was getting myself into and not having that much time to process study abroad. I still feel like I haven't found closure on study abroad because I haven't had much time to really sit and take time to write my thoughts. I did a little before I left for Seymour, but didn't have time to finish or get it on my blog so when I'm home again, I will hopefully finish it! 
This is week 3 of day camps and so far, I'm really loving it. Last week was a rough week for me on the camper front. My campers were hard to deal with in many ways, but I made it through and am so blessed to have a team that looks out for each other. I'm realizing how every week is entirely different even if we are doing the same curriculum and the same activities; the campers and how everything flows is a little different at each location so I have to continually reminding myself that it's not going to be rainbows and butterflies every week and I have to rely on God. I can't do this on my own.
I know some people probably don't know exactly what I'm doing this summer, and I don't want to get super into it so I'll try to give a short synopsis. Basically we do day camp at different churches or schools every week; if you know SpringHill, we bring that experience the best we can to a day camp setting. We have flying squirrel and other high adventure activities as well as the classics like water and archery and tie dye. We have small groups and the big thing with SpringHill is how we incorporate faith and fun in everything we do. So we don't keep the Jesus stuff to just large group or small groups, but after everything we do we debrief it and try to have the kids make connections to the Bible stories we read or just God in general. It's great. I think that's one of the really neat things about SpringHill. I'm also as I said earlier, so blessed by this team. Everyone is amazing. Being in Scotland and not super connected into any church or with Christians was hard, especially since at Baylor I've got a great community of support. So coming back and basically going straight into camp with God at the core is nice. We have different areas that we do morning meetings and are the people we are partnered with throughout the summer and my group's pretty legit. It's actually not really been complete ever, but it's cool. Also, we have set-up and tear-down teams and I got placed on the high adventure team. At first I thought that was going to be horrible to be perfectly honest because high ad is really complex and is like all the really intense activities. But praise Jesus, it's not horrible at all. Some days it is frustrating because things don't work right or whatever, but the people on the team are legitimately some of my favorite people. I know they always say you shouldn't pick favorite campers, but no one said anything about picking favorite other counselors or whatever. Haha. But really, I'm in love with our whole Indy Day Camp team. Everyone is so encouraging and so much fun. Sometimes it is hard for me because I'm definitely an introvert and being around people constantly and having to be full of energy wears on me. I relish my alone time, which thankfully does exist even if it is in small doses.
To end this, I'd love to leave you with some prayer requests:
1. First, that I will remember to rely on God and to find my strength in Him and not myself and to look to Him to be filled up each day.
2. For this coming week, that I will work well with my co-counselor and that our kids will be better than the kids I had last week.
3. That the friendships I am forming will deepen into lasting relationships, not just for the summer.
4. That I won't let Satan bring me down in feeling like I'm not a good enough counselor or anything like that. That I will remember I am loved and valued by God and comparing myself to others isn't productive.

Thanks lovely readers!