The whole week felt surreal. Other leaders kept asking how we got so many kids to come when we didn't even have an established Young Life club and I kept telling them that it is totally a God thing. Sometimes I think we really can see God moving as he brings people together and opens doors for things to happen. I know that God wanted everyone one of these girls, Hannah and I to all be together for these five days. It was such an incredible blessing to live life alongside them.
After our first set of life stories in Real Life we were told to run back to our cabin to but on uniforms for the Highland Games. Some Vikings gave us instructions and then we ran around the field tackling as many challenges as we could.
I love the creativity of everyone's costumes from diapers to camouflage to birthday hats. The 7th grade girls looked good in their neon, bandannas, eye shadow and war paint.
Our cabin wore wolf shirts and quickly whipped out a potholder headband for everyone. Ahoooooo
The 8th grade boys even made Braveheart like outfits with capes and six-packs.
We played baseball...
did tug-of-war-free-throw, Sumo Wrestler soccer, giant beach ball carry...
five-legged race, catch the greasy man...
human pyramid and cabin pictures.
These girls have got spirit. They were crazy running and screaming from station to station.
One of the beautiful things about Young Life is that you go to camp with a leader that you know and then that leader comes back home with you. I loved getting to hang out with, and match, girls like Haley all week and getting to introduce kids like Hannah Huston to my co-leader Hannah Blachly.
When the activity was over we weren't ready to stop having fun yet so I yelled, "LET'S CLIMB TREES!" and off we went. Haley jumped right into the nearest one she was so excited. Then we found a bigger one that we could have more people climb.
Ali Bell climbed a tree for the first time ever and HayBut was like a monkey in the branches.
In the afternoon after getting YL party tanks and t-shirts we went to the Blue Ox to get Root Bear Floats, Milkshakes, Smoothies and Frostbites for the first time. HayBut was so into her ice-cream she got it all over her face.
Even though it was kind of cold because of the earlier rain, we had to try out the giant rope swing. You climb up on to this platform to get the rope and then swing crazy high before letting go.
A couple brave girls tried the blob for the first time too.
A big group of people played soccer in the muddy field before washing off in the lake together.
Then we waited in line for an hour to get the chance to go on the zip line. Once we had our harnesses we walked around the lake and climbed up the 60 foot tower.
You finish the zip line ride by crashing into the water.
but then I taught them the Ultimate Challenge game and we all went crazy again. Our HSE kids were running around getting high-fives, crawling under people's legs, doing cartwheels and climbing around their partners. We don't keep a very low profile.
By the second night we were stoked for Club because we knew how much fun was waiting on the other side of those green doors.
We even had a Young Life rave when we came back from our cabin time. p.s. This group of girls in also unique because they ask to have cabin time and deep talks all day long-- I love it.
Glow sticks rained down on the crowd and the lights started flashing.
We squeezed together up on the stage--dancing and singing like it was our job. I would take these girls to any dance party with their moves.
After the rave we had an all camp sneak out to a sniper obstacle course that ran all over camp. As the girls protected their leaders we rolled down a hill, army crawled through the beach, ran races, found hidden objects, swam across the lake and more until we finally made it to the Swamper water slide for the grand finale. It was crazy intense running together in the dark (Arielle would have loved it) but so fun to see them working as a team and having Helen and Ashley so concerned about protecting us.
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